AN ACCOUNT OF THE CALL AND OF TO THE OFFICE, BY TWO SYMBOLS OF THE MATTERS WHICH HE HAS TO . Jeremiah 1:1-3 There are some indications that the original form of the heading has been somewhat modified. Notice (1) that the words with which Jeremiah 1:2 opens are identical with one of Jeremiah’s characteristic formulae for introducing a prophecy (comp, Jeremiah 14:1; Jeremiah 46:1; Jeremiah 47:1; Jeremiah 49:34); and notice (2) the awkward connection of verses 1 and 2, and 2 and 3 respectively.. It is a reasonable conjecture that the passage originally ran thus: "The word of the LORD which came to Jeremiah in the days of Josiah," etc.; verses 1 and 3 being added later, which involved a change in the construction. Jeremiah 1:1 The words of Jeremiah. This introductory formula only occurs here and in Amos 1:1. The editor of Jeremiah and of Amos deserts the usual phrase ("burden" or , "utterance," "vision," "the word of the LORD which came," etc.) in order to give fuller information concerning the origin of the prophetic writers (but see on verse 2). On the name Jeremiah, and on the position occupied by Hilkiah, see Introduction. That were in Anathoth. So Vulgate; Septuagint, however (followed by Payne Smith), makes the relative refer to Jeremiah (ὅςκατῴκει). But in this case would not the phrase have been "Jeremiah the priest," etc. (comp. Ezekiel 1:1)? Anathoth was one of the priestly cities (Joshua 21:18); it lay on or near the great northern road (Isaiah 10:30), and has been identified by Dr. Robinson (so also by Lieutenant Conder) with ’Anata, situated on a ridge, an hour and a quarter north-northeast from Jerusalem. Jeremiah 1:3 Unto the end of the eleventh year, etc. The limit is accurate with regard to Jeremiah 1-39. The later prophecies have a superscription of their own (see Jeremiah 40:1.). In the fifth month (comp. Jeremiah 52:12, Jeremiah 52:27). Jeremiah 1:4-19 The call of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 1:4 Unto me. For the change of person, comp. Ezekiel 1:4. Jeremiah 1:5 Knew thee; i.e. took notice of thee; virtually equivalent to selected thee (comp. Genesis 39:6; Amos 3:2; Isaiah 58:3; Psalms 144:3). Observe, the predestination of individuals is a familiar idea in the Old Testament (comp. Isaiah 45:4; Isaiah 49:1; Psalms 139:16). It was also familiar to the Assyrians: King Assurba-nipal declares at the opening of his ’ Annals ’ that the gods "in the body of his mother have made (him) to rule Assyria." Familiar, too, to the great family of religious reformers. For, as Dean Milman has truly observed, "No Pelagian ever has or ever will work a religious revolution. He who is destined for such a work must have a full conviction that God is acting directly, immediately, consciously, and therefore with irresistible power, upon him and through him He who is not predestined, who does not declare, who does not believe himself predestined as the author of a great religions movement, he in whom God is not manifestly, sensibly, avowedly working out his pre-established designs, will never be saint or reformer". Sanctified thee; i.e. set thee apart for holy uses. Ordained; rather, appointed. Unto the nations. Jeremiah’s prophecies, in fact, have reference not only to Israel, but to the peoples in relation to Israel (verse 10; Jeremiah 25:15, Jeremiah 25:16; 46-49; Jeremiah 50:1-46; Jeremiah 51:1-64?). Jeremiah 1:6 Ah, Lord God! rather, Alas, O Lord Jehovah! It is a cry of alarm and pain, and recurs in Jeremiah 4:10; Jeremiah 14:13; Jeremiah 32:17. I am a child. I am too young to support such an office. The word rendered "child" is used elsewhere of youths nearly grown up (comp. Genesis 34:19; Genesis 41:12; 1 Kings 3:7). Jeremiah 1:7 Thou shalt go, etc. Thoughts of self are altogether out of place in one who has received a Divine commission. Jeremiah’s duty is simple obedience. In put-suing this path he cannot but be safe (verse 8). Jeremiah 1:9 Touched my mouth; literally, caused (his hand) to touch my mouth. Jeremiah had said that he was unskilled in oratory; the Divine answer is that the words which he has to speak are not his own, but those of Jehovah. Two things are obvious: 1. The touching of the lips is not purely metaphorical, as in Psalms 51:15 (comp. Psalms 40:6); it represents a real experience. 2. This experience, however, can only have been a visionary one, analogous to that vouchsafed to Isaiah at the opening of his prophetic ministry. In the grand account given by Isaiah of his inaugural vision (which has evidently influenced the form of the vision of Jeremiah), we read of the same significant act on the part of one of the seraphim. It is the same act, certainly, but it symbolizes, not as here the communication of a prophetic message (comp. Matthew 10:19), but the purification of the lips. Does it not seem as if Isaiah had attained a deeper insight into the spiritual regeneration needed by the prophet than had been granted to Jeremiah? Another point in which Jeremiah’s account seems inferior to that of Isaiah is plastic power. Notice how Jeremiah dwells upon the meaning of the words; this is a reflective element which diminishes the poetic power of the narrative. A word may Be added to explain that "visionary" is not here used in opposition to "based on fact." That the two epithets are susceptible of combination is well shown in the vision described by Pere Gratry, in his ’Souvenirs do ma Jeunesse’, the reality of which is not in the least impaired in the writer’s mind by its thoroughly inward character: "Dens teutes ces seines interieures, je n’imaginais rien … c’etaient de saisissantes et tres-energiques realites auxquelles je ne m’attendais nullement." Jeremiah 1:10 I have set thee; literally, I have made thee an overseer, or vicegerent (comp. Genesis 41:34; Judges 9:28, where the Authorized Version renders the cognate noun "officer"). To root out … to plant, viz. by pronouncing that Divine judgment which fulfils itself (comp. Jeremiah 5:14; Numbers 23:25; Isaiah 9:8, Isaiah 9:9; Isaiah 55:11). As there is so much more threatening than promise in Jeremiah’s writings, the destructive side of his activity is expressed by four verbs, the constructive only by two. Jeremiah 1:11-16 Two trials or probations of Jeremiah’s inner sight (2 Kings 6:17). Two visions are granted him, which he is required to describe. The first expresses the certainty of his prophetic revelation; the second indicates its contents. Jeremiah 1:11 A rod of an almond tree. The name here adopted for the almond tree is peculiarly suitable in this connection. It means "wakeful;" the almond, blossoming in January, is the first to "wake" from the sleep of winter. Jeremiah 1:12 I will hasten my word; literally, I am wakeful over my word; alluding to the meaning of the Hebrew word for almond. Jeremiah 1:13 A seething pot. There is a variety of Hebrew words for "pot." The word hero used suggests a vessel of large size, since pottage for a whole company of prophets could be cooked in such. a pot or caldron (2 Kings 4:38). From Ezekiel 24:11 we may infer that it was of metal. A "seething pot" in ancient Arabic poetry is a figure for war. The same symbol occurs in Ezekiel 24:3-12, but with a different application. The face thereof is toward the north; rather, toward the south; literally, from the face of the north. The "face" of the pet is the side turned to the prophet. We may suppose the contents to be on the point of boiling over. Jeremiah 1:14 Out of the north. Previously to the battle of Carchemish, the Babylonians are only mentioned vaguely as a northern people (see Jeremiah 4:6; Jeremiah 6:1, Jeremiah 6:22; Jeremiah 10:22). Strictly speaking, they were an eastern people from the point of view of Palestine; but the caravan-road which the Chaldaean armies had to take entered Palestine at Dan (comp. Jeremiah 4:15; Jeremiah 8:16), and then proceeded southward. (On the question whether a Scythian invasion is referred to, at least conjointly with the Babylonian, see Introduction.) An evil; rather, the evil; viz. the calamity which in deepening gloom forms the burden of the prophet’s discourses. Shall break forth; literally, shall open; i.e. let loose by opening. There is, however, some difficulty in explaining the choice of this expression. We might indeed suppose that the caldron had a lid, and that the removal or falling off of this lid is the "opening" referred to by the phrase. Jeremiah 1:15 I will call; literally, I am calling; i.e. I am about to call. The kingdoms of the north; alluding possibly to the varied origin of the population of Assyria and Babylonia. But more probably it is simply a suggestive phrase, for the wide extent of the hostile empire referred to (comp. Jeremiah 25:9). They shall set every one his throne, etc. The kings, or. the, generals, representing "all the families, etc; shall set up the high seat of power and judicial authority at the broad space within the gate of the city, which constituted the Oriental forum (comp. Genesis 23:10; Joshua 20:4; Job 29:7; Job 31:21). Thither the besieged would have to come to surrender themselves (2 Kings 24:12) and to hear their fate. A similar prediction is made with regard to Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 43:9, Jeremiah 43:10). It is true the seat of authority is there said to be placed at the entrance of the palace, but this was in fact another place where justice was wont to be administered (Jeremiah 22:2, Jeremiah 22:3). Jerome’s view, adopted by Rosenmüller and Nagelsbach, that "to set one’s seat" means "to besiege" is against usage, and does not accord with the opening words of Jer 1:16. There is, however, an element of truth in it. The judgment executed ministerially by the northern kings or generals began with the siege of Jerusalem and the other cities, and hence the words with which the prophet continues. And against all the walls, etc. We should have expected something like "and shall set themselves in array against," etc. (comp. Isaiah 22:7 b); see, however, last note. Jeremiah 1:16 I will utter my judgments; or, I will hold a court of justice upon them; literally, I will speak judgments with them. The expression is peculiar to Jeremiah (comp. Jeremiah 4:12; Jeremiah 12:1; Jeremiah 39:6; Jeremiah 52:9), and includes both the examination of the accused, and the judicial sentence (see Jeremiah 39:5; Jeremiah 52:9). All their wickedness, etc. Their "wickedness," i.e. their infidelity to Jehovah, showed itself in burning incense to "other gods," and bowing down to their images. "Burned incense" is, however, too narrow a sense. The root-meaning of the verb is to be fragrant, and the causative conjugations will strictly mean only "to make a sweet odor," whether by the offering of incense or by burnt offerings (comp. Jeremiah 11:12; 2 Kings 23:8, where a causative conjugation is used in the same wide sense here postulated; also Psalms 66:15 and Isaiah 1:13, where the word usually rendered "incense" seems rather to mean "a sweet smoke"). The prophet says, "of other gods" (not "of false gods"), out of consideration for the ignorance of his hearers, to whom Baal and Moloch really were as gods; in fact, that expressive word (cf.) which Isaiah uses ten times to express the unreality of the other so-called gods, occurs only once, and then not in quite the same sense (see Jeremiah 14:14) in Jeremiah. But the prophet’s own strict monotheism is proved by such passages as Jeremiah 2:27; Jeremiah 8:19; Jeremiah 16:20. Jeremiah 1:17 Gird up thy loins, as an Oriental does before making any kind of physical exertion, whether walking (Exodus 12:11; 2 Kings 4:29), running (1 Kings 18:46), or fighting (Job 12:21). Be not dismayed. A want of confidence on Jeremiah’s part will issue in his utter discomfiture by his enemies. "Dismay" in Hebrew has a twofold reference, subjective ("dismay") and objective ("ruin," "discomfiture"). Both references can be illustrated from this verse. (Comp. the command and—verse 18—premise to Jeremiah with the command and promise to Ezekiel—3:8, Ezekiel 3:9.) Jeremiah 1:18 Brasen walls. The plural is used instead of a collective term for the whole circle of fortifications. In the parallel passage (Jeremiah 15:20) the singular occurs; the same alternation of plural and singular as in 2 Kings 25:10; 1 Kings 3:1. The combination of figures strikingly expresses the invincibility of one whose strength is in his God. The kings of Judah. Why the plural? Most reply, Because Jeremiah would have to do with successive sovereigns. But this meaning would have been just as well conveyed by the singular: "the king of Judah," without any name being added—would moan the king who from time to time happened to be reigning. "Kings of Judah" in Jeremiah seems to have a special meaning, and to include all the members of the royal family, who formed a numerous and powerful class (see on Jeremiah 17:20). On the external surroundings of the life of Jeremiah. These words, which constitute the preface to the Book of Jeremiah, are evidently intended to furnish a historical setting for the writings of the prophet. But they also throw light on his character and work. For, though the true life of every man is his inner spiritual life, we cannot estimate the worth of this until we have taken account of the circumstances in which it is placed, the aids and the hindrances it receives from without. Let us consider, therefore, the spiritual significance of the main historical surroundings of the work of Jeremiah. I. THE OF . 1. Jeremiah had the advantage of being the son of a priest. He had probably received a religious education from his childhood. The religion of his fathers must have been familiar to him. Its solemn rites and suggestive symbols were often before his eyes. Possibly, like St. Paul, who was trained in Jewish theology before he became a Christian (Galatians 1:14), he may have found the Law a schoolmaster to bring him to a higher religion. The children of Christian ministers have peculiar privileges in the early knowledge of Scripture, Church life, etc; which they have opportunities of acquiring. 2. Yet this official relationship of Jeremiah’s had its disadvantages. It was quite exceptional. Not more than three of the prophets were of sacerdotal origin. For the most part the priestly class regarded the prophetic with jealousy, if not with envy. (1) Officialism is conservative, and opposed to the free and revolutionary spirit of prophecy. (2) It is also formal, and tends to repress the inward and spiritual experiences of which prophecy is the highest outcome. It speaks well for Jeremiah that the spirit of prophecy was not crushed out of him by the dry traditionalism and the rigid ritualism of his priestly connections. 3. It is noteworthy that the official relationship of Jeremiah was entirely overshadowed by his prophetic mission. He is known to history not as the priest, but as the prophet. Official religious services are quite secondary to spiritual work. II. THE OF THE AGE OF . 1. Jeremiah entered on his mission in the midst of the reformation of Josiah. Yet the prophet’s work was entirely disconnected from that of the king. Political religious activity is very different from personal spiritual work. Ecclesiastical reforms will not effect spiritual regeneration. The king’s overthrow of the idols does not dispense with the need of the prophet’s call to repentance. 2. Jeremiah continued his mission after the failure of Josiah’s reformation and during an age of national decay. The character of the age changed, but the prophet remained unchanged. Weak men may be content to echo the popular cries of the day. It is too often the mission of the servant of God to contradict these familiar voices. The true prophet is not the creature of his age, the mouthpiece of the Zeit-geist; he is called to resist this influence. 3. Jeremiah closed his mission amidst scenes of national ruin. It was given him to see the fulfillment of his warnings of doom, but not that of his promises of restoration. Hence he is the prophet of tears. Jesus also wept over Jerusalem, but he brought redemption. We should be thankful that we live in these latter times when we can see the realization of the promises of "the Book of consolation." III. THE OF THE MISSION OF . It lasted for at least forty years; how many more after the overthrow of Jerusalem we do not know. 1. This fact speaks much for the prophetic power of Jeremiah. Many men can only rouse themselves to one supreme effort. True greatness is as much seen in the continuance of powers as in supreme exhibitions of them. 2. This fact is a grand proof of the faithfulness of the prophet. Almost the whole of his work was done "in opposition." We admire the young martyr who summons up a momentary heroic courage to seal his testimony with his blood; but greater honor is due to the aged confessor who has persevered through a lifelong martyrdom, and, though spared to old age, is also "faithful unto death." 3. This fact sheds light on God’s ways with man. Jeremiah commenced his stern prophetic denunciations forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem. This suggests to us (1) that God mercifully delays the execution of his threats to give man time for repentance; and (2) that the forbearance of God, which postpones the evil day, does not frustrate the justice which must ultimately bring it upon the impenitent. Predestination. I. THE OF A DIVINE . 1. This implies (1) foreknowledge—God has his idea about a man and his mission before he forms the initial germ of his life; (2) a sanctifying, or setting apart, by which the man is considered by God in relation to his destined mission, and treated accordingly; and (3) a preordination, a Divine action in accordance with the Divine idea and purpose which tends to carry these into effect. Every life is prophesied in the mind of God by God’s thought of it, and comes into the world girded with Divine purposes, wrapped up and drawn onwards by the unseen threads of the designs of God. 2. This predestination does not involve fatalism; it is consistent with human freedom of action and personal responsibility. On the one hand we must conclude, from its existence, that there are certain possibilities with which God endows a man, and certain limits with which God has hedged him about. But on the other hand, we must recognize that it depends on the man’s own will and effort whether he use those possibilities, and attain to the end enclosed within those limits. He has a Divine vocation, but he may neglect it; he may fail in realizing God’s idea of his life. There rests on him the responsibility of accomplishing his destiny. II. THE GROUNDS FOR BELIEF IN A DIVINE . 1. It is revealed in Scripture (e.g. Acts 2:23; Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 1:2). 2. It is involved in the idea of the providence of a supreme God. God foresees all the future; in every act of his all other events and their relation to this must be present to the mind of God. With such knowledge a universal control of events, such as is implied by a providence not interfering from without now and again at critical moments, but immanent in the whole course of the world, must imply a Divine preordination. 3. It is proved to us by experience. (1) We are born with certain peculiarities, faculties, powers, tendencies. The prophet, like the poet, nascitur, non fit. (2) The external circumstances of life are largely beyond our control. The child cannot determine the sphere of life into which it is to enter at birth. All the opportunities and duties which result from these circumstances are made for us, not by us. They bring a mission and open up a career, by chance if there be no providence, but by preordination if there be a providence. III. THE PURPOSE OF A DIVINE . 1. It must often he mysterious. Until we review life as a whole we shall not be able to interpret the meaning of its several parts. We cannot judge of the architect’s design by examining the separate stones which lie scattered in the builder’s yard. But: 2. It is not arbitrary. The very idea of destiny as determined by a Being of infinite thought implies purpose based on reason. God would not determine events simply to manifest his unfettered rights of sovereignty. Such aimless caprice could only emanate from a senseless despot. 3. It is turned to a good purpose. This must be so, for if God is good his designs must be good. The predestination is (1) for the good of the agent, who is blessed by being selected for Divine service; and (2) for the good of the world. The elect are chosen instruments for benefiting the whole world. Thus Jeremiah was destined to be "a prophet unto the nations." The Jew was an elect people that he might be the channel of blessing to all mankind (Genesis 12:3; Romans 3:2). The Christian is a chosen vessel that he may carry grace to others, and serve as the salt of the earth, as the light of the world. IV. THE EFFECT OF THE OF . It contains no excuse for indolence and no reason for despair, for God fits all of us for sonic service, the accomplishment of which depends on our own faithfulness. 1. It should lead us to inquire what is God’s will, rather than to carve out a career for ourselves. 2. It should make us humble, submissive, obedient, and diligent in service, since there is a Divine idea of our life which God expects us to realize. 3. It should inspire courage in the midst of difficulties. Jeremiah was brave in the thought that he was fulfilling a Divine destiny. Such a thought inspires energy in face of enmity, contempt, isolation, and apparent failure. Jeremiah 1:6-9 Diffidence overcome. I. IS A TO BE . 1. Jeremiah shrank from his mission, not through the cowardice that fears danger, nor through the indolence that dislikes effort, nor through the selfishness that declines responsibility, but through the diffidence of youth, sensitiveness, and humility. (1) Youth is naturally diffident. The world is all unknown; powers are not yet proved by experience. (2) Sensitiveness inclines to diffidence. There is a confidence which depends simply on denseness and callousness. Acute feeling is a great hindrance to bold action. Jeremiah felt the miseries of his nation deeply, and it was peculiarly difficult for such a man to assume the position of a stern censor. (3) Humility leads to diffidence. If we think little of ourselves we are not likely to be forward in accepting posts of responsibility. 2. Now, this diffidence is an evil thing. It may not be sinful in its origin, but perfectly innocent, and even a mark of amiable characteristics. But it is injurious in its effects, and becomes positively guilty if indulged in when God has provided us means for overcoming it. The most gifted are often the most diffident. Hence if they yielded to their reluctance to fulfill their vocation, the greatest and best work of the world would be left undone. There is also a danger lest diffidence should become an excuse for indolence, selfishness, and cowardice. If unrestrained it will lead to these vices. People are often greatly to blame for shrinking from posts of responsibility, although they may even imagine they are earning the honors of modesty and humility. II. GOD MEANS FOR . God never calls a man to any work without securing to him the means for performing it. Thus having called Jeremiah to his service, God sends help for overcoming the young man’s diffidence. 1. The consciousness of a Divine mission. "Thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee." It is well to feel that we are not doing our own work but God’s. If we fail, what does that matter to us so long as we are doing his will? The thought of duty is itself an inspiration. We are not simply to attempt what we imagine to be a good thing; we are called for a purpose, sent on a mission, and the thought that we are about our Father’s business should allay the hesitation of natural diffidence. The ambassador is armed with the authority of his master and backed by his master’s power. The prophet is sent by God with God’s authority. All who are working God’s will are similarly supported by God’s authority. 2. The realization of the presence of God. "I am with thee." We may be diffident while we look to self; but when we look away to God we see the Source of strength and victory. Indeed, our very diffidence may be a means of securing our true strength by making us seek the help of God. Self-distrust may lead to trust in God. Thus when weak in ourselves we may become strong in him (2 Corinthians 12:10). If we go in God’s strength we have no more occasion to fear, since success no longer depends on our ability but on his assistance. 3. The direct inspiration of the Spirit of God. "Behold I have put my words in thy mouth." God is not only present by our side to assist and deliver us, but he is within the soul, infusing light and power. The prophet fears he cannot speak the needed words. The words he is to speak are not his own but God’s. He is the messenger, God is the real speaker. If then he can but discern the voice of God within him, and interpret this to the people, all diffidence arising from his own incompetence should vanish. Every work which is done for God can only proceed from God, and when it does thus come from God we need not fear its failure. God can accomplish his own will in us as well as by his immediate actions in the world. The power of prophecy. I. THERE IS A POWER IN . Prophecy is not simply a light, a revelation of truth; it is also a voice of authority, a means of active influence, a power. The Divine word in the prophet is like the Divine word in nature-an energizing word. God speaks, and it is done. The New Testament references to prophecy are made in obedience to this thought. The fulfillment of prophecy is there quoted not so much, as in modern evidential literature, as a proof of supernatural foresight, but rather as the effect of a Divine power which has realized the purpose of the ancient Word of God. This or that is said to be done "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet." God’s Word is always a power (Hebrews 4:12). The Bible is not simply a revelation; it is a means of influence. The preacher should see that he is clothed with power. His mission is to influence as well as to teach. II. THE SOURCES OF THE POWER OF ARE . The authority conferred on Jeremiah is not that of the secular arm. He is to exert his influence by no material force. HIS power is different in kind from that of a political government. The claim of the papal authority founded on this verse is unwarranted, since this does not confer the power of the sword but direct spiritual influence. Neither is the power of prophecy in the least allied to magic or sorcery. It is not a miraculous material force. 1. It is the power of truth. Truth is strong; knowledge is power. The prophet sees the deep principles of God’s government, and in the discernment of them lies the force of his utterances. 2. It is the rower of right. The prophet takes his stand on the side of justice, purity, goodness. In the end the might must go with the right. 3. It is the power of God. The prophet is nothing in himself; he is God’s servant: the authority he wields is God s. So the power of the preacher is not to be sought in reason, in eloquence, nor in official authority, but in the truth of his message, in the righteousness of his cause, and in his fidelity to the will of God. III. THE RANGE OF THE POWER OF IS . Jeremiah was a Jew. Yet he was "set over the nations and over the kingdoms." 1. God is the King of king and his authority concerns kingdoms as well as individuals. Political questions are amenable to the influence of Divine truth and righteousness. 2. God’s truth does not only concern the Church. It is for the world—if the world will obey, for its blessedness; if it will not heed, for a judgment upon it. IV. THE EFFECTS OF THE POWER OF ARE . It is no wild and transient influence, but a great stirring energy. Translated into modern language, this means that truth, right, and the will of God are powerful factors in history, disarranging human schemes and bringing higher designs into effect. 1. This power is destructive. Jeremiah is to "root out," etc. Evil is not a mere negation—simple darkness. It must be fought and east out. Christ sent "a sword" (Matthew 10:34). The era of the Reformation was a destructive age. It is the duty of the preacher to protest against evil, to denounce it, to seek its overthrow, and not to shrink for fear of consequent disturbances. Warfare is better than guilty peace. 2. This power is ultimately constructive. Jeremiah is "to build and to plant." The destructive agencies of God are simply intended to clear off obstructions, and make the way for a new and better order. The disintegrating power of criticism should be regarded as only preparatory to the creative influence of living truth. The gospel is chiefly a constructive power, making men new creatures, building up the kingdom of God in our midst, brining about a new heaven and a new earth. Jeremiah 1:11, Jeremiah 1:12 The almond rod. The early budding almond rod is symbolical of the wakeful attitude of God at a crisis in human events. God’s manner of acting at this period of Jewish history may be regarded as typical of what we may expect again under similar circumstances. I. THERE ARE WHEN GOD’S AND ENERGY ARE . God never sleeps (Psalms 121:4). While we sleep he keeps watch. Though. we do not mark his presence nor even think of it, he is still looking upon us and never ceasing from his activity. Yet he is said to awake as though from sleep (Psalms 44:23), because to us he appears to be more wakeful at one season than at another. 1. There are times when God watches unseen, and times when he makes his watchfulness manifest to us by his acts; then he is said to awake. 2. God generally acts in quiet ways unnoticed and not directly interfering with us; but now and again his ceaseless activity is more pronounced, and is specially felt by opposing our course; then God seems to have aroused himself. Such times are awful crises of existence. We should be prepared to expect them, and not presume on the present obscurity of the Divine actions. Some day it will be as though God awoke with the voice of a trumpet and the might of a host suddenly revealed. II. GOD NEVER DELAYS HIS ACTION BEYOND ITS DUE TIME. When it is time for God to "awake," he does "awake." It seems as though he tarried; but he has a reason for waiting. 1. He does not come to deliverance at the moment we expect him (1) because it is well we should be tried by distresses, or (2) because high purposes beyond our own lives are to be attained through the things which are occasioning us trouble, or (3) because we have not sought his aid with true faith and submission, or (4) for causes beyond our comprehension. 2. He does not come to judgment (1) because he waits for sin to ripen, or (2) because he is long-suffering and gives time for repentance, or (3) because larger issues than those which touch us are involved in the act of judgment. Still, in both cases he comes at the right time. He is not a slothful God. He is wakeful, and his actions may be typified by the almond branch. III. GOD’S FALL AND SWIFTLY. We may have but short warning of their approach. The execution of them may be rapid. The storm which has long been brewing may burst quickly. The harvest which has ripened slowly may be gathered in with haste. The impending judgment may not be discerned till it is too late for escape. When the rain began to fall it was too late for man to seek refuge in the ark. When the Jews saw the hosts of Nebuchadnezzar approaching there were no means for saving their country from ruin. It is foolish and wrong to neglect the salvation of God until we discern his judgment looming over us. "Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." Jeremiah 1:13, Jeremiah 1:14 The seething pot. I. THE VISION OF THE POT DOOM. God is about to "hold his session" upon Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. 1. They who are most favored by God must expect the severest judgment if they prove unfaithful to him. The Jews were a favored people. Their privileges were great; if they abused these their guilt and consequent punishment must be proportionately great. Therefore, instead of considering the past mercies of God as a ground for expecting to escape the penalties of our offences, we should see in them the measure of his future severities upon us if we sin in face of the special inducements to devotion afforded by those mercies. 2. The revelation of impending judgment is a great motive for faithful preaching. This vision of the seething pot is given to Jeremiah to rouse him to undertake his prophetic duties. A large part of his work consisted in gloomy predictions of coming doom. This was peculiar to the age. There are ages when similar preaching is especially appropriate. But as sin always makes for death the preacher is always called to raise a voice of warning. II. THE VISION OF THE POT THE OF THE DOOM. 1. It is gradually prepared. The vessel is slowly heated to the boiling point. The guilt of sin accumulates and the evil consequences gather in force until they burst upon the victim with the energy of long pent-up wrath. 2. It breaks forth suddenly. Suddenly the vessel boils over. Judgment may be delayed and gradual in the preparation, and yet suddenly surprise us when at length it falls upon us. 3. It is violent and overwhelming, as the seething pot suggests fury, tumult, and, in its boiling over, a rushing forth of its scalding contents. III. THE VISION OF THE POT THE SOURCE OF THE DOOM. The pot was turned towards the south and heated by fires in the north. 1. Punishment may come from the most unlikely quarter. The Jews had turned to Babylon for friendship, and from Babylon came their ruin. Our most trusted friends may become the instruments of our keenest suffering. 2. Lawless violence may be overruled by providence to work the ends of God’s righteous laws. The doom is not to come from within the range of the theocracy and through the influence of those who consciously executed the Divine decree, but from far-off regions, wholly beyond the light of Israel’s religion. Thus God makes the wrath of man to praise him. So storms and earthquakes, revolutions and invasions, tumults in nature and tumults in the human world, work ultimate good results in clearing and purifying the air, sweeping away pestilent corruption, and preparing for a new and wholesome order. 3. The more luxurious Southern races have frequently been visited by terrible invasions of hardier races from the North. The Scythians in the East, the Goths in the West, were scourges of God, and wholesome scourges, helping to reform the corrupt and indolent peoples who lived in dread of their invasions. We should see wise and good purposes of providence in these terrible events of general history, as we see them in the special history of Israel. Jeremiah 1:17-19 Encouragements to fidelity. It was no easy matter for Jeremiah, young, modest, and sensitive, to come boldly forward and threaten the judgment of God against his country. But if God calls a man to any task, he will help him through with it, and Jeremiah receives encouragements proportionate to his duty. I. THE DUTY. Consider what the duty of faithful service laid upon the prophet included. 1. Energy. He is to gird up his loins, and arise. God is not satisfied with passive submission to his will God cannot be faithfully served by the indolent. All our powers are required for his service, and they must be employed without distraction. 2. Obedience. Jeremiah is to speak just what God commands him. Fidelity is not simply devotion to God, it is devotion according to his will—the devotion of servants, not that of patrons. 3. Thoroughness. The prophet is to speak "all" that God commands him. It is treason for the ambassador to suppress those elements of his commission which are displeasing to himself. The servant of God must not select from the revelation of Divine truth the words which suit his purpose and neglect the rest. He is not to shun to declare "the whole counsel of God"—threats as well as promises, difficult sayings and mysteries as well as plainly acceptable doctrines. 4. Fearlessness. "Be not dismayed." Fear is not only painful; it is injurious by paralyzing effort. Cowardice is sin. II. THE . It is our duty to be faithful, though fidelity should bring our ruin; but such a result will not follow it. Consider the various inducements Jeremiah receives to a faithful discharge of his difficult task. 1. A revelation of momentous truths. God says, "Thou therefore gird up thy loins," etc. The word "therefore ’ carries us back to the visions of the almond rod and the seething pot. The truths revealed in these visions themselves furnish a motive for the prophet to declare them. The seer should become a prophet. Truth is not the private property of the few; it is the rightful heritage of all. It is the duty of him who knows to enlighten the ignorant. More especially is this the case in regard to spiritual truths, practical truths, and truths which concern the highest welfare of mankind. 2. A warning of Divine displeasure. "Be not dismayed at them, lest I make thee indeed dismayed." The fear of God is a safeguard against the fear of man. Cowardice provokes danger. The Christian has no armor provided for his back. 3. An assurance of Divine protection. This is given in a succession of strong images, that it may be felt in all its certainty and importance. For we need not only to know that God will protect us, but to realize this if we are to be brave and strong. Thus Jeremiah is made to feel that, in spite of his youth and sensitiveness, he will be strong as a fortress and firm as brazen walls, none are so independent before men as they who are wholly dependent on God. 4. A promise of victory over opposition. The young prophet is taught to expect opposition. (1) It is foolish to ignore the approach of trouble. A surprise sometimes leads to a defeat from very inferior foes. Danger foreseen is danger half overcome. The Bible never makes light of the difficulties and hardships of life (Luke 10:3). (2) No ground of confidence is more inspiring than the knowledge that the danger clearly, fully apprehended will yet be certainly overcome. This was the assurance given to Jeremiah. The same assurance is offered to every faithful servant of God (Isaiah 43:1). BY S. CONWAY On Jeremiah’s ministry in general. "It is sufficient," said our Savior, "that the disciple be as his Lord." Now, of all his servants few answered more closely to this description than did the prophet Jeremiah. In a very deep and real sense his life was a type of our Lord’s. It is in the spiritual world as in the natural, a close resemblance exists between the separate parts and the entire organism to which they belong. The root, stem, bud, flower, fruit, and seed are each constructed on the same type as the tree itself. However widely diversified they may seem in form or function, their essential nature is the same. Hence every leaf is a miniature of the tree on which it grows; trunk, branches, foliage, are each patterned in it. And likewise every branch is but a reproduction on a smaller scale of the whole tree. (MacMillan) But this is only what we find constantly exemplified in the spiritual world. What miniature lives of Christ are those of men like Joseph, Moses, David, and many more! And amongst such as are illustrious in this respect stands Jeremiah. Like him, the consciousness of the Divine call was with him from childhood (cf. Luke 2:49 and Jeremiah 1:6). He too was persecuted with murderous hate by his own townsmen. As Christ was driven from Nazareth, so was Jeremiah from his native Anathoth (Jeremiah 12:6). His vehement denunciations of the corrupt priests and prophets of his day remind us of the reiterated woes pronounced by our Lord on the "scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites," of his day. Like our Lord, Jeremiah also was the prophet who stood nearest to and told most plainly of the dread catastrophe which overwhelmed Jerusalem and her people. Jeremiah was the prophet of Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar; our Lord of the like destruction by the Roman Titus. Both beheld the glories of the temple, and both told of the swiftly coming days when there should "not be left one stone upon another, which should not be thrown down." The footsteps of him who, beyond all others, was "despised and rejected of men," Jeremiah, in so far as it was possible to him, anticipated. The bitter tears shed by our Savior over impenitent Jerusalem are shadowed forth in the prophet’s prolonged and profound lament over his own idolatrous and disobedient countrymen. 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." And we may venture to prolong the parallel, and to apply to Jeremiah the august words which, in their supreme meaning, can belong to but One alone. "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name." In that high recompense Jeremiah, so far as any servant of God may, shares. For the honor in which his name came to be held was very great. As time rolled on he was regarded as the chief representative of the whole prophetic order. By some he was placed at the head of all the prophets. At the time of the Christian era his return was daily expected. He was emphatically thought to be "the Prophet"—’the Prophet like unto Moses,’ who should close the whole dispensation." No wonder, then, that one devout student after another has been struck by the closeness of the resemblance here briefly pointed out, and has delighted to trace in the prophet’s history foreshadowings of the "Man of Sorrows," who, more than any other, was acquainted with grief.—C. Introductory statements concerning Jeremiah’s parentage and period of his ministry. I. HIS . He was the son of Hilkiah, not that Hilkiah who was high priest during the reign of Josiah, but of some similarly named priest. Even amid the terrible corruptions of that period, there appear to have been a few faithful souls who held fast to the fear of the Lord. We have their names, Huldah, Shallum, Baruch, etc. From amidst these Jeremiah sprang. The Lord can call and convert and consecrate to his work whom he will; but his more common way is to come to the habitations of his people, when he would find some whom he destines for special and honored service. The homes of the godly are the hope of the Church. Amidst the children of the believing are to be found those whom God will generally employ to carry on his work. This is one way in which the promise is fulfilled, "Them that honor me I will honor." II. HIS . He belonged to the priesthood. Terrible are the charges which are brought against the priests and prophets of that day. They had reached the limit of utmost degradation. They are said to "deal falsely," to be "profane;" and their conduct is described as "a wonderful and horrible thing." Yet Jeremiah belonged to this deeply fallen class. How difficult must have been his position! how constant his resistance to the contagion of their example and influence! When from amongst those who are of the same order, who have common interests, common duties, and who are thrown together in so many and close relationships, one stands aloof and turns upon his companions in severe and solemn rebuke as Jeremiah did, such a one needs to be strong as "a defensed city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls" (verse 18) Jeremiah stands before us as a noble proof that the tide of evil, however strongly it may run, may yet be resisted; none are of necessity borne down by it but, by the same grace which was given to Jeremiah, they may stem the fierce current and defy its power. Ten thousand of the saints of God have done this; why should not we? III. THE REASON OF ALL MEN HIM AS A PROPHET. "The word of the Lord came unto him." He did not say, "I am a prophet;" but all men felt he was. For his words had power; they were mighty to the pulling down of the strong holds of sin. It was not simply that he announced that there should be a "rooting out and pulling down" (cf. verse 10), but the words which he spoke so wrought in men’s minds that these results followed. Hence men, conscious of the power of his words, confessed that it was "the word of the Lord" which had come to him. This is the old prophetic word which, whenever spoken, constrains men to confess the presence of God (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:25). And St. Peter (2 Peter 1:19) says concerning it, "We have, surer still, the prophetic word." "More sure," he meant, than even the wondrous voice and vision of "the holy mount," for that was but a transient testimony given once and to the three favored apostles of the Lord alone; but the prophetic word, that which woke up the response in men’s hearts, and by which the secrets of each soul were disclosed—that was a more constant, more universal, more powerful, and therefore a more sure testimony than aught beside. And the occasions when this "word of the Lord" comes to any of his servants are well known. See how particular and definite the dates are here. "In the thirteenth year of the reign of King Josiah. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim," etc. The coming of the word of the Lord to any soul is a marked and memorable period. He through whom that word is spoken is conscious of an unusual power, he realizes the Divine presence in an altogether unusual manner. He is more passive than active. It is said of the holy men of old, that they "spake as they were moved [borne along] of the Holy Ghost," and this, St. Peter declares (2 Peter 1:21), is ever a characteristic of the prophetic word. And those who hear the word know that the Lord is speaking through his servant. Listlessness and unconcern give way to serious concern. Some can tell the very day and hour when they first heard the "word of the Lord." They had listened to sermons and read the Scriptures again and again, but one day they felt that the Lord himself was speaking to them, and they could not but give heed. Like as the people of Judah and Jerusalem knew when the voice of God, though they despised it to their ruin, was speaking to them, so do men now. And if we have heard it for our salvation, the time, the place, the speaker, will often be vividly remembered in connection with it, like as those who heard Jeremiah knew the very year when the "word of the Lord came" to him. It is ill for both hearers and speakers alike if they be unable to point to periods when they were conscious that "the word of the Lord" came to them. For a preacher never to realize the sacred glow and the uplifting of soul which accompany the utterance of the prophetic word; or for a hearer to have so dulled his conscience, so destroyed his spiritual ear, that though the word of the Lord be spoken his heart never responds, his soul never realizes the presence of God;—from the sin and sorrow of either may God mercifully save us. IV. THE DATE AND OF ’S . We are told when it began, and how long it lasted. It began when the evil days for Judah and Jerusalem were drawing very near. It was in vain that the devout King Josiah endeavored to turn back the hearts of the people to the Lord God of their fathers. But though the long-suffering of God had been so tried and was now almost ceasing, yet, ere they were given up to the punishment which was their due, God raises up his servant Jeremiah and the band of faithful men who stood by him (cf. 2 Chronicles 36:15-21). For forty years—for that is the period covered by the reigns of the several kings spoken of—Jeremiah exhorted, warned, entreated, threatened, prayed, wept; but all in vain. Therefore God’s wrath at length rose against them, and there was no remedy. "Behold the goodness and the severity of God!" How reluctantly will he abandon any to the results of their own ways! how slow is he to let come upon them that which they have long deserved! Yea, he is the long-suffering God. But whilst we fail not to remember and to rejoice in this, let us not fail either to remember and to dread the other equally sure fact, that "God is a consuming fire" to those who set at naught all his counsel, and will have none of his reproof (Proverbs 1:24-33). Those to whom Jeremiah prophesied found it so, and so will all who sin in like manner now.—C. The dread commission. I. WHAT WAS IT? (Cf. Jeremiah 1:10.) It was to denounce the judgments of God against his people. At the end of the commission there is mention made of "building and planting;" but the chief charge is of an altogether opposite character. Jeremiah was set over the nations "to root out, and to pull down, to destroy, and to throw down." It was a terrible undertaking. He was to spare no class, no rank, no order. Kings, princes, priests, and people were all to be alike solemnly warned of the sure judgments that were coming upon them. And the like work has to be done now. How prone we all are to speak with bated breath of the retribution of God! how ready, to ourselves and to others, to explain away or to soften down the awful words of God against sin and the doers thereof! Preachers and teachers of God’s truth, beware lest the blood of those who perished because you warned them not be required at your hands (Ezekiel 33:6)! II. BUT IT IS A DREAD . The shrinking of Jeremiah from it is manifest all through this chapter. Before the heavy burden which he was to bear was fully disclosed to him, he exclaims (verse 6), "Ah, Lord God! behold I cannot speak: for I am a child." And the assurances, aids, and encouragements which are given him all show how much needed to be done ere his reluctance and trembling fear could be overcome. The whole chapter tells of God’s gracious preparation of his servant for the arduous work he had to do. And whosoever now undertakes like work, if he have no realization of its solemnity and burden, it is plain that God has not called him to speak in his Name. To hear a man tell of the awful doom of the impenitent in a manner that, if it be not flippant, yet seems to relish his task, and to hail it as an opportunity for rhetorical display, is horrible in the extreme, and will do more to harden men in sin than almost anything beside. The subject is so sad, so serious, so terrible, that he who believes in it at all will be sure to sympathize with the prophet’s sensitive shrinking from the work to which he was ordained. If when sentencing criminals who have broken the laws of man to their due punishment, humane judges often break down in tears, though their punishment touch not the soul,—how can any contemplate the death that is eternal unmoved or without the most solemn compassion and tenderest pity? And to increase the fear and shrinking with which Jeremiah regarded the work before him, there was the seeming presumption of one so young—little more than "a child" in years, experience, or knowledge—undertaking such a work. The hopelessness of it also. As well might a sparrow think to fly full in the face of a hurricane, as for the young prophet to think to stay the torrent of sin which was now flooding and raging over the whole life of his people. Sin and transgression of the grossest kind had become their habit, their settled custom, their ordinary way. All that he had to tell them they had heard again and again, and had despised and forgotten it. What hope of success was there, then, for him? And the fierceness of the opposition he would arouse would also deter him from the work. It was not alone that the faces (verse 17) of kings, princes, priests, and people would darken upon him, but they would (verse 19) "fight against" him, as we know they did. Well, therefore, might he say, "Ah, Lord! I cannot." And today, how many are the plausible reasons which our reluctant hearts urge against that fidelity in such work as Jeremiah’s which God requires at our hands! But God will not allow them. See— III. HOW HE TO THIS WORK. 1. Verse 5: he gave him certainty as to his being called to the prophetic work. To know that we are indeed called of God to any work is an unfailing source of strength therein. 2. Verse 7: he made him feel that necessity was laid upon him; thou shalt go; thou shalt speak. (Cf. Paul s Yea, woe is me, etc.) So Jeremiah himself afterwards says (Jeremiah 20:9) God s word was like "a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay." What a help to the preacher of God’s truth is such a conviction as this! 3. Verse 8: he promised his presence and delivering grace. Consciousness of security and safety in God will give a dauntless courage in the face of any and of all opposition. 4. He gave him special qualifications for his work. Words and power of speech (verse 9). Immovable and unflinching strength of will, a determination and resolve that would not waver (verse 18). 5. He showed him that the rooting up and the destruction were not ends in themselves, but to lead on to planting and to building afresh (verse 10). To know that we are working on to a good and blessed end is no small encouragement to us in working through all manner of difficulty to reach that end. 6. He made him vividly realize the nature and nearness of the judgments he foretold. This was the purpose of the visions of the rod of the almond tree and the seething pot (verses 11-15; for explanation, see exegesis). The first vision told of God’s judgment close at hand. The second, of the quarter whence these judgments come, and of the fierce; furious character of the foes who should come upon them. Jeremiah was enabled to "see well" the visions, that is, to realize very forcibly what they meant. Oh, if we could but mere vividly realize what the anger of God is against sin; if we could have a vision of the wrath of God; with how much more power and urgency should we plead with men to flee from the wrath to come! 7. Verse 16: he reminds Jeremiah of the sins that called for these judgments. A deep sense of sin is indispensable to those who would earnestly warn of the doom of sin. 8. And (verse 19) God again gives his servant the blessed assurance, "They shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee to deliver thee." Thus did God equip the prophet and prepare him for his work. His God supplied all his need. It was a stern warfare on which he was to go, but he went not at his own charges. If we be summoned to difficult duty, we shall be supplied with all-sufficient strength. Only let us be careful to avail ourselves of the help assured, lest (verse 17) we be dismayed and God confound us before our enemies. Dread, therefore, no commission that God entrusts thee with, for along with it will ever be found the grace, all the grace, needed for its successful discharge.—C. The ministry for a corrupt age. I. MUST BE RAISED UP BY GOD. Such an age will have its ministers, but they will be prophets who will prophesy only smooth things. But a true ministry for such an age will not be produced by it, but be given to it from God. "See, I have set thee," etc. II. WILL BE ENDUED WITH DIVINE POWER. "I have set thee over the nations …to root out," etc. None who contemplate the marvelous effects of such a ministry and compare them with the natural powers of him who exercises it, but must see that the ascendancy he has gained and the spiritual power he wields are of God and not of man. III. WILL MAKE NO WITH SIN. See the number and force of the words used to indicate the ruthless antagonism which the prophet would manifest toward the wickedness of his day. Nothing less than its complete overthrow would fulfill the ministry entrusted to him. IV. WILL DEMAND ON THE PART OF THE PROPHET, AND WILL GAIN FROM THE GRACE OF GOD, A AND AN COURAGE. (Jeremiah 1:17,Jeremiah 1:18.) V. ITS END AND RESULT BLESSED. "To build and to plant" (Jeremiah 1:10). The encumbered ground had first to be cleared and cleansed, but that done, the fabric of a true life should be up reared, and principles pure, holy, and blessed should have root in the hearts of all.—C. Jeremiah’s visions. I. WHAT WERE THEY? (Cf. verses 12-14.) II. WERE THEY? In all probability, for the sake of vividly impressing the mind of the prophet with the message he was to deliver, and so ensuring that that message should be delivered with greater power. Hence the question, "What seest thou?" (verse 11) was designed to arouse and arrest his attention, and for the same reason, when that attention had been awakened, the Divine commendation, "Thou hast well seen," is given. Cf. for similar questions and similar visions, verse 13; Jeremiah 24:3; Amos 7:8; Amos 8:2; Zechariah 4:2; Zechariah 5:2, and in each case the motive seems to have been the same. III. THEIR FOR . 1. Concerning God’s punishment of sin. (1) Its not being apparent to us is no reason for denying it. Certainly the vision of the stem, or branch, of the almond tree would not to an ordinary observer have suggested it. Nor either the second vision, that of the seething pot, although that did undoubtedly present somewhat more of a troubled aspect. Yet both alike needed that their meaning and interpretation should be given. Their significance did not lie on the surface. Only a divinely illumined eye could see that the early-budding almond tree which, because of its outstripping other trees, being in advance of them all in yielding its fruit, was called the "wakeful" or watchful tree, meant that the Lord was watchful over his word to perform it." Nor was the interpretation of the second vision much more evident than that of the first. And so continually, in connection with ungodly men, there are events occurring and signs of varied kind are given, which to those who are taught of God tell plainly how God is "watchful over his word to perform it;" but to others they tell nothing of the kind. They are like the prophet’s almond tree and seething pot, which had no meaning until that meaning was pointed out. The people of Judah and Jerusalem saw nothing in these circumstances, any more than in the prophet’s visions, to alarm them very much. And so, still, ungodly men are at ease in the presence of facts and indications which fill those who believe God’s Word with unspeakable alarm. How foolish, then, is it to take the unconcern, the powerlessness to understand God’s signs, which characterize ungodly men, as any evidence of the unreality of that which God has declared! "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be," etc. Lot was as "one that mocked unto his sons-in-law." The Jews crucified our Lord because he saw so clearly and declared so plainly the character of their trusted leaders and the destruction that was coming—one even more terrible than that which Jeremiah foretold. But the Jews neither saw nor believed anything of the kind. (2) Its being by means of natural laws does not make it the less God’s punishment of sin. The rapid growth and yield of the almond tree was a perfectly natural thing: there was no interference with the orderly course which such forms of plant life assume. And the war between the empires of Egypt and Babylon, in the vortex and whirlpool of which Jerusalem was dragged in and dragged down; all this which the prophet’s second vision told of, was it not the inevitable though sad misfortune of any diminutive power as was that of Judah and Jerusalem when placed in like circumstances? Her lot was east just in the place where the two raging seas of Egypt and Babylon met. What wonder if her poor little barque went to pieces beneath the violence of those waves? It was sad enough, but yet perfectly natural; indeed, one may say, inevitable. And so it would be quite possible to explain all God’s punishment away, and to regard it like the early blossoming of the almond tree, and like the seething troubles which must come upon little kingdoms placed as Judah was, when great empires on either side of her go to war, as only what was to be expected, what was in keeping with the natural order of things. Let any one read Gibbon, and from his account of the decline and fall of the Roman empire, you would gather no idea of a Divine righteousness arising to inflict merited punishment on an awfully corrupt and degraded people. Believers in God can and do see this, but the great historian has not felt himself bound to point out any such cause of the long series of disasters which he so eloquently relates. The inspired prophet and seer of Patmos has, however, done this; and in the Book of the Revelation, the woes coming upon that blood-stained empire are told of in symbolic but terrible form, and in connection with that God-defying wickedness which was the source and cause of them all. And so today, under cover of the fact that God works according to the natural order of things, men evade the teaching of the events that befall them. Because God punishes sin by the action of his natural laws, men deny that he punishes sin at all. His hand is not recognized in it, and therefore no repentance is awakened. They deem themselves unfortunate, and that is all. If we would be more faithful with ourselves, we should "hear the rod and who hath appointed it," No calamities or disasters come without meaning and intent; they are sent for moral and spiritual purposes, however much they may appear to be but natural and necessary events. Each of them will own, if interrogated, "I have a message from God unto thee." (3) It will increase in severity if there be need. The first vision is simply that of the almond tree; an emblem of gentleness rather than of severity. But the second vision, that of the boiling caldron, suggested a far ether and more terrible visitation (cf. the plagues in Egypt, which increased in terribleness as they went on). And it is ever so even unto the "consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:29). (4) It often comes from unexpected quarters. The "seething pet i, that the prophet saw had its face northward. Now, the reader of the history of the times of which our prophet tells—the times of King Josiah—will know that it was from the south, from Egypt, they expected that troubles would arise. And in the next chapter (verse 16) mention is made of trouble that did arise from that quarter, though what particular event is referred to it is not easy to say. But the great trouble was to come from the north, from the last quarter from which they anticipated it. King Josiah lost his life in doing good service to that northern power, the great Assyrian kingdom, by fighting against Egypt. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ The second chapter forms the introduction of a group of discourses (Jeremiah 2-6), which should be read together. It is called By Ewald (and the position of the prophecy favors this view) the first oracle which Jeremiah delivered in public ("oracle" is, in fact, the nearest English equivalent to those two remarkable Hebrew synonyms, massa and neum—especially for the latter). This would bring it into the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah (see Jeremiah 1:3), though of course we cannot be sure that references to a later period may not have been inserted afterwards. It is, obviously, only a summary of the prophet’s spoken words which we have in this most impressive discourse. In order to appreciate it, we must bear in mind the external political relations and the internal religions condition of the kingdom of Judah. These have Been already touched upon in the general introduction. Suffice it to remind the reader that Josiah’s reformation—in the strict sense of the word—did not begin till the eighteenth year of that king’s reign; and that the state of things was at this time complicated by a dangerous alliance with that power against whoso religion the teaching of the prophets of Jehovah was a continual protest (on the Egyptian alliance, comp. Ewald, ’History of Israel,’ 4.218). The first section of the prophecy is a general introduction, already full of serious charges against the people (verses 1-9); in the second, the special occasion of the discourse is declared in the form of a question, and the sin referred to is rebuked (verses 10-19); in the third, Judah’s inveterate idolatry is denounced, and the disappointment and ruin to which it led candidly pointed out (verses 20-28); and in the fourth, "half in earnest and half in ironical satire" (Ewald), the prophet points the moral of this foolish Egyptian fever which has seized upon rulers and people (verse 29-37). It is always interesting to notice how later inspired writers hasten to do honor to their predecessors. Originality is not an object with the prophets, but rather the developing and adapting the truths long ago "delivered." The whole group of prophecies to which Jeremiah 2:1-37. belongs contains numerous points of contact, in ideas or phraseology, with the song of Hoses (Deuteronomy 32:1-52.). The following have been indicated:—Cf. Jeremiah 2:5 with Deuteronomy 32:4; Deuteronomy 32:11, Deuteronomy 32:12 with Deuteronomy 32:1, Deuteronomy 32:21; Deuteronomy 32:20 with Deuteronomy 32:15; Deuteronomy 32:26-28 with Deuteronomy 32:6, Deuteronomy 32:18, Deuteronomy 32:37, Deuteronomy 32:38; Deuteronomy 32:31 with Deuteronomy 32:5; Jeremiah 3:19 with Deuteronomy 32:6; Jeremiah 4:22 and Jeremiah 5:21 with Deuteronomy 32:6; Jeremiah 5:7 with Deuteronomy 32:15; Jeremiah 5:14 with Deuteronomy 32:22; Jeremiah 5:28 with Deuteronomy 32:15; Jeremiah 6:11 with Deuteronomy 32:25; Jeremiah 6:15 with Deuteronomy 32:35; Jeremiah 6:19, Jeremiah 6:30 with Deuteronomy 32:18, Deuteronomy 32:19. Jeremiah 2:1 Moreover; literally, and. The introductory formula agrees with Jeremiah 1:4. We have as it were two parallel prophecies (Jeremiah 1:4, etc; and Jeremiah 2:1, etc.); both branching out of the original chronological statement in Jeremiah 1:2 (see Introduction). Jeremiah 2:2 In the cars of Jerusalem. Presumably Jeremiah had received his call at Anathoth (comp. Jeremiah 1:1). I remember thee, etc.; rather, I remember for thy good the kindness of thy youth. It is an open question whether the "kindness" spoken of is that of God towards the people, or of the people towards God. The usage of the Hebrew (khesed) admits of either acceptation; comp. for the first, Psalms 5:7, Psalms 36:5, and many other passages; for the second, Hosea 6:4, Hosea 6:6 (in Hosea 6:6 rendering for "mercy," "goodness") and Isaiah 57:1 (rendering "men of piety"). But the context, which dwells so strongly on the oblivion into which the Divine benefits had been allowed to pass, is decidedly in favor of the first view. How beautiful is this condescending language! Jehovah’s past feelings come Back to him; at least, so it appears to the believer, when God lets the light of his countenance shine forth again (comp. Jeremiah 31:20; Hosea 9:10). He even condescends to overlook the weakness and inconsistency of the Israel of antiquity. He idealizes it (i.e. Jeremiah is permitted to do so). This is in harmony with other prophetic passages (see Isaiah 1:26 ("as at the first"); Hosea 11:1, Hosea 11:3, Hosea 11:4; Ezekiel 16:6-14). The figure of the bride recurs constantly (see Hosea 2:19, Hosea 2:20; Isaiah 54:4, Isaiah 54:5; Ezekiel 16:8). Thine espousals; rather, thy bridal state. When thou wentest after me (comp. Deuteronomy 8:2, "all the way which Jehovah thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness"). Jeremiah 2:3 Israel was holiness, etc. Israel was a consecrated people (comp. Exodus 19:5, Exodus 19:6; Deuteronomy 7:6; Deuteronomy 14:2; Deuteronomy 26:19). Isaiah, fond as he is of the phrase "Israel’s Holy One," does not expressly enforce the correlative truth, as Jeremiah does here. The first-fruits of his increase; rather, his firstfruits of increase. Israel is compared to the firstfruits (reshith) of the land, which were devoted to the house of the Lord (Exodus 23:19; Numbers 18:12, Numbers 18:13). So in Amos 6:1, the title given him is "the chief [margin, ’firstfruits’] of the nations" (in Jeremiah 31:7, a synonymous and cognate word, rosh, takes the place of reshith for "chief"). All that devour him shall offend; rather, all that ate him incurred guilt, or became guilty of a trespass. Foreigners were forbidden to eat of consecrated things; by breaking this law they became guilty of a "trespass," having invaded the rights of Jehovah (Leviticus 22:10, 15, 16). The word for "trespass" is the same as that rendered "guilt." Jeremiah 2:5 What iniquity, etc.; rather, what unrighteousness, etc. (comp. Deuteronomy 32:4, "a God of faithfulness, and without unrighteousness," alluding to the "covenant" between Jehovah and Israel). God’s condescending grace (his ’anavah, Psalms 18:36). As if he were under an obligation to Israel (comp. Micah 6:3, etc.; Isaiah 5:3). Vanity; i.e. the idols; literally, a breath (so Jeremiah 10:15; Jeremiah 14:22; Jeremiah 16:19). Are become vain. The whole being of man is affected by the want of solid basis to his religion (comp. Jeremiah 23:16; Psalms 115:8); and the evident allusion to our passage in Romans 1:21. The clause is verbally repeated in 2 Kings 17:15, with reference to the ten tribes. Jeremiah 2:6 Neither said they, etc.; as their children’s children were forced by stress of trouble to say (Isaiah 63:11; see note). A land of desserts and of pits. The first phrase applied to the region through which the Israelites passed ("a wilderness") was vague, and might mean merely pasture-land. The remainder of the description, however, shows that "wilderness" is here meant, as often (e.g. Isaiah 35:1; Isaiah 50:2), in the sense of "desert." Though recent travelers have shown that the Sinaitie peninsula is not by any means universally a "desert," and that in ancient times it was still less so, it is not unnatural that an agricultural people should regard it as a most inhospitable region, and should even idealize its terrors (comp. Deuteronomy 8:15). "Pits," i.e. rents and fissures in the soil, in which the unwary traveler might lose his life (Jeremiah 18:20, Jeremiah 18:22). Jeremiah 2:7 A plentiful country. "A Carmel land," as it were (so Payne Smith). "Carmel" is strictly an appellative noun, meaning" garden-land," i.e; land planted with vines and other choice plants. So Jeremiah 4:26; Isaiah 29:17; Isaiah 37:24. Jeremiah 2:8 The priests, etc. The blame principally falls on the three leading classes (as in Jeremiah 2:26; Micah 3:11). First on the priests who "handle the Law," i.e. who have a traditional knowledge of the details of the Law, and teach the people accordingly (Deuteronomy 17:9-11; Deuteronomy 33:10; Jeremiah 18:18; see also on Jeremiah 8:8); next on the "pastors," or "shepherds" (in the Homeric sense), the civil and not the spiritual authorities; so generally in the Old Testament (see Jeremiah 3:15; Jeremiah 10:21; Jeremiah 22:22; Jeremiah 25:34; Zechariah 10:3; Zechariah 11:5, Zechariah 11:8, Zechariah 11:16; Isaiah 44:28); and lastly on the prophets, who sought their inspiration, not from Jehovah (comp. note on Jeremiah 2:30), but from Baal. To prophesy by (by means of) Baal or rather, the Baal, implies that prophecy is due to an impulse from the supernatural world; that it is not an objectifying of the imaginations of the prophet himself. Even the Baal prophets yielded to an impulse from without, but how that impulse was produced the prophet does not tell us. We are told in 1 Kings 22:19-23, that even prophets of Jehovah could be led astray by a "lying spirit;" much more presumably could prophets of the Baal. The Baal is here used as a representative of the idol-gods, in antithesis to Jehovah; sometimes "Baalim," or the Baals, is used instead (e.g. 1 Kings 22:23; Jeremiah 9:13), each town or city having its own Baal ("lord"). Things that do not profit. A synonym for idols (comp. Jeremiah 16:19; Isaiah 44:9;. 1 Samuel 12:21). An enlightened regard for self-interest is encouraged by the religion of the Bible, at any rate educationally. Contrast Comtism. Jeremiah 2:9 I will yet plead, etc. Repeated acts of rebellion call forth repeated abjurations and punishments. With your children’s children. For God "visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children" (Exodus 20:5). Jeremiah 2:10 Justification of Jehovah’s judicial action towards Judah. Consider the heinousness of the offence. Pass over—rather, pass over to—the isles of Chittim; i.e. the islands and maritime countries of the West, represented by Cyprus (see on Genesis 10:4). For the wide use of Chittim, comp. Numbers 24:24; Daniel 11:30). Kedar, in the narrower sense, is a large tribe of Arabian origin, whose haunts were between Arabia Petraea and Babylonia. Here, however, it is used in a wider sense for the Arab tribes in general (so Jeremiah Tiler 28; Isaiah 21:16, Isaiah 21:17). Jeremiah 2:11 Hath a nation changed their gods? Has any heathen nation ever changed its idol-god for another? The prophet clearly implies a negative answer; and yet it must be admitted that the adoption of a new religion, under the pressure of conquest or a higher foreign civilization is not an unknown phenomenon in the ancient world. Glory; i.e. source of all outward prosperity (comp. Psalms 3:3," my Glory, and the Lifter up Of my head"). Religion was, in fact, the root of national life in antiquity; contrast our own division between the sacred and the secular Jehovah elsewhere receives the title "the Pride of Israel"—Authorized Version, rather weakly, "the Excellency of Israel"—(Amos 8:7; Hosea 5:5. Comp. the parallel passages, Psalms 106:20; Romans 1:23). Jeremiah 2:12 Be astonished. "Be appalled" would more nearly express the force of the Hebrew (so Jeremiah 18:16; Jeremiah 19:8). Be ye very desolate; literally, become dry; i.e. not so much "shrivel and roll up" (on the analogy of Isa 34:4), as "become stiff with horror." Jeremiah 2:13 Two evils. Israel has not merely offended, like the heathen, by idolatry, but by deserting the only God who can satisfy the needs of human nature. The fountain of living waters. So Jeremiah 17:13 (comp. Psalms 36:9). Fountain; literally, tank or reservoir. Such reservoirs were "dug in the ground (see on Jeremiah 6:7), and chiefly intended for storing living waters, i.e. those of springs and rivulets" (Payne Smith). Cisterns, broken cisterns. A cistern, by its very nature, will only hold a limited amount, and the water "collected from clay roofs or from marly soil, has the color of weak soapsuds, the taste of the earth or the stable." Who would prefer such an impure supply to the sweet, wholesome water of a fountain? But these cisterns cannot even be depended upon for this poor, turbid drink. They are "broken," like so many even of the best rock-hewn cisterns. How fine a description of the combined attractiveness and disappointingness of heathen religions, qualities the more striking in proportion to the scale on which the religions problem is realized (e.g. in Hinduism)! Jeremiah 2:14-19 Israel’s punishment and its cause. Jeremiah 2:14 Is Israel a servant? The speaker is evidently the prophet, who exclaims in surprise at the view which his prophetic insight opens to him: "quasi de re nova et absurda sciscitatur" (Calvin). For Israel is a member of Jehovah’s family; he is not a servant (except in the same high sense as in Isaiah 40-53, where "servant" is virtually equivalent to "representative"), but rather in the highest degree a free man, for he is Jehovah’s "firstborn son" (Exodus 4:22). How is it, then, that he is dragged away into captivity like a slave who has never known freedom? The view of some, that "servant" means "servant of Jehovah" (comp. Jeremiah 30:10), and that the question therefore is to be answered in the affirmative, is less natural. "Servant," by itself, never has this turning; and there is a precisely similar term in the discourse at Jeremiah 2:31, where the negative answer of the question does not admit of a doubt. Jeremiah 2:15 The young lions, etc. A fresh figure, and a most natural one in Judaea; already applied to the Assyrians by Isaiah (v. 29, 30). Burned; rather, made ruinous (comp. "ruinous heaps," 2 Kings 19:25). Jeremiah 2:16 Also the children of Noph, etc. This is the climax of the calamity. Noph, called Moph in the Hebrew text of Hos 9:6, is generally identified with Memphis, which was called in the inscriptions Mennufr, or "the good abode," but may possibly be Napata, the Nap of the inscriptions, the residency of the Ethiopian dynasty (De Rouge’). Tahapanes. The Hebrew form is Takhpanes or Tahhpanhhes. This was a fortified frontier town on the Pelusiot arm of the Nile, called in Greek Daphnae (Herod; Hosea 2:20), or Taphnae. Have broken, etc.; rather, shall break, or (for the pointing in the Hebrew Bible requires this change) shall feed off (or depasture). From this verse onwards, Judah is personified as a woman, as appears from the suffixes in the Hebrew. Baldness was a great mark of disgrace (2 Kings 2:23; Jeremiah 48:45). There is a striking parallel to this passage in Isaiah 7:18-20, where, in punishment of the negotiations of Ahaz with Assyria, the prophet threatens an invasion of Judah both by Assyria and by Egypt: and employs the very. same figure (see Isaiah 7:20). So here, the devastation threatened by Jeremiah is the punishment of the unhallowed coquetting with the Egyptian power of which the Jewish rulers had been recently guilty. The fact which corresponds to this prediction is the defeat of Josiah at Megiddo, and the consequent subjugation of Judah (2 Kings 23:29). The abruptness with which verse 16 follows upon verse 15 suggests that some words have fallen out of the text. Jeremiah 2:17 Hast not thou procured this? rather, Is it not this that doth procure it unto thee (namely) that thou hast forsaken, etc.? or, Is it not thy forsaking Jehovah that pro. cureth thee this? When he led thee by the way. The prophet thinks, perhaps, of the rebellion of the forefathers of Israel, who too soon ceased to "go after" Jehovah (comp. Jeremiah 2:2), and whose fickleness was imitated but too well by their descendants. This view is favored by the phraseology of Deu 1:33; Deuteronomy 8:2, Deuteronomy 8:15. But we may, if we prefer it, explain "by (or, rather, in) the way," on the analogy of the promise in Jeremiah 31:9, "I will lead them … in a straight way," i.e. I will grant them an uninterrupted course of prosperity. The omission of the adjective in the present passage may be paralleled by Psalms 25:8, "Therefore will he instruct sinners in the (right) way." Jeremiah 2:18 What hast thou to do in the way of Egypt? rather, with the way to Egypt. Isaiah (Isaiah 30:2-5; Isaiah 31:1) and Hosea (Hosea 7:11, Hosea 7:16) had already inveighed against an Egyptian alliance. The name given by Manasseh to his sen and successor (Amen) suggests that at one period in his reign an Egyptian policy was in the ascendant, which coincides with the tradition preserved in 2 Chronicles 33:11, of an Assyrian captivity of Manasseh. Jehoiakim at a later period was a vassal of Egypt (2 Kings 23:31, 2 Kings 23:35). To drink the waters; taking up the idea of the second clause of verse 13. Sihor, or Shihor, occurs again in Isaiah 23:3, as a name of the Nile. It properly means, not so much "the black" as "the dark grey" (connected with shakhar, the morning grey), from the color of the water. Rosenmüller’s contrast between the muddy waters of foreign streams and the "fountain of living waters" is uncalled for; besides, the Nile water has always been held in high esteem. The Septuagint has Γηών, i.e. Gihon, also a name of-the Nile according to Ecclesiasticus 24:27. The way of—rather, to—Assyria. It is true that Assyria was, to say the least, powerless to interfere for good or for evil, when these words were written. But in verse 5 the prophet has already warned us that his complaints are partly retrospective. It would seem that the Assyrian party from time to time gained the upper hand over the Egyptian in the councils of the State. Or perhaps the prophet may refer to the Quixotic fidelity to Assyria of Josiah (see below on verse 36). The river; i.e. the Euphrates, "the great river" (Genesis 15:18). Babylonia it should be remembered, was in nominal subjection to Assyria; the Euphrates was the boundary between Syria and Palestine on the one hand, and Assyria—here the Assyrio-Babylonian region—on the other. Jeremiah 2:19 Shall correct … shall reprove; rather, chastise … punish. It is a constantly renewed punishment which follows the ever-repeated offence. Jeremiah 2:20 Here a new section begins. I have broken … burst. This is, grammatically, a possible rendering, but inconsistent with the second person in thou saidst, unless indeed (with Ewald) we suppose that something has fallen out of the text between the first and the second clauses of the verse. The best critics, except Ewald and Dr. Payne Smith, are agreed that we should follow the Septuagint and Vulgate in rendering "thou hast broken … (and) burst." This does not, strictly speaking, imply a new reading of the text, for ti was the old form of the suffix of the 2nd pers. fem, sing.; there is a precisely similar case in Micah 4:13. It is a true description of the history of Israel before the exile. It would almost seem as if there was a fusion of two races among the Israelites, and that the smaller but nobler stock supplied all the great men in the sphere of religion; just as in Florence, most of the men who have illustrated her annals bear names of Teutonic origin. So we might argue, if we wished to explain the Biblical history from purely natural causes. But God (to apply the Caliph Omar’s words) "knoweth his own." Bands (see on Jeremiah 5:5). I will not transgress. This is the translation of the marginal reading in the Hebrew Bible, which, though implied also in the Targum, is probably a conjecture of the Jewish critics. The text reading is, "I will not serve," (equivalent to "I will not be a slave any longer"). Obviously this does not harmonize with the rendering "I have broken," etc; in the first clause (unless, with Dr. Payne Smith, we explain "I will not serve" as virtually equivalent to "I will still serve my idol-gods"); hence the Jewish critics, by just adding a κέραια (Matthew 5:18), changed "serve" into "transgress." They did not venture to alter the next clause, which, quite as much as the first, presupposes the reading "serve" (see next note). When—rather, for—upon every high hill, etc. Bare, treeless heights were favorite spots for sacrifices, especially for Baal; groves, and leafy trees, in general, for the lascivious rites of Asherah and Ashtoreth. The apparently extreme statement of the prophet is not to be minimized. Travelers still tell us of vestiges of ancient and doubtless pro-Christian idolaters worship still visible on almost every attractive spot in the open country in Palestine. Under every green tree. We have no single word to convey the "fluid" meaning of this expressive word. It combines, in fact, the senses of pliant, sappy, leafy (comp. note on Jeremiah 11:16). Thou wanderest; rather, thou wast stretching thyself out. Jeremiah 2:21 A noble vine. Jeremiah means the choicest kind of Oriental vine, called sorek (from the dark-red color of its grapes), and mentioned again in Isaiah 5:2. The figure of the vine is one endeared to us by its association especially with our Lord; it was endeared to the Jews by the annual festivities of the vintage. The sacred writers are never afraid of its palling on the ear by repetition (comp. Jeremiah 5:10; Jeremiah 6:9; Jeremiah 12:10; Isaiah 5:1-7; Isaiah 27:2, Isaiah 27:3; Ezekiel 17:6; Psalms 80:8-16). A right seed; i.e. a vine-shoot of the genuine sort. "Seed" for "shoot," as in Isaiah 17:11 (comp. Isaiah 17:10). The degenerate plant; rather, degenerate shoots (if at least the text is right). Jeremiah 2:22 Nitre does not mean the substance which now bears that name, but "natron," a mineral alkali, deposited on the shores and on the bed of certain lakes in Egypt, especially those in the Wady Nat-run (the ancient Nitria, whence came so large a store of precious Syriac manuscripts). In ancient times, this natron was collected to make lye from for washing purposes (comp. Proverbs 25:20). Sope; rather, potash; the corresponding vegetable alkali (comp. Isaiah 1:25). Thine iniquity is marked. So Kimchi and Gesenius (through a doubtful etymology); but the Aramaic use of the word favors the rendering stained, i.e. filthy. The word is in the participle, to indicate the permanence of the state (comp. "Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood," etc.? ’Macbeth’). Jeremiah 2:23 How canst thou say, etc.? This is not a mere rhetorical fiction equivalent to "or if thou shouldst perhaps say," but probably represents an objection really made by the inhabitants of the kingdom of Judah. Their fault was not in neglecting the public worship of Jehovah in his appointed temple, but in superadding to this, idolatrous rites inconsistent with the spiritual religion taught by Jeremiah. The people did not, it seems, regard this as tantamount to "following Baalim," just as some converts to Christianity in our own foreign missions might exclaim against being accused of apostasy, because they secretly carry on certain heathen practices. The prophet, however, applies a more rigorous test to their conduct. Baalim; the plural of Baal, used for "other gods" (Jeremiah 1:16; comp. on Jeremiah 1:8). Thy way in the valley. The valley in this context can only be that of Hinnom (see on Jeremiah 7:31), which from the time of Ahaz had been defiled with the rites of "Moloch, horrid king" (see ’ Paradise Lost,’ 1.392-396). Thou art a swift dromedary. Ewald would attach this half of the verse to verse 24; and there is something to be said for this plan. Swift dromedary is, properly speaking, in the vocative. The ardor of the people for idolatry is expressed by the comparison of it to the uncontrollable instinct of brute beasts. The word rendered "dromedary" is in the feminine gender; it means strictly the young she-camel which has not yet had a foal. Traversing her ways; rather, interlacing her ways; i.e. running backwards and forwards at the impulse of passion. Jeremiah 2:24 A wild ass, etc. The type of wildness and independence (comp. Genesis 16:12; Job 39:5-8). That snuffeth up the wind; to cool the heat of her passion. In her occasion … in her month; i.e. at the pairing-time. Jeremiah 2:25 Withhold thy foot, etc. Hitzig, with unnecessary ingenuity, explains this with reference to the fatiguing practices of the heathen cultus, comparing 1 Kings 18:26, where "vain repetitions" of "Baal, Baal," and (as he thinks) barefoot religious dances, are mentioned as parts of the worship of Baal. Umbreit’s view, however, is far more natural. "God the true husband exhorts Israel not to run barefoot, and with parched throat, like a shameless adulteress, after strangers" (Payne Smith). There is no hops; i.e. the exhortation is in vain (so Jeremiah 18:12). Jeremiah 2:26 Is … ashamed. It is the per-feet of prophetic certitude. Jeremiah 2:27 And to a stone, etc. Stone (’ebhen) is feminine in Hebrew, and therefore addressed as the mother. Jeremiah 2:28 According to the number of thy cities, etc. A remarkable statement, and one that well illustrates the superficial character of Hezekiah’s reformation. True, Manasseh’s reactionary reign had intervened, but his counter-movement would not have been so successful had it not been attended by the good wishes of the people; and besides, the last years of Manasseh, according to the tradition in 2 Chronicles 33:12-16 were devoted to undoing the mischief of his former life. The force of the prophet’s words is strikingly brought out by M. Renan (he led an expedition to Phoenicia), who has shown that every district and every town had a cultus of its own, which often only differed from the neighboring cultus by words and titles (nomina, numina); comp. Baal-Hamon, Baal-Hazor, eta Dr. Payne Smith well expresses the argument of Jeremiah: "When every city has its special deity, surely among so many there might be found one able to help his worshippers." Jeremiah 2:29 Wherefore will ye plead with me? How can ye be so brazen-faced as to attempt to justify yourselves? Jeremiah 2:30 Have I smitten your children. The cities and towns of Judah are represented as so many mothers, and the populations as their children. It would, no doubt, be more natural to take "children" literally; but then we must read the verb in the next clause, "Ye have received," as the Septuagint actually renders. In the former case the "smiting" will refer to all God’s "sore judgments"—sword, drought, famine, pestilence; in the latter, to the loss of life in battle. Your own sword hath devoured your prophets. Manasseh’s persecution (which extended, according to Josephus, especially to the prophets) may account for the preponderance of "false prophets" referred to in verse 8 (cf. Matthew 23:29). Jeremiah 2:31 O generation, see ye. It is doubtful whether generation here means "contemporaries" (equivalent to "men of this generation"), or, like γενεά sometimes in the New Testament, a class of men united by moral affinity (comp. Psalms 14:5; Psalms 78:8). In the latter case we should rather attach the pronoun in "see ye" to "O generation," and render "O (evil) generation that ye are!" So Hitzig, Keil, and Payne Smith; Ewald and Delitzsch adopt the first rendering. Have I been a wilderness, etc.? "Have I not been the source of light and happiness to my people, and of all temporal blessings?" (comp. Jeremiah 2:6). So the Divine speaker in Isaiah 45:19, "I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain," or more literally, "in chaos" (same word as in Genesis 1:2); "chaos" and "the wilderness" are both images of that which is utterly unremunerative. A land of darkness. This is, of course, not literally accurate as a description of the Arabian desert. "Darkness" is here used as a synonym for "misery." Cloud and rain occupy precisely opposite places in the estimation of nomadic and agricultural peoples respectively. "The Bedouins," says an Arabic scholast, "always follow the rain and the places where raindrops fall;" whereas a townsman of Mecca calls himself "child of the sun." So Indra and Varuna, originally belonging to the cloudy and rainy sky, are in the Vedic hymns endowed with solar traits. It should be added here that it is an old problem, and too difficult a one for us to investigate, whether we should render "the darkness of Jah" (Jehovah) or (as Authorized Version) simply "darkness." The former rendering will mean very great darkness, such as Jehovah sends in judgment (e.g. to the Egyptians, Exodus 10:21-23). On this question, see Dr. Ginsburg on Son 8:6 (where a similar doubt exists), Geiger’s ’Urschrift und Uebersetzungen der Bibel,’ p. 276; Ewald, ’Lehrbuch der Hebraischen Sprache,’ § 270 e. We are lords; rather, we have broken loose. It is, however, a difficult word, which only occurs elsewhere in Genesis 26:1-35:40; Hosea 12:1; Psalms 55:3. Jeremiah 2:32 Or a bride her attire. The prophet perhaps means the magnificently adorned girdle which the bride wore on her wedding day (comp. Isaiah 49:18). But the word only occurs again in Isaiah 3:20, and its precise signification is uncertain. Jeremiah 2:33 Why trimmest thou thy way I rather, How well thou contrivest thy way, etc.? Therefore hast thou also taught, etc. The meaning which floated before our trans-labors seems to be this: "so utterly immoral is thy course of life, that even the worst of women [’wicked ones’ is in the feminine] have been able to learn something from thee". But a more natural rendering is, "Therefore [i.e. to gain thine ends] thou hast accustomed thy ways to those evil things." Nemo repente fuit tupissimus. It required a deliberate "accustoming," or "training" (such is the literal meaning of limad), to produce such a habit (ἕξις) as is here rebuked. Jeremiah 2:34 Also in thy skirts, etc.; or, there is even found in thy skirts (or, perhaps, in thy sleeves—the wide sleeves of an Eastern mantle). The fact which follows is adduced as the crowning evidence of wickedness. Blood of the souls is explained by the statement in Le Jeremiah 17:11, "The soul of the flesh [i.e. of the body] is in the blood;" hence the importance of the blood in the Mosaic sacrifices. The historical reference of this passage of Jeremiah may well be to the persecution of Manasseh, who is said to have "shed innocent blood very much" (2 Kings 21:16). It is Judah, no doubt, who is addressed, but the prophets mostly assume the "solidarity" of king and people (analogous to that of a forefather and his posterity); Manasseh, moreover, probably had the support of a large section of the population, at any rate in so far as he favored the inveterate cultus of the high places or local sanctuaries. I have not found it by secret search; rather, thou hast not found them breaking through (houses). The phraseology agrees with that of Exo 22:2, the law against "breaking through;" it suggests that the houses of all but the highest class in ancient as well as often in modern Palestine, were made of mere sun-dried brick, which could be easily "dug into" (comp. Ezekiel 12:5; Matthew 6:19, Matthew 6:20, in the Greek). [Lieut. Conder states, it is true, that in hilly districts of Palestine the houses of the villages are built of stone, but he adds that the stone is simply taken from the ruins of the ancient towns.] Burglars caught in the act might be killed (Exodus 22:2), but the innocent victims of persecution could not be brought under this category, and hence those who slew them were really guilty of murder. But upon all these; rather, but because of all these things; i.e. not for any crime, but because of thine things," as in Jeremiah 3:7); so Hitzig, Keil Payne Smith; less naturally De Dieu, "because of those false gods" Jeremiah 2:35 Because. This "because" is misleading; there is no argument, but the statement of a supposed fact. The particle so rendered merely serves to introduce the speech of the Jews (like ὅτι). Shall turn; rather, hath turned. Judah had so long been undisturbed by any foreign power, that the people fancied the promises of Deuteronomy were being fulfilled, and that they, on their part, had pleased God by their formal obedience. I will plead with thee. Here, as in some other passages (e.g. Isaiah 66:16; Ezekiel 38:22), the word includes the sense of punishing. Jeremiah 2:36 Why gaddest thou about so much—many render, Why runnest thou so quickly; but the verb simply means to go, and it is enough to refer to foreign embassies, such as are alluded to in this very chapter (Jeremiah 2:18)—to change thy way? The "way" or policy of Judah was "changed," according as the party in power favored an Egyptian or an Assyrian alliance. Thou also shalt be ashamed of; rather, thou shalt also be brought to shame through. As thou art ashamed of Assyria (correct rendering as before). This is certainly difficult, for in the reign of Josiah it would appear that the political connection with Assyria still continued, Is it possible that Jeremiah, in these words, has in view rather the circumstances of Jehoiakim than those of Josiah? Does he not appear to look back upon Judah’s final "putting to shame through Assyria" as a thing of the past? And to what event can this expression refer but to the overthrow of Josiah at Megiddo (so Graf)? Jeremiah 2:37 From him; i.e. from Egypt, personified as a man (so whenever a people is referred to; a laud is represented as a woman). Egypt was, in fact, the only great power capable of assisting Judah at this time (see Introduction); yet even Egypt, the prophet says, shall disappoint her Jewish allies, for Jehovah has rejected thy confidences (i.e. the objects of thy confidence). As a matter of fact, "the King of Egypt came not again any more out of his laud" after Necho’s crushing defeat at Carehemish (2 Kings 24:7; comp. Jeremiah 37:5). Jeremiah 2:1-3 Recollections of the happy past. It is pleasing to see how the prophet of judgment opens his first oracle with touching reminiscences of the early happy relations between God and his people. Thus the young man connects his new utterances with ancient experience and the old well-tried principles of spiritual religion. Thus, too, he leads the way from thoughts of God’s goodness and memories of early devotion to a right condition of reflectiveness and tenderness of heart, in which the revelation of dark truths of the future will be less likely to harden his hearers in rebellion than if they had been spoken abruptly and harshly. I. MANY OF US, LIKE THE JEWS, MAY BE OF A HAPPY PAST. In years of deepening disappointment the sunny days of youth rise up to memory anal rebuke the cynical mood which sorrow is too ready to engender. In years of lessening spirituality the holy seasons of early devotion may be recalled to mind to startle us out of our self-complacency. It is well to reflect upon such a past history as that of the Jews. 1. This was marked by peculiar blessings on God’s side. (1) It was a time when God’s love and kindness were felt with all the fresh receptiveness of youth; and (2) it was memorable for remarkable Divine protection and blessing. 2. This was characterized by great fidelity on the side of Israel. In spite of frequent murmurings and rebellions, the age of the Exodus had been the heroic age of Israel’s national and religious history. (1) The people then followed God with affectionate devotion; they "went after him." (2) They consecrated themselves in purity and in service; "Israel was consecrated unto the Lord." (3) They were the earliest true servants of God—God’s "firstfruits." Yet the first may become last (Matthew 20:16). (4) This devotion was witnessed under trying circumstances. It was "in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown." God’s love is sometimes most manifest when outward circumstances are most distressing, and men are often more faithful to God in the wilderness than in the land flowing with milk and honey. What a strange irony of history is this, that though, while passing through the wilderness, the people looked forward to their happiness in the possession of the promised land, after they have had long possession of it they are led to look back on those early homeless wanderings as containing the most blessed age of their existence! But true happiness is ever found, not in external comfort, but in spiritual blessedness. Can we recollect early days when the battle of life was hard, and we longed for the ease which came with success, and now see that there, in that hard battle, our best days were lived, our true blessedness was realized? Such a memory must be full of pathetic suggestions. II. THE OF A HAPPY PAST IS . 1. God remembers the past. Not like the sour censor who remembers only our past faults, but rather like the kind parent who delights to call to mind the goodness of his children’s early days, God makes no mention of the sins of the wilderness life, but dwells graciously on its happy features. God remembers our past for our good: (1) as a link of affection after subsequent sin has driven us from him; (2) as an ideal to which he would bring us back; and (3)—still for our good—as a standard by which to measure our present condition, and a just ground for wholesome chastisement. 2. We are to recollect our happy past. Israel is reminded of his early days. If we have "lost our first love" it is well that we should know this: (1) that we may see how far we have fallen, and repent (Revelation 2:4, Revelation 2:5); (2) that the recollection of the blessedness of early devotion may revive the longing for its return; (3) that the consciousness that this was once attained may encourage us to believe that it is a possibility, and therefore may be attained again, In conclusion, note: 1. It is foolish simply to regret the happy past. The use of memory is not to give to us profitless melancholy, but to lead us actively to do better for the future. 2. It is a mistake for us to seek simply to regain the lost past, because (1) this is gone irrevocably, (2) the new age requires new forms of life, and (3) we should seek better things in the future. The second Adam is better than the first Adam before the fall. The kingdom of heaven is more glorious than the garden of Eden. The ripe Christian is higher in the spiritual life, though he may have fallen in the past, than the innocent child who has never known evil but has not experienced the discipline of life. Jeremiah 2:5-7 The ingratitude of sin. Of the many aspects under which sin may be viewed none is more sad than that of ingratitude to God. Every act of sin is a distinct act of ingratitude; for every such act is an offence against him who has shown to us nothing but love, and from whom we are taking innumerable favors in the very moment of our transgression. I. THE OF SIN IS SEEN IN THE OF GOD’S SAVING MERCY. So the Israelites forget the glorious deliverance from Egypt, and preservation amidst the horrors of the wilderness (Jeremiah 2:6). God is resorted to in distress only to be ignored, forsaken, insulted, directly rebelled against, when he has effected a deliverance. II. THE OF SIN IS SEEN IN THE OF THE PRESENT OF GOD. (Jeremiah 2:7.) The Israelites were eating the fruit of the good land which God had given to them while they were rebelling against him. This is even worse than ingratitude for past blessings. Such ingratitude might attempt to plead the excuse of failure of memory; but ingratitude for present mercies can only arise from gross spiritual blindness or willful disregard of all claims of justice and affection. III. THE OF SIN IS SEEN IN THE FALSE WHICH IS TO GOD. God asks, "What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me?" The conduct of the Jews was a direct indictment of the character of God. They deliberately insulted him, and rejected him for heathen deities. Such conduct could only be justified by the discovery that he was not what he claimed to be. After God has revealed himself to men in myriad fold evidences of goodness, there are some who hold, if they do not confess to, such evil conceptions of his character as amount to the basest calumnies of heartless ingratitude. IV. THE OF SIN IS SEEN IN THE OF THE GODS WHO ARE TO JEHOVAH. These are "false" gods. Jews who knew that converted religious worship into an unreality, and thus became themselves hollow and unreal. For this miserable result did they forsake the God of heaven and earth, their Savior and constant Benefactor! If they had found a rival with some pretensions to worth the insult would have been less. Herein is the grossness of the insult to God seen in all sin. What do men prefer to him? Transient pleasures, earthly dross. The pearl of great price is flung away, not for a smaller pearl, but for dust and ashes. V. THE OF SIN IS SEEN IN THE ABUSE AND OF GOD’S GIFTS. God gave the Israelites "garden-land," and they defiled it; they made God’s heritage an abomination. When we sin we do so by employing the very powers which God has bestowed upon us. We insult him by turning his own gifts into weapons of rebellion. We blaspheme him with the tongue which he has made. Wickedness in leading men. The great indictment of Israel reaches its climax in the accusation of the leaders of the people. Even they who should have been the guardians of truth and the vindicators of right have turned aside to evil ways. After this the defection of the whole nation appears utter and hopeless. We have here an instance of the terrible condition into which a country has fallen when its leaders, its teachers, its responsible civil and religious authorities, are unfaithful to their mission and set examples of wickedness. I. THE SIGNS OF IN LEADING MEN. 1. These are often unrecognized until the evil has wrought disastrous effects. For there are circumstances which make them difficult to detect, viz: (1) External propriety. The priests still minister at the altar, the Law is still slavishly observed in ceremonial details, rulers still exercise authority, prophets still write and preach in orthodox language, and on the outside all things go on respectably, while there is rottenness hidden within. This was specially the case after the reformation of Josiah, when an outward respect for religious observances was established without any purification of heart or revival of spiritual life. (2) Respect for authority. Many people are too subservient to question the character of their leaders. They would rather unite with their rulers in crucifying Christ than recognize his claims against the authority of these men. They do not judge of the character of their leaders by any standard of morals, but found their standard of morals on that character. 2. The signs of wickedness in leading men may be detected in its bearing on the special functions of their respective offices. The priests are the temple servants of Jehovah, yet they never seek their Master. They who are familiar with the precepts of the Law know nothing of the person and will of the Lawmaker. The civil rulers who are ruling under a theocracy directly transgress the Law of God. The prophets lend themselves to a corrupt source of inspiration. So now again we may see men abusing the powers of office, and sinning in the very exercise of the responsibilities which are entrusted to them for the sake of the maintenance of right and truth. Therefore we must be on our guard, and not simply follow those who claim to lead because of their rank or office. Men of leading are not always men of light. We must try the spirits (1 John 4:1), and judge of the character of those who claim to lead us by their actions, "Ye shall know them by their fruits" (Matthew 7:16). II. THE GUILT OF IN LEADING. 1. It is contrary to knowledge. The priests handle the Law. Men of influence are usually in a position to learn what is wise and good. Teachers of religion may be presumed to know more than the average of men. How great, then, is their guilt when their conduct is corrupt (Romans 2:21-23) 2. It is contrary to profession. These leaders set themselves up as examples to others, and then even they go wrong. They who assume a high position should justify that position by manifesting a high character. More is expected of the professed Christian than of the confessed man of the world. 3. It is an abuse of great responsibility. If men willfully employ positions of trust as means of violating the very objects of those trusts, their guilt is proportionate to the privileges they have received and the honors they have accepted. He who uses a Christian pulpit to propagate doctrines subversive of Christianity is guilty of base treason. III. THE EFFECTS OF IN LEADING MEN. These will be great in proportion to the influence of the men, and will partake of the special characteristics of that influence, viz.: 1. Breadth. Leading men have a wide influence, and the seeds of evil which they sow will be widespread. 2. Depth. Leading men have power at their disposal. Their example is weighty. 3. Subtlety. Dignity, prestige, authority, disguise the evil which would be recognized if it were stripped of the pomp of price. Therefore: (1) see that good men are chosen for posts of influence, and let the selection and education of civil and religious leaders be a matter of more prayer and thought on the part of the Church; and (2) be not too ready to follow with blind obedience those who may be in high positions. Be independent and watchful. Follow the one infallible Leader, "the Good Shepherd," Christ. Broken cisterns. I. ALL MEN NEED . The soul has its thirst (Psalms 63:1). 1. This is natural. We are born with instincts which reach out to the unseen, and the worldly habits which deaden these instincts cannot utterly eradicate them. If they could, we should cease to be men and become merely rational brutes, for "man is a religious animal." 2. This is intensified by the presence of life. Thirst is increased by a heated atmosphere, hard work, disease, and special agents, e.g. salt water; so spiritual thirst is deepened by the heat and burden of life, by its toil and battle, by the fever of passion and the weariness of sorrow, by the poison of sin and the disappointment of delusive promises of satisfaction. How pathetic is this picture! If the living water is forsaken, cisterns—even poor, broken cisterns, with scant supply of foul water, are resorted to, for in some way the burning thirst of the soul must be quenched. II. THEY WHO FORSAKE GOD INJURE THEIR OWN SOULS. Hitherto the prophet has spoken of the guilt of unfaithfulness. He now speaks of the loss this entails. It is right that we should first think of the simple sinfulness of our sin, for this is its most important feature. But it is profitable to consider also the folly of it, and the misery that it must bring upon us. This is not to be all relegated to the world of future punishments. It is to be felt now, and would be felt keenly if men were not blind to their own condition. As godliness has the promise of the life which now is as well as of that which is to come, so ungodliness brings present loss. This must not be looked for in the direction of material profit and loss, of bodily pain and pleasure, towards which the Jew was too much inclined to turn his attention. It is inward and spiritual, yet it is not the less real. For the spirit is the self. When the noise of the world is stilled, in silent watches of the night, in lonely hours of reflection, does not the poor homeless soul feel some sense of unrest, some vague thirst which no pleasure or possession has yet satisfied? III. THE INJURY ARISING FROM GOD IS FOUND FIRST IN THE VERY LOSS OF GOD. God is more to us than all his gifts. The greatest loss of the prodigal son is not the food which he craves for in the land of famine, but the father whom he has forsaken. God is the chief source of the soul’s refreshment. Men talk of the duty of religion. They should consider its blessings, and learn to sock God as they seek their bread and water—the first necessaries of life. God is a Fountain of living water. 1. His refreshing grace is ever flowing, and in great abundance, not limited in quantity as that of the largest cistern may be so that there is enough for all, and it may be had at all times. 2. It is fresh, like the mountain stream bubbling forth cool from the rock, not like the stale waters of the cistern. "He giveth more grace" (James 4:6), and "grace for grace" (John 1:16). The Christian does not have to go back to the grace of God in past ages. There is a fresh stream now flowing, and prayer opens to us fresh supplies of the love and help of God. 3. It is wholesome and invigorating, unlike the earthy waters of the cistern. How foolish, then, to turn aside from such a supply for anything! We need no better. IV. THE INJURY ARISING FROM GOD IS BY THE NATURE OF THE MEN TURN TO. 1. These are stir-made. God makes the fresh spring, man makes the cistern. Can our work equal God’s? 2. They are limited in supply—reservoirs, not flowing streams. 3. They are often impure; the cistern soon gets impregnated with unwholesome matter. 4. They are imperfect of their kind. The cisterns are broken; what little unwholesome water they have leaks away. All these characteristics apply to the waters men turn to in preference to God—e.g. human religion, philosophy, public occupation, social distraction, pleasure; these all fail to slake the soul’s thirst. "Cor nostrum inquistum est donec requiescat in te." Sin self-corrected. I. SIN BRINGS ITS OWN . 1. Sin reveals its evil character as it comes into existence, and is no sooner completed than it is regarded by its parent with disgust. The wicked action which looks attractive in desire is repulsive to reflect upon. The very sight and thought and memory of sin are bitter. The burden of guilt, the shame of an evil memory, the sin itself is thus its own chastisement. 2. Sin naturally produces its punishment. The penalty of sin is not arbitrarily adjudicated nor is it inflicted ab extra. It is the natural fruit of sin. It is reaping what we have sown (Galatians 6:7, Galatians 6:8). This fruit the guilty man must eat as his bread of sorrows (Proverbs 1:31). Thus intemperance naturally breeds disease, mental degradation, poverty, and dishonor. Greedy selfishness brings upon a man dislike and provokes retaliation. Unfaithfulness to God deprives us of the communion of his Spirit and the protection of his providence. We have to wait for no formal sentence, no executioner. The law within us carries its own sentence, and is its own executioner, and even as we do wrong we begin to bring upon ourselves the penalty of our conduct. H. THE OF SIN IS TO REPROVE AND CORRECT. The headache of the morning is a warning to the drunkard not to repeat the debauch of the night. 1. Chastisement corrects by bringing us to our right mind. It sobers a man, and thus helps him to look at his life in a true light. 2. Chastisement corrects by revealing the true character of sin. Its charms are all torn off, and the hideous monster is revealed in its naturally hateful shape. Then we see that all sin involves our forsaking God, and is due to the loss of respect for his will—the loss of the "fear of God" according to the Old Testament view, the loss of love to God according to the Christian view. III. IT IS NOT WELL TO WAIT FOR THE OF BEFORE OF SIN. 1. The chastisement may be a terrible experience from which we would fain shrink if we knew the nature of it. 2. Sin is evil in itself, and the sooner we stay our hand from it the better for ourselves, for the world, and for the honor of God. It is better not to fall than to fall and be restored. 3. God has provided a higher means than chastisement for delivering us from sin. This is an exercise of his goodness to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4). The gospel shows us how Christ can save us from our sins by drawing us to himself and constraining us by his love to walk in his footsteps of holiness. The stains of sin. I. SIN STAINS THE AND LIFE OF MEN. 1. Sin leaves stains behind it. No man can have clean hands after touching it. These stains are of two classes: (1) internal—the soiled imagination, the corrupted will, the vitiated habit which a single act of sin tends to produce; and (2) external, in the form of guilt before God, and lowered reputation in the sight of men. 2. The stains of sin are not natural. They are no part of the true color of a man’s character. They are all contracted by experience. 3. These stains are all evil things. They are not like marks of immature development or of the necessary imperfection of humanity. They are products of corruption. II. NO MAN CAN WASH THE GUILT OF SIN FROM HIS . (Jeremiah 13:23.) The Jews were attempting this by denying the offences charged against them or excusing them. They would not admit their apostasy; but in vain. 1. Sin cannot be undone. We cannot recall the past. History is unchangeable. What we have done we have done. 2. Sin cannot be hidden. We can never hide it from God, who searches the heart (1 John 3:20). We cannot long or perfectly hide it from man. It will color our lives and reveal itself in action, in conversation, in countenance. 3. Sin cannot be excused. We may point to our training, our temptations, our natural weakness, our ignorance; and no doubt these facts are important as determining the degree of our guilt (Luke 23:34). But the sin itself, greater or less as it may be, cannot be explained away. Our sins are our own or they would not be sins. 4. Sin cannot be expiated by us. Sacrifice is of no real avail. That was only acceptable as a symbol and type of God’s method of cleansing sin. Penance could only act as discipline for the future; for the past it is no better than a fruitless sacrifice. Future goodness cannot atone for the past; for that is required on its own account, and if it were perfect it would be no more than it ought to be—we should still be "unprofitable servants." III. No MAN CAN WASH THE STAIN OF SIN FROM HIS LIFE. Men have tried all methods; but in vain. 1. Simple determination to conquer it. But he who commits sin is the slave of sin (John 8:34), and a slave who cannot emancipate himself. The worst effect of sin is seen in the corruption of the will. Hence we have not the power to reform until our will is renewed, i.e. until, in New Testament language, we are "born again." 2. Charge of external circumstances. This is a helpful accessory of more effectual means, but it is not sufficient in itself, because sin is internal, and no change of scene will effect a change of heart. A man may cross the Atlantic, but he will be the same being in America that he was in England. He may be lifted from the dunghill to a throne, but if he had a vicious nature in his low condition he will carry that with him to his new sphere. Base metal does not become gold by receiving the guinea’s stamp. Sanitary arrangements, education, reforming influences, etc; are all helpful, but none are fundamental enough to effect the complete change. The stains are too ingrained for any such washing to remove them. IV. IN THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST WE MAY SEE THE MEANS FOR BOTH THE GUILT OF AND THE STAIN OF SIN. 1. Guilt is shown to be removed by the free forgiveness of God in Christ, for no merits of our own, but for the sake of his work and sacrifice; by no effort of ours, but on condition of repentance and the faith which trusts him as our Savior, and submits to him as our Lord (Acts 10:43). 2. The stain of indwelling sin is shown to be removed by the renewal of our nature, so that we are born "from above" and "of the Spirit" (John 3:3-8), and become new creatures in Christ by means of the same faith of trust and submission (2 Corinthians 5:17). Jeremiah 2:35-37 False confidence. I. THE GROUNDS OF FALSE . 1. Assumed innocence. Israel says, "I am innocent;" "I have not sinned." This assumption may result from (1) self-deception, or (2) hypocrisy. 2. A claim to be favored by God. Israel says again, "His anger has turned from me." Present peace is taken as a warrant for expecting continued security, so that the very forbearance of God is converted into an excuse for presumption and indifference. Perhaps, too, pride comes in and aids the assumption that the guilty people are special favorites of Heaven and will be protected, whatever wrong they do. This was the mistake of the contemporaries of our Lord when they relied on the mere fact that they were Abraham’s children (John 8:39). 3. Trust in human aid. Judah turned first to Assyria, and then to Egypt. So men look to worldly associations for security in trouble. 4. Reliance on diplomatic skill. Israel turned from Assyria to Egypt when the former power failed and the latter was in the ascendancy. Men think to protect themselves by their own ingenuity. II. THE FAILURE OF FALSE . The reasons of this may be noted: 1. The reality of sin. This is not the less real because it is denied. God still sees it. It still bears its necessary fruits. 2. The rejection of God. Israel turned from God to man. How then could he expect God’s continued protection? 3. Lack of principle. Israel turned about from Egypt to Assyria. There was no settled policy. When expediency is the sole guide of conduct we are sure to be landed in ultimate failure. 4. The character and fate of the human objects of confidence. These were rejected by God. They who trust them must share their doom. It is always vain to "put confidence in princes" (Psalms 118:9). But when these are bad men, godless men, rejected by God, the consequences of trust in them will be fatal. We are always involved in the fate of what we trust ourselves to. If we trust to the world, to human aid, to errors and falsehoods, to evil things, the certain overthrow of these must involve us in its ruin. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 2:1-14 A sweet remembrance embittered; or Divine delight turned by his people’s ingratitude into Divine distress. I. GOD GREATLY IN HIS PEOPLE’S LOVE. See the similitude he employs: "the love of thine espousals." It is difficult for us to recall any period in the history of Israel when such high praise as this was merited by them. For it is of their love to God rather than of his to them—though there was never any doubt about that-that the prophet is here speaking. But when was Israel’s love at all of such devoted and intense order as to deserve to be thus spoken of? It is difficult to say. And he that knows his own heart will be slow to credit himself with any such ardent affection as is spoken of here. The explanation of such language is found in that joyous appreciation by God of all movements of our hearts towards him which leads him to speak of our poor offerings as if they were altogether worthy and good. Cf. "Lord, when saw we thee and hungred, or athirst," etc.? (Matthew 25:44); also our Lord’s estimate of the widow’s two mites; the cup of cold water given in his Name, etc. Still, whilst the believer is compelled to confess that his Lord’s loving estimate of his poor service and affection is an exaggerated one, it is one which is nevertheless founded upon a very blessed fact. There is such a thing as the child of God’s "first love," when our delight in God was intense, real, abiding; when prayer and service were prompt and frequent and delightful. Then we were content to leave the world, and to go out into the dreary wilderness if but our God led the way. Then there was not, as now there too often is, a wide separation between our religious and our common life; but, as Jeremiah 2:3 tells, we ourselves and all we had were counted as holy unto the Lord. We sought that in whatsoever we did we might do all unto the glory of God. Now, such service is a delight to the heart of God. We are shown, therefore, that we can add to or diminish the joy of God. Such power have we. And the Divine appreciation of such service is shown by his anger towards those that in anywise hurt his servants. "All that devour him," etc. (Jeremiah 2:3). The Book of the Revelation is one long and awful declaration of how the Lord God will avenge his saints. II. BUT THIS DIVINE DELIGHT HAS BECOME DIVINE . The remembrance has become hitter. The cause of this change is by reason of his people having forsaken him. As is the joy of God at men’s hearts yielding to him, so is his grief at their unfaithfulness. The heart of God is no figure of speech, but a reality. It rejoices in our love, it mourns over our sin. And this all the more because of the aggravation attending such forsaking him. For: 1. It is in violation of solemn vows and pledges of fidelity which, we have given him. The yielding of the soul up to God is likened unto the espousal of the soul to God. At the time we made our surrender we joyfully confessed, "Thy vows are upon me, O God: O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord." Now, to go back from God is to violate all these sacred vows. 2. And whatever departures from God have taken place, they have been without any provocation whatsoever. Verse 5, "What iniquity have your fathers found in me?" etc. Has he been hard with us, or impatient, or unready to answer prayer, or faithless to his promise? Can any who have forsaken God charge him so? 3. And such forsaking of God has been an act of base and shameful ingratitude (cf. verse 6). God had brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt, etc. And he had brought them into a plentiful country, but they had polluted it, etc. (verse 7). All men are under a vast debt of gratitude to God, even the heathen—so St. Paul teaches us—who never heard his Name. But how much more vast is the debt of those who have "tasted that the Lord is gracious," and known his redeeming love, and who yet "turn back and walk no more with him!" 4. Such departures from God are characterized by most unheard-of and monstrous foolishness. The prophet in contemplating it (verse 12) calls on the heavens to be astonished, etc. For such conduct was unheard of (cf. verses 10, 11). Idolatrous nations remained true to their gods, though they were no gods; but Israel, etc. Too often is it that the professed people of God are put to shame by those who make no such profession at all. And it was as monstrous as it was unheard of (cf. verse 13). It was as if any should abandon the waters of some bright, pure running fountain for the muddy mixture of a tank or cistern, which at the best is almost repulsive to one accustomed to the fountains of living water. And the folly of such exchange is even exceeded, for not only was it this foul cistern for which the living fountains had been forsaken, but even these very cisterns were flawed and fractured so that they could "hold no water." The force of folly could no further go. And men do the like of this still. As, e.g; when they forsake the faith of the Father in heaven for the creed of the materialist, the agnostic, the atheist; when they choose rather the peace of mind which contemplation of their own correctness of conduct can afford instead of the joyful assurance of sin forgiven and acceptance with God, gained through Jesus Christ our Lord; when, in the controversy that is ever going on between God and the world, they decide for the world; when, reliance is placed on a religion of sacraments, professions and forms of worship, instead of that sincere surrender of the heart to God, that spiritual religion which alone is of worth in his sight; when the lot of the people of God is rejected in order that the pleasures of sin may be enjoyed for a season, and in many other such ways. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ That this chapter (to which the first four verses of Jer 4:1-31. ought to have been attached) belongs to the time of Josiah seems to be proved by Jeremiah 3:6, and the years immediately following the reformation are not obscurely referred to in Jeremiah 3:4, Jeremiah 3:10. Naegelsbach gives a striking distribution of its contents. The general subject is a call to "return." First, the prophet shows that, in spite of Deu 24:1, etc; a return is possible (Deuteronomy 24:1-5). Then he describes successively an invitation already uttered in the past, and its sad results (Deuteronomy 24:6-10), and the call which will, with a happier issue, be sounded in the future (Deuteronomy 24:11 -25); this is followed by an earnest exhortation, addressed first to Israel and then to Judah (Jeremiah 4:1-4). Jeremiah 3:1 They say, etc.; as the margin of Authorized Version correctly states, the Hebrew simply has "saying." Various ingenious attempts have been made to explain this. Hitzig, for instance, followed by Dr. Payne Smith, thinks that "saying" may be an unusual equivalent for "that is to say," "for example," or the like; while the Vulgate and Rashi, followed by De Wette and Rosenmüller, assume an ellipsis, and render, "It is commonly said," or "I might say." But far the most natural way is to suppose that "saying" is a fragment of the superscription of the prophecy, the remainder of which has been accidentally placed in Jeremiah 3:6, and that we should read, "And the word of the Lord came unto me in the days of Josiah the king, saying." So J. D. Michaelis, Ewald, Graf, Naegelsbach. If a man put away his wife. The argument is founded on the law of Deu 24:1-4, which forbade an Israelite who had divorced his wife to take her again, if in the interval she had been married to another. The Jews had broken a still more sacred tie, not once only, but repeatedly; they worshipped "gods many and lords many;" so that they had no longer any claim on Jehovah in virtue of his "covenant" with his people. Shall he return, etc.? rather, Ought he to return? The force of the term is potential (comp. Authorized Version of Gen 34:7, "which thing ought not to be done"). Shall not in the next clause is rather would not. Yet return again to me. So Peshito, Targum, Vulgate, and the view may seem to be confirmed by the invitations in Deuteronomy 24:12, Deuteronomy 24:14, Deuteronomy 24:22. But as it is obviously inconsistent with the argument of the verse, and as the verb may equally well be the infinitive or the imperative, most recent commentators render, "And thinkest thou to return to me?" (literally, and returning to me! implying that the very idea is inconceivable). Probably Jeremiah was aware that many of the Jews were dissatisfied with the religious condition of the nation (comp. verse 4). Jeremiah 3:2 Lift up thine eyes, etc. No superficial reformation can be called "returning to Jehovah." The prophet, therefore, holds up the mirror to the sinful practices which a sincere repentance must extinguish. The high places; rather, the bare hills (comp. on Jeremiah 2:20). In the ways hast thou sat for them. By the roadside (comp. Genesis 38:14; Proverbs 7:12). As the Arabian in the wilderness. So early was the reputation of the Bedouin already won (comp. Judges 6:1-40.). Jerome ad loc. remarks, "Quae gens latrociniis dedita usque hodie incursat terminos Palaestinae." Jeremiah 3:4 Wilt thou not, etc.? rather, Truly from this time thou callest unto me (literally, Dost thou not, etc.? a common way of giving an energetic assurance). The prophet admits the apparent revival of faith in Jehovah which attended the compulsory reformation under Josiah, but denies that it was more than apparent (comp, Jeremiah 3:10). The guide of my youth; rather, the companion (the familiar associate); so in Proverbs 2:17. Comp. Jeremiah 2:2, and especially Isaiah 54:6, "and a wife of youth", "that she should be rejected [how incredible a thing!]" Jeremiah 3:5 Will he reserve? rather, Will he retain, etc.? It is a continuation of the supposed address of Judah. To the end? rather, everlastingly? Behold, thou hast spoken, etc.; rather, Behold, thou hast spoken it, but hast done these evil things, and hast prevailed (i.e. succeeded). The substance of the two verses (4 and 5) is well given by Ewald: "Unhappily her power truly to return has been exhausted, as not long ago after fresh signs of the Divine displeasure she prayed in beautiful language to [Jehovah] for new favor and abatement of the old sufferings, [but] she immediately fell again into her sin, and carried it out with cool determination." Jeremiah 3:6 The Lord said also unto me, etc. It has been suggested (see on Jeremiah 3:1) that this introductory clause belongs rather to Jeremiah 3:1. Some sort of introduction, however, seems called for; Ewald supposes a shorter form, such as "And the Lord said further unto me." The view is not improbable, for although there is evidently a break between Jeremiah 3:5 and Jeremiah 3:6, there are points of contact enough between Jeremiah 3:1-5 and the following discourse to prove that they represent the same prophetic period (comp. Jeremiah 3:10 with Jeremiah 3:3, Jeremiah 3:8, Jeremiah 3:9 with Jeremiah 3:1, Jeremiah 3:12 with Jeremiah 3:5, Jeremiah 3:19 with Jeremiah 3:4). Backsliding Israel; literally, apostasy Israel. Usually a change or modification of a name is a sign of honor; here, however, it marks the disgrace of the bearer. Israel is apostasy personified (comp. Jeremiah 3:14, Jeremiah 3:22). She is gone up; rather, her wont hath been to go up. Jeremiah 3:7 And I said after she had done, etc.; rather, and I said, After she hath done all these things, she will return unto me. And her treacherous sister. Observe the distinction between the two sisters. Israel had openly broken the political and religious connection with Jehovah (Hosea 8:4); Judah nominally retained both, but her heart was towards the false gods (comp. the allegory in Ezekiel 23:1-49; which is evidently founded upon our passage). Jeremiah 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes, etc.; rather, and I saw that even because apostate Israel had, etc. But this is exceedingly strange in this connection. The preceding words seem to compel us either (with the Vulgate) to omit "and I saw" altogether, or (with Ewald) to read the first letter of the verb differently, and render "and she saw," taking up the statement of Jer 3:7 ("saw; yea, she saw," etc.). The latter view is favored by a phrase in Jeremiah 3:10 (see note below). The same corruption of the text (which is palaeographically an easy one) occurs probably in Ezekiel 23:13. The error must, however, be a very ancient one, for the Septuagint already has καὶεἷδον. Jeremiah 3:9 Through the lightness of her whoredom; i.e. through the slight importance which she attached to her whoredom. So apparently the ancient versions. The only sense, however, which the word kol ever has in Hebrew is not "lightness," but "sound," "voice," and perhaps "rumor" (Genesis 45:16). Hence it is more strictly accurate to render "through the cry." etc. (comp. Genesis 4:10; Genesis 19:13), or "through the fame," etc.. But neither of these seems quite suitable to the context, and if, as King James’s translators seem to have felt it necessary to do, we desert the faithful translation, and enter on the path of conjecture, why not emend kol into klon (there is no vav, and such fragments of true readings are not altogether uncommon in the Hebrew text), which at once yields a good meaning—"through the disgrace of her whoredom ?" Ewald thinks that kol may be taken in the sense of k’lon; but this is really more arbitrary than emending the text. With stones, etc. (see Jeremiah 2:27). Jeremiah 3:10 For all this; i.e. though Judah had seen the punishment of apostate Israel (Jeremiah 3:7, Jeremiah 3:8). So Rashi, Naegelsbach, Payne Smith. Most commentators suppose the phrase to refer to Judah’s obstinate wickedness (Jeremiah 3:9), but this gives a weak sense. "Judah defiled the land, etc; and yet notwithstanding her repentance was insincere"—this is by no means a natural sequence of ideas. The right exposition increases the probability of the correction proposed at the beginning of Jer 3:8. Jeremiah 3:11 It is very noteworthy that Jeremiah should have still so warm a feeling for the exiles of the northern kingdom (more than a hundred years after the great catastrophe). Hath justified herself. "To justify" can mean "to show one’s self righteous," as well as "to make one’s self righteous," just as "to sanctify" can mean, "to show one’s self holy" (Isaiah 8:13), as well as "to make one’s self holy." In spite of Israel’s apostasy, she has shown herself less worthy of punishment than Judah, who has had before her the warning lesson of Israel’s example, and who has been guilty of the most hateful of all sins, hypocrisy (comp. verse 7). Jeremiah 3:12 Israel, therefore, shall be recalled from exile. Her sins are less than those of Judah, and how long and bitterly has she suffered for them! Toward the north. For Israel had been carried captive into the regions to the north of the Assyrian empire (2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 18:11). Comp. the pro-raise in Jeremiah 31:8. I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you; rather, my face to fall towards you (i.e. upon your return). Jeremiah 3:13 This condition of restoration to favor. Israel is to acknowledge, or perceive, notice, recognize, her guilt. And hast scattered thy ways; alluding to that "gadding about" in quest of foreign alliances, reproved in the preceding chapter (Jeremiah 2:36). Comp. "interlacing her ways," Jeremiah 2:23. Jeremiah 3:14 Turn, O backsliding children. There is a play upon words, or rather upon senses, in the original, "Turn, ye turned away ones" (comp. Jeremiah 3:12). To whom is this addressed? To the Israelites in the narrower sense, for there is nothing to indicate a transition. Long as they have been removed from the paternal hearth, they are still "sons." For I am married unto you. The same Hebrew phrase occurs in Jeremiah 31:32. Its signification has been a subject of dispute. From the supposed necessities of exegesis in Jeremiah 31:32, some (e.g. Pococke and Gesenins) have translated, "for I have rejected you," but the connection requires not "for" but "though," which, however, is an inadmissible rendering; besides, the Hebrew verb in question nowhere has the sense of "reject" elsewhere. The literal meaning is for I have been a lord over you, i.e. a husband. Israel is despondent, and fears to return. Jehovah repeats his invitation, assuring Israel that he does not regard the marriage bond as broken. He is still (in spite of Jer 31:8) the husband, and Israel the bride (comp. Hosea 2:1-23.; Isaiah 1:1; Isaiah 54:6, etc.). One of a city, and two of a family. The promises of God are primarily to communities, but this does not prevent him from devoting the most special care to individuals. "One of a city, and two of a family," even though there should be but one faithful Lot in a city, and two such in a family (larger than a city, a single tribe containing only a few mishpa-khoth, or clans), yet I will admit these few to the promised blessings." Calvin’s remark is worth noticing: "Hie locus dignus est observatu, quia ostendit Deus non esse, cur alii alios expectent; deinde etiam si corpus ipsum populi putreseat in suis peccatis, tamen si pauci ad ipsum redeant, se illis etiam fore placabilem." The historical facts to which the prophecy corresponds are variously regarded. Theodoret, Grotius, etc; suppose it to have been fulfilled exclusively in the return from Babylon; St. Jerome and others think rather of the Messianic period. Hengstenberg finds a continuous fulfillment, beginning at the time of Cyrus, when many belonging to the ten tribes joined themselves to the returning Judahites. He finds a further continuation in the times of the Maccabees, and in fact a continually growing fulfillment in preparation for that complete one brought in by Christ, when the premised blessings were poured out upon the whole δωδεκάφυλον (Luke 2:36). "Zion and the holy land were at that time the seat of the kingdom of God, so that the return to the latter was inseparable from the return to the former." Dr. Guthe, however, the latest critical commentator on Jeremiah, thinks that the passage can be explained otherwise, viz." from each city one by one, and from each family two by two." This gives a more obvious explanation; but the ordinary rendering is more natural, and the explanation based upon it is in the highest degree worthy of the Divine subject. The doubt, of course, is whether in the Old Testament a special providence is extended elsewhere so distinctly to the individual. But Jeremiah is pre-eminently an individualizing prophet; he feels the depth and reality of individual as opposed to corporate life as no one else among the prophets. (At any rate, one point is clear, that the prophet foresees that the number of the exiles who return will be but small compared with the increase to be divinely vouchsafed to them; see verse 16.) Jeremiah 3:15 Pastors. In Jeremiah 23:4, the same word is rendered in the Authorized Version "shepherds," which would he less open to misunderstanding here than "pastors," civil and not spiritual authorities being intended (see on Jeremiah 2:8). The prophecy is, of course, not inconsistent with passages like Jeremiah 23:5, but as the national continuance of Israel was guaranteed, it was natural to refer to the subordinate civil authorities. According to mine heart; better, according to my mind; for here, as also in 1 Samuel 13:14, it is something very far from perfection which is ascribed to the chosen rulers. "Heart" is sometimes equivalent to "understanding." Jeremiah 3:16 When ye be multiplied; a common feature in pictures of the latter days (Jeremiah 23:3; Ezekiel 36:11; Hosea 2:1). They shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord. A definition of the Messianic period on its negative side—the ark shall he no longer the center of religious worship. We must remember that the ark is represented in the Law as the throne of Jehovah, who was "enthroned upon the cherubim" on the lid of the ark. It is in virtue of this sacramental presence that the temple is called the "dwelling-places" of Jehovah (e.g. Psalms 46:4; Psalms 84:1, where Authorized Version has wrongly "tabernacles"). Now, in the Messianic period the consciousness of Jehovah’s presence was to be so widely spread, at any rate in the center of God’s kingdom, the holy city, that the ark would no longer be thought of; it would be, if not destroyed (we know, as a matter of fact, that the ark was destroyed in some unrecorded way), yet at least become utterly unimportant. Jerusalem would then naturally succeed to the title "Jehovah’s throne" (applied to the temple in Jeremiah 14:12). Neither shall it come to mind. The same phrase is used of the old heaven and earth as compared with the new (Isaiah 65:17). In the concluding clauses, "visit" should rather be "miss," and "that be done" should be "it [viz. the ark] be made." On the whole subject of the prophetic descriptions of the worship of the Messianic period—descriptions which often wear at any rate a superficial appearance of inconsistency, see the luminous remarks of Professor Riehm, ’Messianic Prophecy,’ pp. 161-163. At the same time, we must be extremely cautious how far we admit that Old Testament prophecies of the latter days have received a complete fulfillment in the Christian Church, considering how far the latter is from the realizable ideal, and also the importance attached in the New Testament as well as in the Old to the continuance of Israel as a nation. Jeremiah 3:17 Jerusalem’s spiritual glory. With Jeremiah’s description, comp. that of Ezekiel," The name of the city from that day shall be, "The Lord is there" (Ezekiel 48:35). This gives us the positive aspect of the Messianic period (comp. on verse 16). Jerusalem shall be the spiritual center of the universe, because it is pervaded by the presence of the Most High (comp. Isaiah 4:5). May we explain with Dr. Payne Smith, "Jerusalem, i.e. the Christian Church?" Only if the provisional character of the existing Church be kept well in view. All the nations; i.e. all except the chosen people. The word for "nations" (goyim) is that often rendered "heathen." To the name; or, because of the name, i.e. because Jehovah has revealed his name at Jerusalem. The phrase occurs again with a commentary in Joshua 9:9, "Thy servants are come because of the name of Jehovah thy God, for we have heard the fame of him, and all that he did in Egypt." But we must not suppose that "name" is equivalent to "revelation;" rather, there is here an ellipsis—"because of the name" is equivalent to "because of the revelation of the name," or better still, " … of the Name." The "Name of Jehovah" is in fact a distinct hypostasis in the Divine Being; no mere personification of the Divine attributes (as the commentators are fond of saying), but (in the theological sense) a Person. The term, "Name of such and such a God,:’ is common to Hebrew with Phoenician religion. In the famous inscription of Eshmunazar, King of Zidon, Ashtoreth is called "Name of Baal;" and to whichever proper name the religious term Name may be attached, it means a personal existence in the Divine nature, specially related to the world of humanity; or, to use the language of Hengstenberg, the bridge between the latter and the transcendent heights of God as he is in himself. In short, the Name of Jehovah is virtually identical with the Logos of St. John, or the second Person in the blessed Trinity. Hence the personal language now and again used of this Name in the Old Testament, e.g. Isaiah 30:27, "The Name of Jehovah cometh from far … his lips are full of indignation;" Isaiah 26:8," The desire of our soul was to thy Name;" Isaiah 59:19, "So shall they fear the Name of Jehovah from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun." Comp. also Proverbs 18:10; men do not run for safety to an abstract idea. Nor will all nations in the latter days resort either to a localized or to a spiritually diffused Jerusalem in the future, to gratify a refined intellectual curiosity. Neither shall they walk, etc.; i.e. the Israelites of the latter days; not the "nations" before mentioned (as Hengstenberg). The phrase occurs eight times in Jeremiah, and is always used of the Israelites. The word rendered "imagination" is peculiar (sheriruth). As Hengstenberg has pointed out, it occurs independently only in a single passage (Deuteronomy 29:18); for in Psalms 81:13, it is plainly derived, not from the living language, from which it had disappeared, but from the written. (The close phraseological affinity between the Books of Deuteronomy and Jeremiah has been already indicated.) The rendering of the Authorized Version, which is supported by the Septuagint, Peshito, Targum, is certainly wrong; the Vulgate has pravitatum; the etymological meaning is "stubbornness." The error of the versions may perhaps have arisen out of a faulty inference from Psalms 81:13, where it stands in parallelism to "their counsels." Jeremiah 3:18 The reunion of the separated portions of the nation (comp. Ezekiel 37:16, Ezekiel 37:17; Hosea 1:11; Isaiah 11:12, Isaiah 11:13). Observe, Israel is converted first, then Judah. This detail in the prophecy is not to be pressed. Not that the force of any prophecy is to be evaded, but that in this case the form of the statement is so clearly conditioned by the abounding sympathy of the prophet for the ten tribes. These had been so long languishing in captivity that they needed a special premise. The form of the promise is imaginative; this seems clearly to follow from the fact that in no other passage (except, indeed, Jeremiah 31:9) is there a reference to the spiritual primacy of Etihraim in the restored nation. Out of the land of the north; i.e. Assyria and (Jeremiah 1:14) Babylonia. The Septuagint inserts, "and from all the countries," agreeably to Jeremiah 16:15; Jeremiah 23:3; Jeremiah 32:37. Of course, it would not be an accurate statement that the exiles from Judah were confined to "the land of the north." This is a fair specimen of the supplementing tendency of the Septuagint, though it is possible, and even probable, that the Hebrew text has suffered in a less degree from the same tendency on the part of later copyists. Jeremiah 3:19 The concluding words of the last verse have turned the current of the prophet’s thoughts. "Unto your fathers." Yes; how bright the prospect when that ideal of Israel was framed in the Divine counsels! Condescending accommodation to human modes of thought; But I said fails to represent the relation of this verse to the preceding. Render, I indeed had said, and continue, How will I, etc. Put thee among the children. This is a very common rendering, but of doubtful correctness. It assumes that, from the point of view adopted (under Divine guidance) in the prophecies of Jeremiah, the various heathen nations were in the relation of sons to Jehovah. This is most improbable; indeed, even Exodus 4:22 does not really favor the doctrine of the universal fatherhood of God in the fullest sense of the word. Moreover, the pronoun rendered "thee" is in the feminine, indicating that the prophet has still in his mind the picture of Israel as Jehovah’s bride. It would surely be an absurd statement that Jehovah would put his bride among the children! Render, therefore, How will I found thee with sons! comparing, for the use of the Hebrew verb, 1 Samuel 2:8, and for that of the preposition, Isaiah 54:11. It is, in fact, the familiar figure by which a family or a nation is likened to a building ("house of Abraham," "of Israel"). Jehovah’s purpose had been to make Abraham’s seed as the dust of the earth (Genesis 13:16). Instead of that, the restored exiles would be few, and weak in proportion, so that the Jewish Church of the early restoration period is represented as complaining, "We made not the land salvation, neither were inhabitants of the world produced" (Isaiah 26:18). A special Divine promise was needed to surmount this grave difficulty. A goodly … nations; rather, a heritage the most glorious among the nations. So in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 20:6, Ezekiel 20:15) Palestine is described as "the glory of all lands." The want of irrigation, and the denudation of the land, have no doubt much diminished the natural beauty and fertility of Palestine; but wherever moderate care is bestowed on the soil, how well it rewards it! Thou shalt call me … shalt not turn; rather, thou wilt call me … wilt not turn. It is the continuation of Jehovah’s ideal for Israel. In response to his loving gifts, Israel would surely recognize him as her Father, and devote to him all her energies in willing obedience. Father is here used, not in the spiritual and individualizing sense of the New Testament, but in such a sense as a member of a primitive Israelitish family, in which the pairia potestas was fully carried out, could realize. The first instance of the individualizing use of the term is in Ecclesiasticus 23:1-4. (For the Old Testament use, comp. Isaiah 1:2; Isaiah 63:16; Exodus 4:22; Hosea 11:1.) Jeremiah 3:20 Surely. The word acquires an adversative sense from the context, as in Isaiah 53:4, and is virtually equivalent to "but surely." From her husband; literally, from her friend or companion. The choice of the word seems to indicate the inner hollowness of the married life. The woman only sees in her husband the companion, behind whoso back she can follow her own inclinations. Jeremiah 3:21 Another of those rapid transitions so common in emotional writing like Jeremiah’s. The prophet cannot bear to dwell upon the backsliding of his people. He knows the elements of good which still survive, and by faith sees them developed, through the teaching of God’s good providence, into a fruitful repentance. How graphic is the description! On the very high places (or rather, bare, treeless heights or downs, as verse 2) where a licentious idolatry used to be practiced, a sound is heard (render so, not was heard)—the sound of the loud and audible weeping of an impulsive Eastern people (comp. Jeremiah 7:29). For they have; this evidently gives the reason of the bitter lamentation; render, because they have. Jeremiah 3:22 Return, ye backsliding children, etc.; more literally, Turn, ye turned-away sons; I will heal your turnings (as Hosea 14:4). It seems strange at first sight that this verso does not stand before Jeremiah 3:21. But the truth is that Jeremiah 3:21 describes not so much the "conversion" of the Jews as their willingness to "convert", or "turn" to God. Christ must touch, or at least make his presence felt, in order that the sick man may be healed; a special call of God must be heard, in order that the sinner may truly repent. Behold, we come unto thee. Efficacious, and not "irresistible" grace, is the doctrine of the Old Testament. Jeremiah 3:25 Truly in vain, etc. An obscure and (if corruption exists anywhere) corrupt passage, which, however, it is hopeless to attempt to emend, as the corruption consists partly in wrong letters, partly in omitted letters or words (or both); and, moreover, the text employed by the Septuagint appears to have presented the same difficulty. The latter point is especially noteworthy. It is far from proving that the traditional text is correct; what it does suggest is that the writings of the prophets were at first written down in a very insecure manner. The rendering of the Authorized Version is substantially that of Hitzig, who explains "the multitude of [the] mountains," as meaning "the multitude of gods worshipped on the mountains"—too forced an expression for so simple a context. It seems most natural to suppose (with Ewald, Graf, and Keil), a contrast between the wild, noisy cultus of idolatrous religions, and the quiet spiritual worship inculcated by the prophets. Compare by way of illustration, the loud and ostentatious demonstrations of Baal’s ritual in 1 Kings 18:1-46; with the sober, serious attitude of Elijah in the same chapter. The word rendered in the Authorized Version "multitude" has a still more obvious and original meaning, viz. "tumult;" and probably the Targum is not far from the true sense in rendering, "In vain have we worshipped upon the hills and not for profit have we raised a tumult on the mountains." Jeremiah 3:24 For shame; rather, and the Shame (i.e. the Baal). The words Bosheth ("Shame") and Baal are frequently interchanged; so again in Jeremiah 11:13 (comp. Hosea 9:10). So, too, Jerubbesheth stands for Jerubbaal (2 Samuel 11:21; comp. Judges 6:32); Ishbosheth for Eshbaal. Hath devoured the labor of our fathers, etc.; a condensed way of saying that Baal-worship has brought the judgments’ of God upon us,, our flocks, and herds, and all the other labor (or rather "wealth;’ i.e. fruit of labor) of our fathers, being destroyed as the punishment of our sins (comp. Deuteronomy 28:30-32). Another view is that the "devouring" had to do with the sacrifices, but it is improbable that the sacrificial worship of Baal bad developed to such a portentous extent, and the former explanation is in itself more suitable to the context. We lie down; rather, Let us lie down; said in despair, just as Hezekiah says, "Let us enter the gates of Sheol" (Isaiah 38:10). A prostrate position is the natural expression of deep sorrow (2 Samuel 12:16; 2 Samuel 13:31; 1 Kings 21:4). Our confusion covereth us; rather, Let our confusion (or reproach) cover us (like a veil) (comp. Jeremiah 51:51; Psalms 69:7). Filial reminiscences of God. We are here brought from the view of God as a Husband to that of him as a Father, for only when we consider his various relations with us can we measure the depth of our sin or the motives we have for returning to him. I. GOD’S PEOPLE CAN CALL TO MIND OLD OF HIS . 1. In our own experience of his grace he has revealed himself as a Father. He is the Source and Origin of life. In him we continue to exist (Acts 17:28). He is constantly protecting us and enriching us with his gifts. 2. God may be discerned as the Companion of his people’s early days. (1) He was with his people—a Companion—not merely blessing them from a distance. (2) He was with his people as a Friend, holding kindly intercourse, condescending to intimate communion, accompanying them as a Stay and Solace through their pilgrimage. (3) He was with his people in their youth. None are too young to be honored with the friendship of God. Happy are they who have been in communion with God from their youth up, instead of only coming to him at the eleventh hour! They enjoy the most of him, have longest time for his service, have most advantages for growing and ripening in religious experience. As we look back on our early days, we may often discern how God has been with us in dark scenes where his presence was unrecognized at the time, and has been sustaining and cheering us when we have not recognized the hand from which the comfort was coming. II. OLD OF GOD’S MAY BE ABUSED. It would seem that the Jews often fell into this mistake. 1. We may assume that the past blessing of God is all that we need. Because we once enjoyed his presence we may be too ready to rest satisfied as though all must be well with us henceforth forever. But we cannot live in the past. It is vain to waste our time in idle self-congratulations on our early devotion if later years have found us wandering far from God. We must not say that all is done that our souls need if we can point to an early time when we were introduced to filial relations with God. It is nothing to us that God was the Friend of our youth if he has been rejected in our later days. Indeed, this early memory will be our accuser for subsequent unfaithfulness. 2. We may assume that if God was once our Father and Friend he will always stand in those relations to us. But if we lose our first love we lose the blessings which are connected with it. The past is no security for the present. The momentous questions is, Do we now stand in a true filial relation with God? Is he still our Friend? If he was valued as a Companion in the freshness of youth, is he not wanted in the toils and battles of manhood? will he not be needed in the Weariness of age? in the darkness and mystery of the lonely passage of death? III. OLD OF GOD’S MAY BE WITH PROFIT. 1. They may reveal our subsequent unfaithfulness. We compare ourselves with ourselves and see how we have fallen. 2. They may lead us to see the blessedness of an earlier estate, to be awakened to the loss we have suffered, and to be roused to the desire for a return to it. 3. They may help us to trust God. He was our Father and our Friend in early days. He is changeless. If, then, we repent and return to him, will he not permit us still to cry, "My Father;" and again to enter into the blessed influences of friendly fellowship with him? So the prodigal remembers his early days, and is induced by old memories to say, "I will arise and go to my father" (Luke 15:18). Insincere repentances. I. IS WHEN IT DOES NOT POSSESS THE WHOLE HEART. Judah is accused of being "false," and of turning to Jehovah "feignedly," because she did not turn "with her whole heart." 1. True repentance must be found in the heart. Mere confession with the lip without a change of feeling is a mockery (Isaiah 29:13). Simple amendment of external conduct is no repentance unless it is prompted by a sincere desire to do better, by a return to the love of goodness. 2. True repentance must possess the whole heart. It is not consistent with a lingering affection for sin. The penitent must not look back regretfully, like Lot’s wife, on the pleasant things he is renouncing. Repentance must be for sin, not for certain sins selected from the rest for condemnation; it means the desire to abandon all wickedness. People sometimes repent insincerely by confessing and abandoning trifling faults, while they cling to greater evils. A right repentance searches the dark depths of the soul and brings forth old buried sins, forgotten but not yet forgiven, darling bosom sins which have grown into the very life and can only be torn out from a bleeding heart, common sins which are classed among a man’s habits and which he excuses to himself as being "his ways." Such repentance is no superficial emotion, no sentiment of the hour stirred in the church only to be forgotten as soon as a man re-enters his worldly associations. It must be thorough, profound, overwhelming. Yet it is not to be measured by the number of tears shed, but by its practical fruits, the solid proofs of a desire for a better life (Luke 3:8-14). II. CANNOT BE BY GOD. 1. Such repentance is inexcusable. Judah had failed to profit by the solemn lessons of her sister’s sin and ruin. In face of such terrible warnings, how foolish to cling still to the old life even while pretending to turn from it! 2. Such repentance is only self-deceiving. The hypocrite would deceive God, but failing to do this he deceives himself. He is the dupe of his own design. For he imagines that his fraud will serve him some good purpose, whereas it is detected by God and frustrated from the first. 3. Such repentance is useless. Judah gains no deliverance by her feigned repentance. God is Spirit, and can only be approached in spirit (John 4:24). Any other pretended return to him is no return. We do not come to God by simply entering a church, nor please him by the mechanical observance of an external service (Isaiah 1:11-15). The insincere repentance is a double mistake, its trouble is all wasted, its tears all shed to no purpose, and the falsehood of it is a new offence increasing guilt before God. To turn to God only with the lip is thus not merely not to turn to him at all, it is to wander still further from him. Let us beware, therefore, of using the familiar language of confession if we are not really desiring to renounce sin and be reconciled to God. Let repentance, of all things, be true and whole-hearted. Jeremiah 3:12, Jeremiah 3:13 God inviting the return of his sinful children. This invitation is offered to "backsliding Israel" in preference to "false Judah" (Jeremiah 3:11). There seemed to be more hope of the former. Openly wicked men are more easily led to repentance than hypocritical pretenders to goodness. Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners (Matthew 9:12, Matthew 9:13), and his invitations were more readily accepted by publicans and reprobates than by Pharisees. I. THE IS FROM GOD. Before men return to God he seeks them. The Father calls to his children while they are yet in rebellion against him. In the quarrel between man and God all the wrong is on man’s side, yet God is the first to bring about a reconciliation. 1. We have not to reconcile God to us, but to be reconciled to him (2 Corinthians 5:20). Any difficulty on God’s side has been removed by his own act in the sacrifice of his Son. Now it only remains for us to return. 2. We have not to wait for God’s willingness to receive us, nor to persuade him. Already he has invited as, and he now waits to be gracious. II. THE MOTIVE FOR THE IS THE OF GOD. We must not imagine that there is in us any inherent attractiveness, any merit which in the eye of God outweighs our sin, any valuable qualities which make us necessary to him. The reason for God’s anxiety to have his children return is simply his love for them, and this love is not derived from their worthiness, but from his nature. 1. It is because God is "merciful," i.e. this is his peculiar characteristic; and mercy is exercised not according to desert, but according to need. Therefore the less man’s desert is the greater will be the outgoing of God’s mercy, because the deeper will be man’s wretchedness. 2. It is because God’s anger is temporary, while his mercy "endureth forever." God says, "I will not keep mine anger forever;" but he does keep his love forever. We say "God is love," but we do not say "God is anger." He exercises anger when this is required, but to serve an end—to establish justice, to punish sin, etc; whereas he exercises love for its own sake. This latter is more fundamental, in the very heart of God, and outlives the wrath. Hence behind the passing anger that denounces and punishes, there is the eternal love that invites to reconciliation. III. THE ONE FOR THE IS THE OF GUILT. "Acknowledge thine iniquity." 1. This acknowledgment is necessary. We can only return to God by forsaking our sin, for it is just our sin which keeps us from him, and as long as this is retained must still keep us from him. Indeed, separation from God and sin are but two aspects of the same spiritual condition. We can only be forgiven when we admit our guilt, and only be welcomed by God when we humble ourselves before him. 2. This acknowledgment must be complete. It must include a recognition of (1) positive disobedience—"thou hast transgressed," etc.; (2) the multitudinous variety of sins—"and hast scattered thy ways;" (3) the disregard of God’s voice even when he has spoken in love and urged us to return. 3. This acknowledgment is sufficient. "Only acknowledge thine iniquity. No sacrifice, penance, or partial reformation is first required on our part. The new and better life must begirt with our return to God. (second clause, "and I will take you," etc.). Religious individualism. I. BY NATURE MEN LIVE , LIVES. Man is social, yet he is personal. 1. Each soul has its own personality, separate from that of every other soul by immeasurable oceans. Sympathy unites souls, but does not destroy this individuality of being. Each soul has its own secret life, and the deeper the spiritual experience is the more lonely, hidden, and incommunicable will it be. There are dark recesses of consciousness in the shallowest heart which no stranger can fathom (Proverbs 14:10). 2. Each soul has its own separate course to live, its peculiar privileges and privations, blessings and trials, its duties which no other soul can fulfill, its reserved heritage, its vast destiny. Starting from near points, our lives may branch out in all directions till they are utterly isolated in the lonely solitudes of the infinite possibilities of being. 3. Each soul has its own necessary Variety of nature. No two are alike. The unity of mankind is a oneness, not of unison, but of harmony. II. GOD DEALS WITH MEN AND . 1. His love is towards men as individuals. The size of the human family is no impediment to this with an Infinite Being who possesses infinite capacities of thought and affection. Even among men the parent of a large family has as individual a love for each of his children as the parent of a small family. 2. God approaches man individually. The outward voice of invitation is general: "whosoever will" is invited. But the inward voice, in conscience and spiritual communion, is private. Yet this fact is not a restriction on our enjoyment of God’s favors, for he speaks thus inwardly to all who will listen to him. III. MEN MUST RETURN TO GOD AND . Each must repent, trust, pray for himself. A nation can only return as the units return, "one of a city, and two of a family." We must enter the "wicket-gate" in single file. No association with Christendom, a Christian nation, a Church, a Christian family, will secure our personal redemption. Even families are divided here. Each must say for himself in the singular, "will arise;" "My Father; My God." Still: (1) We may help one another, and owing to the influence of sympathy there may be "two of a family," while perhaps there is only "one of a city;" (2) after we return to God we may naturally unite in his service as his family, his Church, the one body of which Christ is the Head; and (3) though a few may return at first, it is to be the work of these few to increase their number till the whole apostate family is reconciled to God. Jeremiah 3:16-18 The blessings of redemption. The blessings which are here described as following the restoration of Israel are partly national and material in form, but they contain, in the heart of them, those deep spiritual elements of the Messianic ideas which constitute the blessings of redemption. Note the chief characteristics of these— I. THE OF THE OF . 1. Freedom from the old life of sin. "Neither shall they walk any more after the stubbornness of their evil hearts." This implies (1) that the conquest of sin is itself a good to God’s people, and not merely a painful and self-denying means for securing some other good; and (2) that this conquest is to be complete and final. Bad as were the subsequent failings of the Jews after the Captivity, they were cured forever of their old sins of idolatry and of participation in the immoral and cruel rites of their neighbors’ religions. Many as are the defects and falls of the Christian, these do not equal the evil of his old life. 2. A change from the old habits of religion. The Jews will no longer have the ark, the seat of a localized Divine presence, and they will not want this. We can never exactly recover the past. Paradise cannot be regained. The new Jerusalem will not be like the old garden of Eden. The restored Christian cannot return to the primitive innocence of childhood. But he need not altogether regret this impossibility. With the innocence of childhood there were associated its ignorance, its weakness, its restraints. With redemption there comes a new and larger life. The ark is lost; but this need not be regretted since with it the limitations and material conditions of the Divine visitations are gone also. II. THE OF THE OF . 1. The enjoyment of God’s full presence. God’s throne is to be no longer the mercy-seat at the ark: (1) confined to one small sanctuary; (2) separating the religious from the secular; (3) hidden from the common gaze of men. All Jerusalem will be God’s throne. God will dwell in the midst of his people, revealed to all, consecrating the affairs of daily life (Zechariah 14:20). 2. The glorifying of God in the earth through the instrumentality of his people. "All the nations shall be gathered," etc. God’s people are honored by being the means of attracting others to him. Thus they are "a city set on a hill" (Matthew 5:14). The blessings of the gospel in Christ are offered to the world. The glory of the Savior and the joy of his people will be completed by the acceptance of them by all nations. 3. Brotherly love. The old enmity of Israel and Judah will cease (Isaiah 11:12, Isaiah 11:13). Christ is the Prince of peace. His advent prepared the way for peace on earth. As his kingdom spreads, peace must also extend over the troubled world. Even now the individual Christian must find his joy in exercising the peaceful spirit and practicing brotherly love (Hebrews 13:1). III. THE FOR THE OF . 1. Return to God in repentance. This is implied in the previous verses. Repentance precedes restoration. 2. Multiplication of numbers. These blessings were to come after the people were "multiplied and increased." We cannot expect the full Christian blessings till the Church has grown largely in numbers. God has special blessings for his Church. The Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, when the whole Church was gathered together (Acts 2:1). These privileges of Christianity are of such a nature that they are not lessened by distribution, but the more they are scattered abroad, the more valuable do they become to every individual who enjoys them. 3. A fitting time. These blessings were not enjoyed at once. For some we still wait. "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed." Its growth is gradual; so is also the enjoyment of its blessings. Invitation and response. I. THE . 1. The object of the invitation. God calls on his people to return to him. Not simple reformation of morals, but the restoration of personal relations with God as the Father of his people is desired. 2. The condition of the invited. They are apostate children; i.e. (1) they are far from God, though (2) they were once near to him, and (3) they are still his children. As sinners, men have all lost a first estate of innocence, but have not lost, and can never lose, their filial relationship to God. Hence (1) the greatness of their guilt and (2) the hope of their restoration. 3. The accompanying promise. God invites and does not drive; he here exchanges threats for promises. God will heal, not simply receive his children. God alone can heal their apostasies. Man repents of sin, but God cures it. It is our part to turn from the evil, God’s to destroy that evil. Sin is washed out, not by the tears of penitence, but by the blood of Christ. The healing is of the apostasies themselves, not simply of their painful effects. Christ saves from sin. This is what God most requires in us, and what we most need for our own blessedness (John 1:29). II. THE . 1. An expression of willing obedience. "Behold, we come unto thee." This response must be voluntary. God waits for man’s return, does not force it; since what he desires is not the abject submission of vanquished enemies, but the loving reconciliation of children. This response must also be active. "We come." The penitent does not simply "accept" the grace of God in a passive faith. He must "arise and go" (Luke 15:18). This implies exertion of will, active obedience. 2. An indication of the grounds of that obedience. "For thou art the Lord our God." God invites by a promise of blessing to his people; they respond by turning from the thought of their own profit to that of the character and claim of God. The great motive to return is found in what God is rather than in what he does, because the return is to him and not merely to his blessings. Men will return to God when they see what there is in him to attract them to his feet. Hence the importance of knowing God (Job 22:21). Christ invites us by revealing the Father (John 14:6, John 14:7). (1) We should think of the revealed character of God as a ground for returning to him. Israel returns by remembering the ancient Name "Jehovah," with its glorious significance and its sacred memories. (2) We should think of God’s peculiar relations with us. Israel thinks of "Jehovah our God." This relationship points to God’s claim upon us, rising out of his recognized authority as "ours," and the special covenant bonds of those who have once yielded themselves to him, and also to the peculiar grace God bestows on his people, which both increases the obligation and facilitates the effort to return. Jeremiah 3:23 From false to true salvation. I. THE NEED OF . This seems to be confessed before as much as after repentance. In both conditions Israel must turn somewhere for deliverance. 1. The need is universal. Israel was in national danger; but socially and privately men felt a vague sense of unrest and helplessness, and their heathen rites were a proof of this. The mystery of existence, the weariness of toil, the sorrow and disappointments of common experience, the terror of death, make men feel their helplessness. All religions witness to this fact. 2. The need is felt to be such that only religion can meet it. Men instinctively cry to their gods in the storm (Jonah 1:5). This element of religion is retained when every other vestige of it has vanished. This element is common to the most diverse forms of religion, the most degraded equally with the most elevated. Is not such a fundamental fact of human nature a ground for hope? Can we believe that such a deep, instinctive cry will meet with no response? II. THE FALSE HOPE OF . Israel had turned to the pagan worship on the hills for deliverance; but in vain. 1. Superficially regarded, there was much to recommend this. (1) It was conspicuous and imposing—on the hilltops. (2) It was noisy; there was tumult on the mountains. The more noise and hustle there is in a thing the more important does it seem to those who forget that the real power is with "the still small voice" and the "gentleness" that makes great. (3) It was popular; in religious matters, as in all else, unthinking people go with the multitude. (4) It was multiform; not one temple service, but sacrifices on every hill. Unspiritual people put faith in the number of prayers, the amount of gifts, etc; rather than in the motive and spirit which prompt them. (5) It was easy to follow; it required no purity of life, no spiritual effort of faith. Men like a cheap religion. 2. Experience proved the hope to be false. The salvation was hoped for in vain. Heathen gods neither protected from external foes nor cured the internal wretchedness of Israel. This must have been the case, because (1) they were not gods at all, the ground of the hope did not exist; (2) the corruption which was permitted and encouraged in the rites with which these gods were served was the very source of the nation’s ruin. The hope of salvation was the cause of destruction. So is it whenever men turn from God to lower grounds of confidence. The very apostasy thus committed is the source of the ruin which it is expected to avert. It is a great thing to have made the discovery of this fact. To see the mistake of the false hope is the first step towards deliverance. III. THE TRUE HOPE OF . "Truly in Jehovah our God is the salvation of Israel." 1. God only caw deliver, since he only can control nations and subdue the hearts of individual men. 2. God does deliver by his providence in outward events and his spiritual help in the internal battle with sin. 3. God is known as the Deliverer by his actions in the past. Israel turns to "Jehovah our God," the God who had often shown himself as a Savior. He who rightly reads the story of his own past life will see in it reasons for trusting God for the future. 4. God is sought as the Deliverer when all other refuges fail. After making the painful discovery mentioned in the earlier part of the verse, Israel comes to recognize the true salvation, but not till then. Trouble is good if it reveals the rottenness of our mistaken hope in time to set us free to seek the true hope. Yet how sad that men should need to have the veil thus forcibly torn from their eyes! Jeremiah 3:24, Jeremiah 3:25 Shame. I. SHAME IS A NATURAL OF GUILT. 1. Distinguish shame from modesty. Modesty is the fear of shame. Modesty shrinks from doing the thing which when done will result, or ought to result, in shame. Thus modesty pertains to innocence, shame to guilt. 2. Distinguish natural shame from guilty shame. Natural shame results from the exposure of what should be kept private but is pure in itself—this applies to spiritual as well as bodily delicacy; guilty shame is associated with that which, whether revealed or not, is morally bad. 3. Distinguish false from true shame. The blush of innocence when falsely accused, the shrinking from the disapproval by others of conduct which we feel conscientiously bound to pursue, and similar feelings, are instances of the former. They simply result from weakness. Such shame is a needless pain, but it is only culpable when it leads to weak subserviency to what we know is not right—the fear of man which bringeth a snare. True shame is not simply the distressing consciousness of the disapproval of others, but the consciousness that this is well deserved. II. LEADS US TO REGARD SIN WITH SHAME. Israel then names Baal, the god of her former worship, "Shame." To the penitent "all things are new." The sins in which he gloried are now objects of the deepest shame. 1. Men must see sin in a true light to regard it with shame. The Israelites are here represented as confessing sin; they feel it is their Own act: "We have sinned;" they feel that their fathers’ sin does not extenuate the guilt of the new sin of the children, but, on the contrary, adds to the cumulative guilt of the nation. 2. When sin is thus regarded, the shame is overpowering and overwhelming: overpowering, for Israel says, Let us lie down in our shame," there is no resisting the influence of it, it crushes to the dust in humiliation; and it is overwhelming, "let our confusion cover us;" such shame is no superficial and transient emotion. It is all-absorbing. III. THE SHAME FOR SIN IS A . Nothing is more painful. Self-love, self-conceit, and self-respect are all cruelly wounded. Yet the bitter medicine is a true antidote to the sweet poison of sin. 1. It opens our eyes to the fatal consequences of wickedness. In regarding Baal as "shame," the people seem to discover for the first time that he had "devoured the labor of their fathers from their youth." The passion of sin throws a false glamour about it and its effects which shame dissolves. 2. It serves as a strong deferrer from future sin. It makes our old ways look horrible, disgusting, contemptible. We wonder how we could have loved them, and so long as the shame lasts nothing could induce us to return to them. Unfortunately, shame soon dies away, and if disregarded leaves men harder than before. Therefore it should not be trusted in by itself, but used as a means to lead us to the enduring security against sin in Christ (Romans 8:1-5). BY J. WAITE A call to the young. We need not hesitate so far to turn these words aside from their original meaning as to regard them as a Divine appeal to the young; especially if we understand that the prophet is here calling on Judah to return to the freshness of her "youth;" that "at this time," this hopeful reign of the good King Josiah, she should renew her covenant with Jehovah and the "love of her espousals" (Jeremiah 2:2). In the days of youth the heart is most freely open to Divine influences, and it may be expected to respond readily to such an appeal as this. Note— I. THE DEEPEST TRUTH OF IS THE OF GOD. That he is the Father of our spirits is the basis of his claims upon us. The quality of our religious thought, the drift of our religious opinions, the tone of our religious life, depend very greatly on our faith in this truth. Fatherhood is our highest conception of God, and includes within it all aspects of his being, and all the relations he sustains towards us. This crowns them all, embraces all. We cannot rise above and beyond it. Our ideas are essentially defective if we fall short of it. Not that the actual human fatherhood worthily represents it; that, at its best, is but a marred and broken copy—a feeble, distant reflection—of the Divine. And yet the essential elements remain in spite of accidental faults. Power, wisdom, love, judicial authority, kingly rule, protective tenderness,—these are the attributes of its ideal. And from the human, with all its imperfections and perversions, we rise to the Divine. II. THE OF THIS SACRED IS THE SEASON OF YOUTH. What more natural than that young people should think of God as their Father; that this idea of him should give shape and coloring to all their other religious ideas, and blend with all their views of life, and all their impressions of personal duty? Those who have grown old—old in the habit of frivolous thought, in the carnalizing ways of the world, in the debasing service of sin, are often dead to the impression of it. Their hearts are too much estranged to feel its charm. But shall not they who still have the dew of their youth upon them, the bloom of its quick sensibility and pure affection, love to hear a Father’s voice? III. Nevertheless, THE FULL OF THIS MARKS A CRISIS IN THE HISTORY OF ANY SOUL. It is generally connected with the painful discovery of sin and need. "I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his Name’s sake …. because ye have known the Father" (1 John 2:12, 1 John 2:13). How suggestive is this of the bidden causes, the secret springs, the earliest realizations of Divine life in the soul! One of its first evidences is the recognition of the Father. The cry, "Abba, Father!" is the first that it breathes forth. But this comes with and through the recognition of Christ, the Son, the Savior. "No man knoweth the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son shall reveal him "(Matthew 11:27). And it is a revelation that brings the assurance of "forgiveness for his Name’s sake." The sense of dreary distance from God—guilt, shame, hunger, degradation,—this is the prelude to the sweet satisfactions of the life of sonship. It is the prodigal "coming to himself." When we are thus painfully feeling our way back to him, God comes forth in Christ to meet us, embracing us in the arms of his great love, breathing, weeping out upon us the infinite tenderness of his fatherly heart. Then we feel that we can dare to take that sacred name "Father" on our lips. It has a deep and blessed meaning in it never known before. And fear and shame and sorrow give place to the joy of eternal reconciliation. IV. THE NATURAL RESULT OF THIS WILL BE FULL TO THE FATHER’S AND CONTROL. "Guide," literally, Husband; and them word "husband "is suggestive of all thoughtful and kindly guardianship, the wisdom that directs, and the strength that sustains. Youth needs such guardianship: 1. Because of its special moral dangers, worldly fascinations, Satanic temptations, acting on quick natural susceptibility. 2. Because of its inexperience. Experience is the growth of years. It is not of itself always the parent of the highest practical wisdom, but the want of it calls for the help of a superior power. 3. Because of its weakness of moral principle. There may be excellent natural dispositions, germs of Christian virtue in the soul, but they are not yet developed. They are but latent possibilities of good. When put to the test, they may be found wanting. God’s grace alone can ripen them into mature and steadfast principles. 4. Because beneath its fairest promise there may be hidden seeds of evil, which only need the outward incentive to bring forth deadly fruit. 5. Because the after-destiny depends so much on how the steps of youth are guided. Let the young give heed to the Father’s voice, and yield themselves to his loving control, if they would tread the path of honor and safety and blessedness.—W. Backsliding Israel. "Backsliding" was the characteristic vice of the Jewish people throughout the whole course of their history. Their career was one of perpetual sinning and repenting, until the great apostasy, the final "falling away." And in this we see what is too often a truthful reflection of the individual life of men. The Jews were emphatically a representative people. Not merely does their recorded history represent the method of God’s ways, but it illustrates the folly and treachery, the moral weakness and waywardness of our human nature. Dwell on the individual application of this passage. Consider— I. THE EVIL . "Backsliding" is suggestive of a turning away from God, a departure from the path of truth and righteousness, a fall from some higher state of spiritual consciousness or moral life. This evil may assume different forms. It may consist: 1. In the loss of the simplicity and integrity of religious faith. In an age of mental restlessness like the present, men too easily lose their hold of truth, which is the very hope and life of their souls. We may look with perfect composure upon the conflict between truth and error as regards its general and ultimate issues, but dare not forget how disastrous its bearings upon the individual life may be. There are revolutions in the history of religious thought, as in the history of nations, which it is as vain to think of arresting as it would be to attempt to turn back the ocean tide; but it is a mournful thing when, under such conditions, the mind that once had a firm grasp of the vital elements of Christian truth has slipped from its moorings and drifted out into the wild sea of doubt and uncertainty. To a really earnest spirit the recovery of a lost faith is generally a painful process. How many have traveled back, as with wounded, bleeding feet, to positions of clearer vision and firmer standing which they once occupied, but in an evil hour had forsaken! As sometimes after a bright morning, which has been followed by a day of cloud and storm, there is again at sunset a glorious outbursting gleam of the radiance that had been obscured; so is it with their souls. They return to rest calmly in the truth that they had for a while lost sight of, and "at eventide," as in the morning, "it is light." 2. In the decline of religious feeling, the decay of those affections in which religious life consists. This is that secret spiritual "backsliding" that directly affects the soul’s personal relation to God, and the consciousness of which sometimes extorts the bitter cry, "Oh that I were as in months past!" etc. (Job 29:2-4). It may arise from no change in religious belief. While a departure from the simplicity of the faith is generally connected with a lowering of the tone of religious feeling, the converse of this is not always true. But the faith has lost its life-giving force. The light it sheds has no warm, kindling glow. It is the light of the moon rather than the sun—clear and cold, having no power to quicken the frame of nature, to develop its beauty and fruitfulness, to awaken its music, and fill it with exulting joy. The carnalizing influences of the world, the wear and tear of daily life, inevitably lead to this internal spiritual decay, unless there is a perpetual renewal of the life "whose springs are hidden and Divine." 3. In practical departure from the standard of religious duty. The backsliding of the heart cannot long be concealed. It betrays itself in many ways—in a forsaking of the paths of Christian service, in some manifest lack of moral integrity, in a relapse into some form of vicious habit, perhaps in a complete loosening of the bonds of religious restraint, and utter abandonment to the pursuits of an ungodly life. It is of such a case that our Lord says, "If the salt have lost his savor," etc. (Matthew 5:13); and again, "No man, having put his hand to the plough," etc. (Luke 9:62); and St. Peter afterwards affirms, "It had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness," etc. (2 Peter 2:21). II. GOD’S METHOD OF HEALING. "I will heal your backslidings." This is the gracious persuasion by which he seeks to reclaim his children from their guilty wanderings. How may we expect him to fulfill the promise? 1. By awakening in us a vivid sense and penitent acknowledgment of the wrong. We can scarcely be delivered from it till we have seen all the sin and shame of it—its real meaning, the source from whence it springs, the end to which it leads. Until all this is deeply felt and freely confessed before God, the first step in the process of recovery has not been taken (see Psalms 51:3, Psalms 51:4; Psalms 32:5; 2 Corinthians 7:10, 2 Corinthians 7:11). This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Jeremiah 4:1, Jeremiah 4:2 The form and structure of the translation require a change. Render, If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith Jehovah, wilt return unto me; and if thou wilt put away, etc; and not wander; and wilt swear, As Jehovah liveth, with good faith, with justice, and with righteousness; then shall the nations bless themselves by him, and in him shall they glory. The clause, "and not wander," seems too short; the Septuagint had a choicer reading, "and put away, etc; from his [thy] mouth, and not wander from before me." It is the close of the prophecy which we have here. The prophet subjoins a promise which he has heard from Jehovah. True, it does not appeal to Israel’s self-love (as Isaiah 48:18, Isaiah 48:19; Psalms 81:13-16), but to a nobler feeling of responsibility for the world’s welfare. Israel has been entrusted with a mission, and on the due performance of this mission hangs the weal or woe of humanity. Hence Jehovah’s longing for Israel’s repentance. If Israel will but "return," and obey God’s commandments, all nations will be attracted to the true religion. The form of expression used for the latter statement is borrowed probably from Genesis 22:18; Genesis 26:4 (it is less closely parallel with Genesis 12:3; Genesis 18:18). To "bless by" any one is to use his name in the benediction formula. Seeing Israel so blessed through his allegiance to Jehovah, all nations shall wish themselves a similar blessing (the reverse of the process in Jeremiah 29:22; comp. Isaiah 65:16). To "swear, As Jehovah liveth," means to call Jehovah to witness to the truth of a statement. This is to be done "with good faith," etc; i.e. the object of the oath must be consistent with honesty and probity. Abominations; i.e. idols, as often (see 2 Kings 23:24). Jeremiah 4:3 There is no occasion to separate Jeremiah 4:3, Jeremiah 4:4, from the preceding prophecy. We have other instances of as sudden a transition from the Israelites (in the narrower sense) to the men of Judah (see Isaiah 8:6-14; Isaiah 10:1-4; Isaiah 28:1-6; in the writer’s commentary). For thus, etc. "For" is here not causal, but explanatory: "I say this not only to the men of Israel, but to you, O men of Judah, who need the admonition to repentance, how deeply!" (see Jeremiah 5:2). Break up your fallow ground; the same figure as in Hosea 10:12. To understand it we must read the clause in connection with the following one. Sow not among thorns. The prophet means, though he does not say so, the roots which will spring up into thorns. "Do not plant your good resolutions in a heart filled up with the roots of thorns, but first rake up the soil, and clear it of noxious germs, and then sow the seed which will grow up in a holy life" (comp. Matthew 13:7). Jeremiah 4:4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord. A significant passage. All the Jews were circumcised, but not all were "circumcised to the Lord." There were but too many who were "circumcised in uncircumcision" (Jeremiah 9:25), and the prophet sternly reduces ouch circumcision to the level of the heathenish rite of cutting off the hair (Jeremiah 9:26; comp. Herod. 3.8). Jeremiah seems to have been specially anxious to counteract a merely formal, ritualistic notion of circumcision, sharing in this, as in other points, the influence of the Book of Deuteronomy, so lately found in the temple (comp. Deuteronomy 10:16). To him the venerable rite of circumcision (older, certainly, than Abraham) is a symbol of the devotion of the heart to its rightful Lord (comp. St. Paul in Romans 2:28, Romans 2:29; Colossians 2:11; Philippians 3:3). Jeremiah 4:5-31 A revelation of grievous purport has suddenly reached the prophet. See how the foe draws nearer and nearer, and how alarm drives the scattered population to seek for refuge in the fortified cities. Can such be the issue of the promises of peace with which Jehovah has encouraged his people? Such are the contents of the first paragraph (Jeremiah 4:5-10). Next,-in short, detached figures the prophet sets forth the sin of the people and its punishment. Like a scorching simoom is the former; like swift clouds, and like a whirlwind, is the onward march of the instruments of the latter. Swift, indeed, must repentance be, if it is to outrun punishment. For the northern peoples are already here (Jeremiah 4:11-18). The impression is so strong on the mind of the prophet that he vents himself in language such as the last man might employ on the morrow of the final judgment day (Jeremiah 4:19-26). And now, "lest what precedes might seem only poetry" (Payne Smith), the Divine decree is solemnly announced. The judgment is irrevocable; but there is a gleam of hope: "I will not make a full end." On the question whether the Scythians or the Baby-Ionians are mainly alluded to, see Introduction.) Jeremiah 4:5 Cry, gather together; rather, cry aloud. Jeremiah 4:6 Set up the standard. The "standard" was a tall pole with a flag, pointing in the direction of Zion, for the guidance of fugitives. Retire, stay not; rather, save your goods by flight; linger not. The former verb occurs again in the same sense in Exodus 9:19; Isaiah 10:31. From the north. The expression suits either the Scythians or the Chaldeans (see on Jeremiah 1:14). Jeremiah 4:7 The lion; the symbol of irresistible might and royalty (Genesis 49:7; Revelation 5:5). Of the Gentiles; rather, of the nations. There is no reference to the distinction between Jews and Gentiles; the Jews themselves are not allowed to escape. An ordinary lion attacks individual men; this lion destroys nations. Is on his way; literally, has broken up his encampment—a phrase perhaps suggested by the nomad Scythiaus. Jeremiah 4:8 Is not turned back from us. As we in our folly believed (Jeremiah 2:35). Jeremiah 4:9 The heart … shall perish; i.e. they shall lose their reason. The same verb in Ethiopic means "to be mad." The "heart" in Old Testament language is the center of the intellectual as well as of the moral life (comp. Hosea 4:11; Job 12:24; Proverbs 15:28). So St. Ephrem the Syrian says (’Works,’ in Syriac, 2.316, quoted by Delitzsch), "The reason expatiates in the heart as in a palace." Jeremiah 4:10 Ah, Lord God! rather, Alas! O Lord Jehovah (see on Jeremiah 1:6). Thou hast greatly deceived this people, etc. Much difficulty has been felt in interpreting this verse, partly because it seems directly to charge Jehovah with "deceit," and partly because the prophecy, Ye shall have peace, on which this charge is founded, accords exactly with the strain of the "false prophets" (see Jeremiah 6:14; Jeremiah 14:13; Jeremiah 23:17). Hence some (e.g. Ewald) have altered the points of the verb at the beginning of the verse; so as] to enable them to render. "And one shall say," the subject understood being either a "false prophet" or one of the people. This view is not in itself impossible (Keil’s objection will not bear examination), but is not absolutely necessary, for the present is not the only passage in which Jeremiah, under the influence of strong emotion, charges Jehovah with "deceit", and the words, "Ye shall have peace, may be meant to summarize the cheering promises in Jeremiah 3:14-18. Jeremiah may (it is not incorrect to conjecture) have supposed the fulfillment of his prophecy to be nearer than it really was; hence his disappointment, and hence his strong language. So St. Jerome, "Quia supra dixerat, In illo tempore vocabunt Jerusalem solium Dei, etc.. et nunc dicit, Peribit cor regis, turbatur propheta et in se Deum putat esse meutitum; nec intelligit, illud multa post tempera repromissum, hoc autem vicino futurum tempore." To suppose, with Keil, that Jeremiah refers the prophecies of the "false prophets" to God as their ultimate Author, seems inconsistent with Jeremiah’s own statements in Jeremiah 14:14 (comp. Jeremiah 5:13). Moreover, we have parallels elsewhere in the prophets, as well as in the Book of Job, for the use of language with regard to Providence which a calmer judgment would condemn. A notable instance is Isaiah 63:17, where the Jewish Church, through its mouthpiece the prophet, throws the responsibility of its errors upon Jehovah. Depressed by melancholy, they give way for the moment to those human "thoughts" which are not as "My thoughts." They felt the "burden of the mystery." Unto the soul; i.e. unto the life. Jeremiah 4:11 Shall it be said to this people; i.e. words like these may be used with reference to this people. A dry wind, etc.; literally, a clear wind (but the notions of dryness and heat are closely connected with that of heat; comp. Isaiah 18:4). The prophet doubtless means the east wind, which is very violent in Palestine, and, of course, quite unsuitable for the winnowing process. High places should rather be bare hills. Toward; or (is) the way of. So Hitzig, supposing the conduct of the Jews to be likened to a wind which brings no blessing, but only drought and desolation. Jeremiah 4:12 Even a full wind from those places. The passage is obscure, but this is a very possible rendering. "Full," equivalent to "violent;" "those (places)," equivalent to the bare hills spoken of in Jeremiah 4:11. Keil and Payne Smith, however, render, "a fuller wind than those," i.e. a more violent wind than those which serve for winnowing the corn; while Hitzig (see on Jeremiah 4:11) supposes "from those" to mean the persons described in Jeremiah 4:11 as "the daughter of my people." Unto me; or perhaps for me, at my beck and call. Now also will I, etc. We must supply the other term of the antithesis from the context: "As they have sinned against me, so will I also now hold a court of justice upon them" (see on Jeremiah 1:16). Jeremiah 4:13 He shall come up as clouds, etc. It is needless to name the subject; who can it be but the host of Jehovah’s warlike instruments? (For the first figure, comp. Ezekiel 38:16; for the second, Isaiah 5:28; Isaiah 66:15; and for the third, Habakkuk 1:8; Deuteronomy 28:49.) Woe unto us! etc. The cry of lamentation of the Jews (comp. Jeremiah 4:20; Jeremiah 9:18). Jeremiah 4:14 Thy vain thoughts. The phrase specially belongs to sins against one’s neighbor—such sins as are described in Jeremiah 7:5-9 (Keil). "Vain" should rather be "wicked" (immoral); the root-meaning of the noun is "a breath" (the symbol of material or moral emptiness). Jeremiah 4:15 For a voice declareth, etc. There is no time to lose, for already news of the foe has arrived. He is now at Dan, the northern frontier-town, and is heard of almost as soon in the hill-country of Ephraim. Jeremiah 4:16 Make ye mention, etc. This verse contains a call to the neighboring nations to take notice of an event which nearly concerns them all. True, it is only the investment of Jerusalem which can as yet be reported, but there can hardly be a doubt of the issue, and the capture of the principal fortress will at once be followed by that of the other fortified "cities of Judah." Against in the second clause should rather be concerning. (For the use of "behold" before an imperative, comp. Psalms 134:1.) Watchers; i.e. besiegers (comp. Jeremiah 4:17), who like the panther lie in wait for every one who comes out of the city, to kill him (Jeremiah 5:6; comp. Jeremiah 6:25). Jeremiah 4:17 As keepers of a field. The prophet compares the tents, or perhaps the booths (1 Kings 20:12, 1 Kings 20:16), of the besieging army to the booths of the guardians of the crepe (Isaiah 1:8; Job 27:18). Jeremiah 4:18 This is thy wickedness; i.e. the effect of thy wickedness. (For the following words, comp. Jeremiah 2:19; Jeremiah 4:10.) Because; rather, truly. Jeremiah 4:19 My bowels. It is doubted whether the speaker in Jeremiah 4:19-21 is the prophet or the whole nation. Jeremiah 4:19 reminds us of Isa 15:5; Isaiah 16:11 and Isaiah 21:3, Isaiah 21:4, and would be quite in harmony with the elegiac tone of our prophet elsewhere; the Targum too already regards the passage as an exclamation of the prophet. On the other hand, the phrase "my tents" (verse 20) certainly implies that the people, or the pious section of the people, is the speaker. Both views may perhaps be united. The prophet may be the speaker in verse 19, but simply (as is the case with so many of the psalmists) as the representative of his fellow-believers, whom in verse 20 he brings on the stage more directly. Verse 19 is best rendered as a series of exclamations— "My bowels! my bowels! I must writhe in pain! The walls of my heart! My heart moaneth unto me! I cannot hold my peace! For thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, The alarm of war!" Observe, the "soul" hears; the "heart" is pained. So generally the one is more active, the other more passive. The Hebrew margin gives, for "I must writhe," "I must wait" (comp. Micah 7:7); but this rendering does not suit the context. The walls of my heart. A poetical way of saying, "My heart beats." Jeremiah 4:20 My tents. Jeremiah uses a similar phrase in Jeremiah 30:18 (comp. also 2 Samuel 20:1; 1 Kings 8:66; 1 Kings 12:16; Psalms 132:3; also Isaiah 29:1, "city where David encamped, i.e. dwelt"). The expression is evidently a "survival" of the nomadic, tent-dwelling age. (Comp. the parallel phrase, "my curtains," i.e. my tent-curtains; comp. Jeremiah 10:20; Isaiah 54:2; Son 1:5.) Jeremiah 4:21 Shall I see the standard. (See on Jeremiah 4:6.) Jeremiah 4:22 For my people is foolish. The Lord gives no direct answer to the complaining question in Jeremiah 4:21. He simply states the moral ground for Judah’s calamity, and implies that this will last so long as the people continue to be "foolish," i.e. virtual deniers of the true God. Jeremiah 4:23 I beheld. The prophet is again the speaker, but in a calmer mood. God’s judgment has been pronounced, and it is not for him to rebel. He has now simply to record the vision of woe which has been granted him. He foresees the utter desolation into which not only the land of Judah, but the earth in general, will be brought, and which reminds him of nothing so much as the "waste and wild" condition of the earth previous to the first creative word. But why is "the earth" mentioned in this connection? Because the judgment upon Judah is but one act in the great general judgment which, when completed, will issue in a fresh order of things (comp. Isaiah 3:14, Isaiah 3:15, where side by side are mentioned Jehovah’s judgment of "the peoples" and of "his people," and Isaiah 24:1-23; where the judgment upon the enemies of Israel is interwoven with the judgment upon "the earth"). Without form, and void; rather, waste and wild (to represent in some degree the characteristic assonance of the original—tohu va-bohu); more literally, immovable and lifeless. It is the phrase used in Genesis L 2 for primeval chaos. Tohu and bohu occur in parallel lines in Isaiah 34:11, to express utter desolation; tohu alone five times in the Book of Isaiah, and once in Job. They had no light. The heavens were in the same condition as on the third day, subsequently to the creation of the heavens, but prior to that of the luminaries. Jeremiah 4:24 Moved lightly; rather, moved to and fro. Jeremiah 4:26 The fruitful place; rather, the garden-land (see on Jeremiah 2:7). Not "the Carmel" (Keil, Payne Smith) for the context refers to the whole of the country, not to any single tract. The article before the two appellatives is the generic. At the presence of; rather, by reason of. Jeremiah 4:27 The vision breaks off, and the prophet emphasizes its truthfulness by the announcement of the Divine decree. "Desolation, and yet not a full end," is its burden. This is the same doctrine of the" remnant" which formed so important a part of the prophetic message of Isaiah and his contemporaries. However severe the punishment of Judah may be, there will be a "remnant" which shall escape, and become the seed of a holier nation (Amos 9:8; Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 6:13; Isaiah 10:20; Isaiah 11:11; Hosea 6:1,Hosea 6:2). Jeremiah 4:28 For this; i.e. because of the impending judgment. Be black. "To be black" is equivalent to "to put on mourning" (comp. Jeremiah 8:21; Jeremiah 14:2). Jeremiah 4:29 The whole city. The reading of which this is a version can hardly be the right one; for "the whole city" can only be Jerusalem, and in Jeremiah 4:6 the people outside are bidden to take refuge in the capital. Hence Ewald, Hitzig, and Payne Smith would slightly amend the word rendered "city," so as to translate "the whole land" (of Judah). Shall flee; literally, fleeth. So afterwards render, "have gone … is forsaken," "dwelleth." It is a vivid dramatic representation of the effects of the invasion. Bowmen. It is singular that Herodotus should say nothing about the use of the bow by the Chaldeans. But the monuments give ample evidence that they were a people of archers. So of course were the Scythians, as Herodotus testifies. The rooks; i.e. the limestone caverns which abound in Palestine, and which were frequently used as strongholds and hiding-places (see Judges 6:2; Judges 15:8; 1 Samuel 13:6; 1 Samuel 14:11; 1 Samuel 24:3 (especially); 1 Kings 18:13). Jeremiah 4:30 And when thou art spoiled, etc. It is Jerusalem who is addressed—Jerusalem, personified as a woman, who decks herself out finely to please her admirers. All these arts are in vain, for a violent repulsion has converted her lovers into her deadly enemies. And when Jerusalem is "spoiled," or taken by storm, what device will there be left to attempt? The "lovers" are the foreign powers to whom the Jews paid court (Jeremiah 2:18, Jeremiah 2:36, 87). Though thou rentest thy face, etc; alluding to the custom of Eastern women, who try to make their eyes seem larger by putting powdered antimony (the Arabic kohl) upon their eyelids. So, for instance, did Jezebel (see 2 Kings 11:1-21:30); and one of Job’s daughters received the name Keren-happuch, "box of antimony," i.e. one who sets off the company in which she is, as antimony does the eye. An old author, Dr. Shaw, writes thus: "None of these ladies take themselves to be completely dressed till they have tinged the hair and edges of their eyelids with the powder of lead ore. And as this operation is performed by dipping first into this powder a small wooden bodkin of the thickness of a quill, and then drawing it afterwards through the eyelids over the ball of the eye, we have a lively image of what the prophet (Jeremiah 4:30) may be supposed to mean". Jeremiah 4:31 For I have heard a voice, etc. This explains the preceding statement, "They will seek thy life." It is this murderous plot which calls forth the "cry as of a woman in pangs." Bewaileth herself; rather, sigheth deeply. Her hands; literally, her palms. Is wearied because of murderers; rather, fainteth into the hands of (literally, is treaty unto) the murderers. Fallow ground. Fallow ground is land that has fallen out of cultivation, or that has never been cultivated, and this has its counterpart in the broad fields of humanity, in the nations or individual men who are not under the influence of spiritual cultivation. I. FALLOW GROUND IS . It may not be utterly fruitless. Even the bramble bears its wholesome fruit, and good thoughts and good deeds spring up in the midst of heathen nations and irreligious people. God’s Spirit has not wholly deserted any. But such fruit is poor compared with the fruit of cultivation, and the crop of it is thin. The good which still pertains to a neglected soul is imperfect, and small in the extreme compared with the good which would spring up in that soul under proper spiritual influences. The highest thought, the purest morality, the noblest effort, the largest charity, are only to be found where the spiritual life is cultivated by worship, instruction, and discipline. II. FALLOW GROUND BEARS WEEDS. If there are no flowers in a neglected garden, the soil will not be unoccupied. Dropped by birds in their flight, borne on the wings of the wind, in some way, myriads of seeds will find entrance into that garden and spring up in luxuriant growth. The neglected garden is not a barren desert; it is a wilderness. The neglected soul will not be merely deficient of good; it will bear a crop of evil. The heart cannot endure a void. If it is not filled with pure thoughts, it will indulge in unholy imaginations; if it has no object of worthy love, its affections will descend and twine about some debased object; if it is not active in doing good, it will be diligent in doing harm. In proportion to the gifts and powers of the soul will be the evil that will come out of it when neglected; the more fertile the soft, the more abundant the crop of weeds. III. FALLOW GROUND IS OF . It is not rock, but good soil. The most brutalized man is not yet a brute. Conscience slumbers, is not killed. The Divine image in the soul is worn in the traffic of worldliness and fouled in the mire of sin, but it is not effaced. The disobedient son is still a son. Hence there is hope for the most neglected heathen, the worst sinner, the oldest enemy of Christ. IV. FALLOW GROUND MUST BE BROKEN UP. Throw bushels of wheat among the thorns, and the thorns will only "choke" it (Matthew 13:7). Till the old evil is torn from the heart, the new truth cannot grow and bear fruit there. Men must repent of sin before they can receive the seed of eternal life to profit. John the Baptist must precede Christ. So long as we are cherishing any sin we are preventing the growth of fruitful graces. The mere hearing of the truth is not enough. If the heart is hard, it will not receive it (Isaiah 6:10). If the heart is preoccupied, the truth will be soon forgotten, or as best will be crushed out of all living energy. Hence the heart must not only be cleared of weeds, it must be softened. The plough must break up the fallow ground. V. IT IS OUR DUTY TO BREAK UP THE FALLOW GROUND. Men must be prepared for receiving the gospel of Christ. We are too eager to sow the seed. Hence the slight returns we have for so much effort and expenditure. People are called to "accept Christ" who do not know Christ, and would have no room in their hearts to receive him if they did know him. Much So-called "gospel preaching" thus meets with ridicule, or indifference, or bewildered surprise. If we were less hasty in seeking brilliant results we should see more true, fruitful returns for our work. Christ was not always and only crying, "Come unto me!" "Follow me!" Less pleasing, and in some eyes less important, words were often seen by him to be necessary. Men need instructing as well as inviting, rebuking as well as exhorting. VI. THE DUTY OF UP THE FALLOW GROUND IS GREAT AND . How much fallow ground there is (1) in the world!—think of India, China, Africa, the godless of Europe; (2) in the Church!—how many enjoy its privileges! How few maintain its work! and (3) in our own hearts!—what faculties are wasted! What opportunities for good neglected! Divine illusions. I. GOOD MEN MAY GOD’S ACTIONS. The words of the text are not spoken with Divine authority; on the contrary, they are given in historical narrative as a record of the personal utterance of the prophet. He does not preface them with the august claim of authority, "Thus saith the Lord;" he distinctly says, "Then said I." Without needing to look for any other rendering of the text, we may consider it as throwing light on the condition of the prophet’s mind, rather than as a difficult scriptural declaration of God’s character and mode of acting. Thus we may see in it an expression of hasty judgment, misunderstanding, irritable impatience, complaint. If so, it warns us to beware of the prejudiced or impassioned utterances of the best and wisest men (Psalms 116:11), and to be more cautious in forming judgments on difficult aspects of providence and religion, since even prophets err. II. IT IS TO JUDGE RIGHTLY OF GOD’S ACTIONS WHILE WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF THEM. We are too near to have the right perspective. The character of an action cannot be judged till its ultimate design is revealed. Many things look wrong because they are parts of a whole the remainder of which is unseen. Pride, passion, self-interest, and prejudice pervert our judgment. We must wait for time to clear up many dark passages in earthly providence (John 13:7). The inconsistency which seemed palpable to Jeremiah is less felt by us. III. GOD’S ACTIONS ARE TO US. There was a measure of truth in the rash cry of the prophet. God never deceives. Yet his utterance may be misunderstood by us. God is said to harden the heart when his action results in this evil condition through the misconduct of men, and not at all through his wish to bring that evil about. So God might almost be said to deceive (though the expression is misleading) when his Word is such that we fall into a misconception in hearing it. IV. THE OF SOME OF GOD’S ACTIONS IS BY COMMON AND . Some truths are revealed, while qualifying truths are necessarily hidden because we could not understand them. No mention is made of the time of the fulfillment of a promise; hence we think it will be immediate, and are disappointed when we see delay and find unexpected troubles coming first. One part of God’s Word may seem to contradict another when they refer to different conditions, but conditions not yet revealed to us. V. TRUTH AND HUMAN WELFARE ARE BETTER SERVED BY THESE THAN BY WHICH ADMIT OF NO . If the child were never allowed to stumble, he would never learn to walk. We are educated by temporary illusions for higher truths than could be attained by plainer paths. Thus we know more of God and of heaven through the anthropomorphic and materialistic language of much of Scripture, which has resulted in gross misconceptions at times, than we should have learnt from language made bare enough to be unmistakable. The cleansing of the heart a necessary condition of salvation. I. IS ON THE . The very mention of conditions suggests difficulties, delays, barriers. But the only conditions required are in our own power, are simply such as are necessary to make the reception of the salvation of God possible to us, and do not refer to the source of it. We are not to save ourselves, not to purchase nor to merit salvation, but only to be in a right condition to receive it. II. IS ONLY WHERE THERE IS A FROM . The soul that clings to sin cannot also grasp the Savior. If it would be right to deliver men from the painful consequences of wickedness while they remained under the power of it, it must have been wrong ever to have permitted those consequences. If it is not unjust to forgive the impenitent, it is unjust to punish them, which is absurd. III. THE FROM MUST BE IN THE HEART. There all sin has its origin. Clean hands are vain without a pure heart. Reformation must not simply be moral, it must be spiritual—not a change of habits, but a purification of thought, affection, and desire. IV. THE DUTY OF OUR HEARTS FROM RESTS UPON The text is not a promise, but an exhortation. True, no one can purify himself by hit own efforts alone (Jeremiah 2:22). God has provided the fountain for uncleanness, and only they who wash in this are clean. But men must plunge into the purifying flood, must make the effort of repentance, must seek the cleansing which is promised through Christ, must submit to the baptism of the Holy Ghost, must actively apply themselves to the execution of good deeds in the power given by God. Compare the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:16). V. THERE IS NO REASON TO DELAY THE OF OUR HEARTS. "How long shall thoughts of wickedness lodge within thee?" The longer repentance is postponed, the more difficult does it become; the more numerous are the stains of sin, the nearer is the approach of doom. Since it is for men to seek the cleansing of their souls, any delay must be attributed to their negligence, not to God’s unwillingness to help them. The folly of misdirected wisdom. I. IS FOLLY. The "fool," according to Scripture, is both morally corrupt and intellectually imbecile (e g. Psalms 107:17). There is a truth underlying the saying of Socrates, that "Virtue is knowledge, and vice is ignorance." It is apparent, indeed, that men may have an intellectual conception of the right while they do wrong, as also that good men may fall into error. But, on the other hand: 1. We cannot progress in goodness till we discern the way; we must know God to love him, recognize the good to choose it. 2. Immorality deadens the faculty of spiritual intuition; purity purges the vision of the soul. 3. Wisdom is not mere intelligence, but applied intelligence, practical intelligence. It is not perfected till it is practiced. He who knows the good is not wise until he does it; and he who does right from instinct, habit, or mere inclination is not really performing a moral action. An action is moral when it is performed with an intelligent regard to principle, i.e. when it is under the direction of spiritual wisdom. II. THE FOLLY OF MAY BE WITH WISDOM. The "fool" in spiritual things may be a worldly wise man and clever in the execution of wickedness. Ironical as is the language of the text, it may often find a literal application. Shrewd business men may be spiritually blind. Men who are wakeful and eager in material concerns become dull and listless when they touch higher interests. This may be explained by two considerations. 1. We develop most wisdom in regard to those things which interest us most. Interest rouses attention, quickens perception, excites inquiry, stimulates intellectual activity; while lack of interest leaves the mind in a slumberous condition, working at half-power. If we feel no interest in goodness, we shall be dull and foolish in regard to it. 2. Spiritual wisdom depends upon a spiritual tone of mind. The greatest intelligence is not capable of detecting subtle harmonies and discords if it is not accompanied by "an ear for music." The cold intellect, which is but a huge calculating-machine, has not the fitting powers of perception for discerning spiritual truth. This requires a spiritual sympathy (1 Corinthians 2:14). Therefore (1) let the man of conscious intellectual power beware of the danger of assuming to judge spiritual questions before he has acquired the requisite spiritual qualification; and (2) let us all beware of attaching too much weight to the religious motives of people who may be able business men, clever literary critics, and even profound students of science, and yet in moral regions "blind leaders of the blind." III. WISDOM IS THE HEIGHT OF FOLLY. The very ability, misapplied, witnesses for the foolishness which permitted so gross a mistake. These people who are "wise to do evil’ are on the whole "foolish," "sottish," and "have no understanding." The man who is prudent enough to exercise forethought for this life only enhances his folly in having none for the future life (Luke 12:16-21). He who knows much of worldly things is convicted of grossest darkness in not knowing God. The born fool is excused by his misfortune of nature. But how foolish for the man who shows himself capable of wisdom to neglect the highest wisdom! Note, in conclusion, (1) the common mistake of honoring men for their intellectual ability rather than for their moral character; (2) the error of those who pride themselves in "knowing the world,’* while they are ignorant of God (Romans 16:19); and (3) the need to turn from intellectual pride to childlike trust for the source of true wisdom (Matthew 11:25). Jeremiah 4:23-26 Chaos the result of sin. I. SIN HAS A . In his vision of the earth desolated by a Divine judgment on sin, Jeremiah sees a relapse to the primeval condition before the dawn of creation, and in his graphic description uses the very words of the narrative in Genesis. He describes the earth as "waste and wild." Every step in sin is a step downward, backward. It is backsliding. How rapid this is! One generation sees the fall back to the condition from which it had taken ages to build up the order of the world. One day’s sin may undo the work of years in a soul’s progress. One age of misrule may throw a nation back for centuries. II. SIN HAS A . It breaks up the fair order of the world and tends to reduce it to chaos. Religion and morality are the chief securities for order, the strongest bands of social unity. Vice is a social solvent, destroying ties of trust and affection, undermining the foundations of industrial co-operation. It is corruption, and corruption means decomposition. This may be applied (1) politically, (2) socially, (3) personally. III. SIN HAS A EFFECT. The earth is seen as not only wild; it is "waste," i.e. fruitless, solitary, desolate. The fruitful place becomes a wilderness, and the whole land desolate, the result of the retrogressive and disintegrating influences of sin is not to reduce the world to a state of elementary simplicity. It introduces confusion, turmoil, disaster, death. The loss of goodness involves the admission of evil passions, and the advent of these is followed by the irruption of misery with no prospect of peace but in death and destruction (James 1:15). The abject helplessness which resorts to false pretensions and its failure. I. ABJECT . This follows the discovery or punishment of sin. It is when Israel "is spoiled." Israel is boastful and self-confident before the disaster comes; the prophet advises him to consider what he will do after it has fallen on him. What can be done in such a case? The sin cannot be undone; once revealed it cannot be hidden again; punishment from God cannot be successfully resisted by man. It is vain, then, to call on the mountains to fall and cover us (Luke 23:30). How dreadful to be thus confounded! Left without excuse, without refuge, without remedy! How much better to anticipate this conclusion and prevent it! II. FALSE . There are the refuges now resorted to and trusted in for the future, but in vain. 1. Outward glory is a mockery when once internal wretchedness is discovered. What use are purple and fine linen to the leper? 2. When character is revealed, profession counts for nothing. 3. When true worth is destroyed, the most frantic attempts to recover it at the last moment will prove fruitless. The character once lost is hard to retrieve. Consider, then, the common mistake of living for appearances, making the outside of life respectable while the heart is corrupt, and, in the event of discovery, not repenting and amending, but simply excusing one’s self, "making the best of the matter, trying still to put on a fair show. This is common at all times. So many people are more anxious to seem good than to be good. All the petty contrivances and miserable deceptions of such lives will be one day disclosed. III. FAILURE. "Thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life." 1. Once discovered, the attempt to win favor by false appearances will not only defeat its own object; it will aggravate the evil it is intended to avoid. It aims at securing honor; but when detected it is the butt of ridicule, the deserved occasion of contempt. 2. The friends of sinful days become foes in the time of trouble. The lovers of the daughter of Zion are the first to despise her and seek her life. The ties of friendship in wickedness are brittle. This is based on selfishness. No high constancy can be expected from people of bad character. The only friend who will be a refuge in the shame and ruin which follow sin, is not the partner in guilt, but the very God against whom the sin is committed. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 4:1-4 The duty of reality in religious profession. The reformations of Jehu and Josiah were superficial and short-lived. Something more thorough was required. A real, immediate return to Jehovah was demanded. I. THE SIGNS OF . 1. Retention of the memories and symbols of the guilty past. They may not be used, but they are there. There has not been strength of will to remove them, or the fear of man has produced vacillation. Externally the heathen temple stands side by side with the house of God, and may claim equal respect with it. 2. An uncertain and wavering attitude. Blowing hot and blowing cold. Compromising with existent evils. Postponing needed reforms. 3. Unrighteousness of life. This is one of the gravest evils. A creed which does not affect conduct must be either untrue or not heartily believed. An enigma of the anti-slavery times was the fact that amongst the pro-slavery advocates were many of the most orthodox clergy, whereas the leaders of the agitation for freedom were secularists, Unitarians, and men of vague or heterodox religious opinions. II. EVILS UPON . 1. Confusion is created between the true and the false religions. 2. A constant temptation exists in the relics and practices of evil that are retained. 3. Moral influence upon unbelievers is lost, and unrighteousness encouraged. 4. Spiritual growth is seriously impeded. It is a "sowing among thorns, or upon the exhausted and unfruitful soil of superficial emotion and fancy." As Wild land can be cleansed from weeds only by deep and repeated plowing, so the spiritual nature must be thoroughly moved by penitence and steadfast resolution. III. GOD’S FEELING TOWARDS UNREAL . He cannot accept their penitence. Their services are an abomination to him. His anger is represented as a smoldering fire ready to break forth in destruction.—M. Human uncertainty coexisting with Divine illumination. The prophecy now uttered does not harmonize with that of Jer 3:12-25. The times of fulfillment are unknown to the prophet. This element of uncertainty in all prophecies, even those of Christ ("for of the times and the seasons knoweth no man," etc.) is noteworthy. This outburst of annoyance and misconception illustrates— I. THE LATENT IN DIVINE . The moral balance and perspective are threatened with disturbance. Hence the impulse to expostulate with God—to speak as if from a superior standpoint of morality. Seeming contradictions are encountered which would have no existence to a simpler or less illuminated spirit. It is as if the moral nature of man were only practically sufficient for what is revealed to him by the ordinary faculties and means of knowledge. II. THE SORROW GIFTS. The prophet, no more than the poet or man of genius, is to be envied. How hard to be the custodian of a truth men will not receive! To be conscious of evils impending which one cannot avert! The intentional sensitiveness of the prophetic temperament, and the keener vision of the seer, are the occasions of an incommunicable sadness, and even, at times, of overwhelming concern. Especially is this the case where patriotic feeling identifies the prophet on the one side with his people, and devout spirituality leads him nevertheless to acknowledge the righteousness of God. There was no more human or loving heart in Israel than Jeremiah’s, and if they would not heed his counsels, he was helpless. To be "before the age" in such a sense is not so enviable as we might imagine. III. THE RESERVE THAT MARKS THE OF TRUTH. Partly necessitated by limitation of human nature; partly due to the subordination of the prophet, teacher, etc; to the special task before him. We should lose more than we should gain if, constituted as we are, we were to receive unlimited revelations of the future. The practical and immediate import of Divine revelation is therefore our first concern. Today is a little space cleared for duty. Opportunities of well-doing occur in constant succession. "What is that to thee?" might well be asked of many a one that concerns himself with things beyond his ken: "follow thou me."—M. The wisdom of this world. That there is such a thing we may well believe, for Christ himself noticed and commended it: "The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." Within a certain range it is often seen to the disadvantage of the "wisdom that is from above." I. IT IS GREAT IN OF MEANS, METHODS, AND POLICY. Attention is directed to these continually. A certain pride is exhibited in skill and power of manipulation. There is something very attractive to a certain order of mind in the opportunities the world affords for maneuver, dexterity, intrigue. The world prizes and encourages cleverness in practical, external matters. It can even appreciate the business qualities and the reliable character of Christians, when their inspiring principle is utterly ignored or intensely disliked. How much has the Church of today to learn of the world in merely practical concerns, knowledge of human nature, and adaptation of herself to her surroundings! II. IT IS MARKED BY: 1. Dislike to what is worthy and good. Disillusion from worldly dreams may coexist with this. But men without lofty ideals cannot be happy or satisfied. 2. Heedlessness as to the impending judgments of God and the eternal future. 3. Consciousness of worthlessness and uselessness of its own efforts.—M. BY J. WAITE Such an analogy as this reminds us that the materials of the highest wisdom are always lying close within our reach, sometimes in very unlikely places. The world without is a mirror in which we see our own moral life and the laws that govern it reflected. Air, earth, and sea are full of teachers whom God has sent to rebuke in us all that is false and evil, and lead us into all that is true and good. The prophet, in the text, does but give an articulate voice to the silent eloquence of one of these. Apply personally some of the lessons taught. I. THE LIFE OF EVERY MAN IS A PROCESS OF . There is a true analogy between the soul of a man and the field in which a farmer sows his seed. In each case there are latent productive elements that may be turned either to good or evil according to the conditions of their development—capacities of indefinite improvement or of indefinite deterioration, of boundless fruitfulness or of boundless waste. The prolific virtue of the soil will nourish alike the germs of precious corn or of noisome weeds; and, whichever it be, the heavens above, by all the influences they shed down upon it, will promote the process. Thus will the faculties of our spiritual nature foster either the seeds of Divine excellence or of satanic corruption, and then all the laws to which our nature is subject, and all the associations of our life, will help to elaborate the issue, until we reap either a glad harvest of fruits that will endure forever, or one of shame and sorrow—thorns and weeds and briars fit only for the flames. "He that soweth to his flesh," etc. (Galatians 6:8). Hence the solemn necessity for some Divine power so to control and govern the secret dispositions and tendencies of our nature as that in our case the law shall be fulfilled in the nobler and better way. "Make the tree good," etc. (Matthew 12:33). II. In this husbandry of the soul, NEGLECT LEADS TO LOSS AND WASTE AND RUIN. "Fallow ground" is land untilled, uncultivated, which no plough turns up and into which no seed is cast. It may be purposely left to rest, that it may not exhaust itself, and that its internal resources may be all the richer afterwards. But the point of the analogy is this—that it naturally becomes encumbered with "thorns." In the spiritual husbandry, while fruitfulness is the result only of diligent labor, ruin follows from simple neglect. The land of the slothful husbandman will soon present the picture of weedy, thorny desolation. To be ruined, to sink into a state of utter poverty and barrenness and destitution of all satisfying good, the souls of men only need to be left alone. "While men sleep the enemy sows tares." "What shall it profit a man," etc.? (Mark 8:36). Our Lord speaks of the soul as being "lost" simply through being forgotten in the eager pursuit of a kind of good which can never of itself enrich and satisfy it. This implies that its native propensities are for the most part of a downward tendency. It bears within it the seeds of moral decay. The "fallow ground" spontaneously produces "thorns." III. IT IS VAIN TO SOW SEEDS OF TRUTH AND IN HEARTS WITH OTHER AND THINGS. How many there are whose religious career may well be described as a "sowing among thorns!" They have religious susceptibilities; they are familiar with religious influences; but their secret hearts are the home of mean ambitions, tainted with the "lust of the eye and the pride of life," or they are entangled with a network of worldly associations or bound by the chains of some bad habit, from which they have not the courage or the strength to set themselves free. And so their spiritual condition is a strange medley of good and evil. Every better affection and impulse within them has some form of moral weakness by its side that nullifies it. Strong as their heavenward aspirations may sometimes be, there is nothing like whole-heartedness in their pursuit of the nobler good. No wonder they are "barren and unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ." The ground must be cleared before a better result can be expected. How many a sower, going forth in the name of the Great Husbandman, is oppressed in spirit with the thought that much of the seed that he scatters falls "among thorns!" He has to contend with a thousand obstructive forces in men’s hearts, and knows well that, unless some mightier force goes with his message to overbear all these, they will "choke the Word." Let the young especially watch and pray against the encroachment upon them of influences fatal to their higher life. It is a comparatively easy thing to overmaster the sins and follies of youth. Far otherwise when they have become the confirmed and cherished habits of the man. "Break up your fallow ground l" It is hard to do this. It involves much self-crucifixion. We all like to live at ease—to yield to the strongest influences of the passing hour, as the sluggard does, who allows himself to be overcome by the spell of sleep, and to dream away the hours and moments that ought to be spent in the wakeful activities of life. But this is not the way to reach the heights of heavenly glory and blessedness. It is the certain road to poverty and ruin, to despair and death. Not on grounds of self-interest alone is the appeal of the text to be urged. Consider what a loss to the world is involved in every barren, undeveloped human soul and life. It is a great calamity to a country to have large tracts of its territory lying waste and desolate, while many of its people, perhaps, are perishing for lack of bread, or compelled to flee to other lands to find a field and reward for their labor. How sad that, in a world of such overwhelming spiritual need and destitution as this, the powers of any human soul, that might exercise a redeeming influence upon it, should be left idle or allowed to run to waste!—W. Vain thoughts. I. THE LIFE OF EVERY MAN IS BY HIS . "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7). True as it is that the essential moral quality of the man will always determine the order of his thinking, the converse also is equally true. Thought is the formative principle of all personal life—kindles feeling, touches the springs of purpose, guides the course of moral action. What are character and conduct but the definite expression of secret thought? "That subtle husbandman, That sows its little seed of good or ill In the moist, unsunned surface of the heart. And what it there in secrecy cloth plant, Stands with its ripe fruit at the judgment day." II. EVERY MAN IS FOB THE TENOR OF HIS . If not, there could be no room in this matter for remonstrance or appeal. The law of the association of ideas may be such that it is as impossible to prevent some particular thought from recurring to the mind as to stay the tide of the ocean; but it is certainly possible for us to regulate our habitual mental conditions. It is given to us by watchful, prayerful self-discipline, especially by occupying the mind with higher and nobler things, to secure that the main drift of our thinking shall be in the right direction. We can choose our own fields of daily contemplation. Those thoughts will "lodge" in us which we most encourage and cherish, and for this we are accountable. III. THE OF VAIN IS IN ITS EFFECT. "Vain thoughts" are iniquitous thoughts, sinful thoughts. "The thought of foolishness is sin" (Proverbs 24:9). It is impossible to measure the corrupting power of such thoughts.’ No evil imagination or purpose can enter the mind, and be allowed for a moment to dwell there, without leaving some moral stain behind it. Accustom yourself to any extent to the play of such influences, your whole being becomes contaminated by them, and— "The baseness of their nature Shall have power to drag you down." Our minds cannot be in frequent contact with mean or groveling objects of contemplation without finding that they poison all the streams of moral life within us. "To be carnally minded is death" (Romans 8:6). IV. THE ONLY CURE FOR THIS EVIL IS THE DIVINE RENEWAL OF OUR NATURE. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts" (Matthew 15:19). Let that be sanctified, and their power over us shall cease. Superficial expedients, mere external restraints and corrections, are of little use. We need something that shall go to the root of the disease. The fountain of life within must be cleansed if the streams that flow from it are to be pure. The temple at Jerusalem was externally beautiful, its roof so bright with burnished gold that nothing less pure than the glorious sunbeams could rest upon it; but that did not prevent it from being internally the haunt of many a form of hollow hypocrisy, and the scene of a base, worldly traffic—"a den of thieves." Let the Spirit of God make our souls his temple, and that holy Presence shall effectually scatter all vain and corrupt imaginations. They cannot" lodge" where the heavenly glory dwells. Every thought of our hearts shall then be "brought into captivity to Christ."—W. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 4:3, Jeremiah 4:4 The peril of profession without possession of real religion. This will be shown if we consider— I. THE SCENE HERE TO US. 1. The fallow ground; that is, ground unoccupied, free. Not hardened, as the wayside (cf. Matthew 13:1-58.); not shallow-soiled, as the stony ground; not poor and barren, but capable of yielding rich return. 2. Sowers about to cast in seed—good seed. 3. A stern prohibition of their work. They are commanded to "sow not." A reason is given—the fallow ground that looks so fair is full of thorns. They are bidden "break up," i.e. purge, cleanse, this ground. And all this on penalty of God’s sore displeasure (Jeremiah 4:4, etc.). II. ITS . 1. For those to whom Jeremiah wrote. (1) They were as the fallow ground, at this time free from open visible idolatry which had been their disgrace and ruin. All that King Josiah had put a stop to. So now they were free to begin afresh, to take a new departure, to turn over a new leaf, as fallow ground is ready for a new sowing (cf. the history of the times). (2) And they were about to sow the seed; i.e. they were about to adopt the outward forms of the divinely appointed Jewish worship. Externally they would conform to the ancient faith, and in large measure they did so. (3) But now there comes the strange, stern prohibition of the text, and in so much that follows. They are bidden to refrain from this external religion, these outward rites. And the reason is given—their hearts were yet unchanged, full of the seeds of all their former wickedness, and until these "thorns" were purged out no good, but only evil, could come of any mere external conformity. It had no value in the eyes of God, it only aroused his sore wrath. But let them "break up the fallow ground" (cf. verses 4, 14). Let there be a true inward repentance before they approach God with the visible signs and forms of his worship. Let them not think that by any such mere formal service they could turn aside the anger of God. Such the significance of this scene in regard to Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Jeremiah. But note: 2. Its significance for ourselves. (1) There are many whose character corresponds to the "fallow ground." Free from gross external fault, morally fair, decent, and reputable. Not thoughtless and trifling, as the wayside hearers (cf. Matthew 13:1-58.). Not obstinately self-willed, as the stony-ground hearers, who are represented by the emblem of a superficial soil having stretched beneath it a hard, pavement-like rock, through which the rootlets of the sown seed cannot thrust themselves to reach the nourishment of the soil beneath. Nor are they incapable of yielding good service to God; on the contrary, they have, like the fallow ground, all capacities for yielding a rich return. (2) And such persons often sow the seed of religious profession and observance, and assume the varied external signs of true religion. It is not necessary to inquire their motives, but they do this. And when we see them we are all well pleased. We hope very much from them, as no doubt Josiah hoped much from the external religiousness of the people with whom he had to do. But God sees not as man seeth. His eye penetrates beneath the surface. And the fallow ground may be full of thorns; that is, the heart of him who makes all this external profession—comes to the Lord’s table, teaches in a Sunday school, leads in prayer, perhaps enters the ministry of the Church,—his heart may all the while be uurenewed, impure, filled with the seeds of thorns, which wait only their opportunity to bear their baneful harvest. (3) Hence God forbids such sowing amongst thorns. How stern his denunciations, how awful his threatenings, to those who are guilty of this sin! Do any inquire, Wherefore this severity? The reply is (a) Hypocrisy is hateful to him. See our Savior’s denunciations of hypocrisy (cf. Matthew 23:1-39.). He who was gentle and full of grace to all others, had no words too scathing for this sin. No doubt his stern words were designed also to open the eyes of the people who were deceived by the false professions of those to whom our Lord spoke so severely. And we can hardly doubt, either, that there was a gracious purpose in regard to the men themselves, to awaken and alarm them, if by any means it might be possible. But still, he who to us is the Manifestation of God, makes evident how hateful in his sight is all religious profession that rests on no reality within. (b) A further reason for the severity which is so marked here is the extreme peril of such sowing amongst thorns to the sowers themselves. Few things are more deceiving to a man’s soul than to be professing religion, and to be accounted by others as truly religious, when he is not so. It is bad to be an unregenerate man; it is worse to be such and not to know it; but the worst condition of all is to be such, and to be believing all the while that you are the reverse, and. that for you salvation is sure. But this dread self-deception is fearfully fostered by this sin, which God here so severely condemns. (c) And yet another reason for this Divine condemnation is that by this sin the Name of God is blasphemed. The world is keen-eyed, and soon detects the mere outside religion of those whom this word contemplates. And because of the base coin the genuine is suspected, and the way of godliness despised. Therefore note— III. THE SOLEMN OF THIS SUBJECT TO . 1. To those who have been guilty of this sin. You have been, you are now, it may be, making loud religious profession, and yet your heart is not right in the sight of God. We do say, "Throw up your profession, abandon all religious ways;" but we do say, "Have done with insincerity." Resolve that the fallow ground shall be broken up, the heart truly yielded to God. Implore him to give you the reality, that your profession may be a lie no more. 2. Let all remember that this purging of our hearts, this cleansing of our souls, needs to be continually done. The thorn seeds float continually over the fallow ground, and, if it be not continually cleansed, they will take root, and the good seed will be choked. 3. The Divine condemnation of sowing amongst thorns is not designed to deter our sowing where the grace of God has cleansed us from such thorns. Many read these terrible threatenings, and fear to take upon them a religious profession, lest they should be found unworthy and untrue. But if God has given you to repent of sin, to long after holiness, to look daily to your Lord for grace and help, then he has washed your heart from wickedness (verse 14), and you may, you ought, openly to avow his name, observe his appointed ordinances, and engage in any way his providence may invite you in his direct and recognized service. 4. And let not those who neither possess nor profess religion deem themselves better off because those who profess without possessing are so severely dealt with. Let them remember that if the righteous—and to the outward eye these are righteous—scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?—C. The proclamation of woe. Such is the character of this entire section, and we observe upon this proclamation— I. THAT, LIKE ALL SUCH, IT IS BY DIVINE LOVE. The most fearful judgments contained in the whole Bible are those denounced by our Lord Jesus Christ. The most awful words ever spoken are those which proceeded out of the mouth of him at whose graciousness all-men wondered. It is evident, therefore, that they were the utterances, as is this one here, of Divine love. They are beacon-lights set up as a warning, that men may not suffer their vessels to run on those rocks against which they warn, and of whose peril they are the evidence and sign. There was time for those to whom Jeremiah spoke to turn unto the Lord and find salvation, though indeed it was the eleventh hour. And that they might be driven to this, morally compelled to come in to the mercy of God, is the object of these terrible threatenings, these blasts of the alarm-trumpet of God’s love. And in keeping with this intent, this proclamation— II. SETS FORTH IN A VIVID, FORM THE THAT IT . 1. Under the emblem of a lion bursting forth from its thicket upon its defenseless prey (verses 7, 8). 2. Under that of a terrible tempest (verses 11-13). 3. Under that of a cordon of "watchers," who guard every corner and the entire circumference of a field in which the game they are hunting for has taken refuge. So should Judah and Jerusalem Be beleaguered and hemmed in until captured and destroyed (verses 16, 17). They who would lead men away from sin to God must not shun to set forth in the most impressive way possible to them the dread evil of that which they would have them forsake. Hence the lurid pictures of the unquenchable flame and the undying worm which our Savior presents to us, and hence these vivid representations of the prophet Jeremiah. III. IS , AS IT HAS BEEN , WITH TO THAT BY WHICH THE WOULD BE TURNED ASIDE: (Verses 8, 14.) So in declaring the judgments of God against sin, we should never let it be forgotten how God hath said, "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but rather," etc. This section is a model of the method in which the more awful portions of our message to men should be declared. Hence note how it— IV. IS A BURDEN OF THE LORD ON THOSE WHO ARE CHARGED WITH IT. (Verses 19-31.) Jeremiah could not refrain from delivering his message, and could not but know that to many it would be delivered in vain; but it was with grief and pain of heart he foretold what he knew must come. See our Savior’s tears over Jerusalem. Listen to St. Paul, "Of whom I tell you even weeping." Would that we all knew how to combine this faithfulness and this yearning tenderness in the delivery of this message! Then would men be aroused, as too often they are not now, to "flee from the wrath to come." V. IS CERTAIN TO BE IF THE SIN WHICH IS THE CAUSE OF IT RE NOT . Few things are more solemnizing to the careless soul than to have plainly brought before him the sure fact that God has never gone from his word, awful though that word might have been. He did not here. All that Jeremiah foretold came to pass. The anguish of his heart was not caused, any more than were the Redeemer’s tears, by a merely fancied calamity. We are not able to tell what will be all the characteristics and elements of the Divine retribution on sin, but of its reality none who read the book of God’s written records, or the book of his providence as seen in historic facts, can for one moment doubt. Oh for a far deeper conviction of these soul-subduing truths on the part of all who preach and all who hear God’s holy Word!—C. "Ah, Lord God! surely thou," etc. Inflicted infatuation, or the deceived of God. I. THERE ARE SUCH. How else can they be described who, in spite of the plainest declarations of God against their wickedness, persist therein, persuading themselves that they have no cause to fear? Such was the way of these to whom Jeremiah spoke. They and their false prophets were continually saying, "We shall have peace" (cf. Jeremiah 5:12, Jeremiah 5:31). And there have been other instances (cf. Pharaoh, hardening his heart against God). And there are many now. The Bible speaks, providence speaks, conscience speaks, Christ’s ministers speak, the Holy Spirit speaks pleading with them; but they heed not, they turn a deaf ear to every voice. What can this be called but infatuation? And it can only be explained as Jeremiah here explains it, as a Divine judgment. "Ah, Lord God! surely thou hast deceived them." The evidence that their course was one that must bring punishment was so glaring, so strong, so irresistible, that none but the infatuated could possibly disregard it. Now, it is the testimony the Word of God that such blindness is judicial, is from God. God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Our Lord refers more often than to any other Old Testament Scripture, to that word of Isaiah’s which tells of the Divine will, that "seeing, they [his enemies] may see and not perceive, and hearing, they may hear and not understand." Men who will not hear come at length to find they cannot. So with Judah and Jerusalem; they were at this time "given up to a strong delusion, that they should believe the lie"—that peace could be their lot in spite of what they were. We speak of gospel-hardened men, and, alas! we too often see such. And this is in keeping with God’s law of habit—a law most beneficent to those who obey him, but terrible in its effects on the disobedient. For separate actions crystallize into habits, whereby such actions, no matter what their character, become easy to us, and at last can be performed without any effort of our will. So that separate acts of obedience to God will at length become a blessed and holy habit of obedience, and separate acts of sin repeated again and again will become a direful habit of sin, from which we cannot break away. And because all this is in accordance with a Divine law, therefore God is said to harden men’s hearts, to hinder their understanding of his Word, to give them over to strong delusions and, as here, to "deceive the people." This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Is the punishment thought too severe? Then let the moral condition of Jerusalem be inquired into. Must not such transgressions precipitate its people into ruin? There are four well-marked sections or strophes. Jeremiah 5:1-9 Gladly would Jehovah pardon, if his people showed but a gleam of sound morality. But they are all deaf to the warning voice—the Law of God is flagrantly violated. In particular the marriage tie, as well the typical one between man and woman as the anti-typical between the people and its God, is openly disregarded (comp. Hosea 4:1; Micah 7:2; Isaiah 64:6, Isaiah 64:7; Psalms 14:3). Jeremiah 5:1 If ye can find a man. "A man" is explained by the following clauses. It is a man whose practice and whose aims are right, of whom Jeremiah, like Diogenes with his lantern, is in search. (It is evident that the prophet speaks rhetorically, for himself and his disciples, however few, were doubtless "men" in the prophetic sense of the word.) Judgment … the truth; rather, justice … good faith, the primary virtues of civil society. Jeremiah 5:2 And though they say, The Lord liveth. Though they asseverate by the most solemn of all oaths (contrast Jeremiah 4:1,Jeremiah 4:2). Surely. So the Syriac. This rendering, however, involves an emendation of one letter in the text. The ordinary reading is literally therefore, but may etymologically be taken to mean "for all this," "nevertheless." Jeremiah 5:3 Are not thine eyes upon the truth? rather, surely thine eyes are upon (equivalent to thou lookest for and demandest) good faith, alluding to Jeremiah 5:1. Jeremiah 5:4 Therefore I said; rather, and as for me, I said. They are foolish; rather, they act foolishly (as Numbers 12:11). For; rather, because. Their want of religious instruction is the cause of their faulty conduct. In fact, it was only after the return from Babylon that any popular schools were founded in Judaea, and not till shortly before the destruction of the temple that the elementary instruction attained the regularity of a system. The judgment of their God. A similar phrase occurs in Jeremiah 8:7. "Judgment (mishpat) here (as in some other passages) has acquired a technical sense. This may be illustrated by the corresponding word in Arabic (din), which means (1) obedience, (2) a religion, (3) a statute or ordinance, (4) a system of usages, rites, and ceremonies" (Lane’s ’Lexicon,’ s.v.). "Judgment" is, therefore, here equivalent to "religious law," and "law" is a preferable rendering. Jeremiah 5:5 The bonds are the thongs by which the yoke was secured to the neck (comp. Isaiah 58:6). In Jeremiah 2:20 the word is rendered "bands." Jeremiah 5:6 This verse reminds us of a famous passage in the first canto of Dante’s ’Commedia,’ in which Dante the pilgrim is successively opposed by three wild beasts—a panther, a lion, and a she-wolf. That the poet had Jeremiah in his mind cannot be doubted. The deep knowledge of the Scriptures possessed by medieval theologians (and such was Dante) may put many Protestants to shame. Curiously enough, whereas the early commentators on Dante interpret these wild beasts of vices, the moderns find historical references to nations. On the other hand, while modern expositors explain Jeremiah’s wild beasts as symbols of calamities, Rashi and St. Jerome understand them of the Chaldeans, Persians, and Greeks. A lion out of the forest. The first of a series of figures for the cruel invaders of Judah (comp. Jeremiah 4:7). The frequent references (see also Jeremiah 12:8; Jeremiah 25:38; Jeremiah 49:19; Jeremiah 50:4) show how common the lion was in the hills and valleys of the land of Israel. A wolf of the evenings; i.e. a wolf which goes out to seek for prey in the evening. So the Peshito, Targum, Vulgate (comp. "wolves of the evening," Habakkuk 1:8; Zephaniah 3:3). But there is no evidence that ‛erebh, evening, has for its plural ‛arābhōth, which is, in fact, the regular plural of ‛arābāh, desert. Render, therefore, a wolf of the deserts, i.e. one which has its den in the deserts, and falls upon the cultivated parts when it is hungry. Luther, "the wolf out of the desert." A leopard; rather, a panther. The Chaldeans are compared to this animal, on account of its swiftness, in Habakkuk 1:8. Jeremiah 5:7 How … for this? rather, Why should I pardon thee? Thy children; i.e. (since "the daughter of Zion" is equivalent to Zion regarded as an ideal entity) the members of the Jewish people (comp. Leviticus 19:18, "the children of thy people"). When I had fed them to the full. So Ewald, following the versions and many manuscripts. This gives a good sense, and may be supported by Jeremiah 5:28; Deuteronomy 32:15; Hosea 13:6. But the reading of the received Hebrew text, though somewhat more difficult, is yet perfectly capable of explanation; and, slight as the difference is in the reading adopted by Ewald (it involves a mere shade of pronunciation), it is not to be preferred to the received reading. Read, therefore, though -r made them to swear (allegiance), yet they committed adultery. The oath may be that of Sinai (Exodus 24:1-18.), or such au oath as had been recently taken by Josiah and the people (1 Kings 23:3; 2 Chronicles 34:31, 2 Chronicles 34:32). The "adultery" may be taken both in a literal and in a figurative sense, and so also the "harlots’ houses" in the next clause. It is also well worthy of consideration whether the prophet may not be referring to certain matrimonial customs handed down from remote antiquity and arising from the ancient system of kinship through women (comp. Ezekiel 22:11). Jeremiah 5:8 As fed horses in the morning. The rendering fed horses has considerable authority. "Lustful horses" is also possible; this represents the reading of the Hebrew margin. The following word in the Hebrew is extremely difficult. "In the morning" cannot be right, as it is against grammar; but it is not easy to furnish a substitute. Most modems render "roving about;" Furst prefers "stallions." Jeremiah 5:10-18 Provoked by the open unbelief of the men of Judah, Jehovah repeats his warning of a sore judgment. Jeremiah 5:10 Her walls. There is a doubt about "walls," which should, as some think, rather be vine-rows (a change of points is involved; also of shin into sin—the slightest of all changes), or shoots, or branches (comparing the Syriac). The figure would thus gain somewhat in symmetry. However, all the ancient interpreters (whose authority, overrated by some, still counts for something) explain the word as in the Authorized Version, and, as Graf remarks, in order to destroy the vines, it’ would be necessary to climb up upon the walls of the vineyard. (For the figure of the vine or the vineyard, scrap, on Jeremiah 2:21.) Take away … not the Lord’s. The Septuagint and Peshito read differently, translating "leave her foundations, for they are the Lord’s" (supposing the figure be taken from a building). As the text stands, it is better to change battlements into tendrils. Judah’s degenerate members are to be removed, but the vine-stock, i.e; the behooving kernel of the nation, is to be left. It is the key-note of the "remnant" which Jeremiah again strikes (see Jeremiah 4:27). Jeremiah 5:12 It is not he. Understand "who speaks by the prophets" (Payne Smith). It is hardly conceivable that any of the Jews absolutely denied the existence of Jehovah. They were practical, not speculative unbelievers, like men of the world in general. Jeremiah 5:13 And the prophets, etc. A continuation of the speech of the unbelieving Jews. The word is not in them. The Authorized Version gives a good meaning, but it involves an interference with the points. The pointed text must be rendered, he who speaketh (through the prophets, viz. Jehovah) is not in them. Thus the Jews hurl against prophets like Jeremiah the very charge which Jeremiah himself brings against the "false prophets" in Jeremiah 23:25-32. Thus shall it be done; rather, so be it done; i.e. may the sword and famine, with which they threaten us, fall upon them. Jeremiah 5:14 My words in thy mouth fire. (See on Jeremiah 1:9, Jeremiah 1:10.) Jeremiah 5:15 O house of Israel. After the captivity of the ten tribes, Judah became the sole representative of the people of Israel (scrap. Jeremiah 2:26). A mighty nation. The Authorized Version certainly gives apart of the meaning. The Hebrew word rendered "mighty" (’ēthān), rather, "perennial," is the epithet of rocks and mountains (Numbers 24:21; Micah 6:2); of a pasture (Jeremiah 49:19); of rivers (Deuteronomy 21:4; Psalms 74:15). As applied in the present instance, it seems to describe the inexhaustible resources of a young nation. Render here, ever replenished; i.e. ever drawing anew from its central fountain of strength. Does not this aptly convey the impression which a long-civilized nation (and the Jews, who have been called "rude," were only so by comparison with the Egyptians and Assyrians) must derive from the tumultuous incursions of nomad hosts? The description-will therefore fit the Scythians; but it is not inappropriate to the Chaldeans, if we take into account the composite nature of their armies. An ancient nation; i.e. one which still occupies its primeval seat in the north (Jeremiah 6:22), undisturbed by invaders. Whose language thou knowest not. So Isaiah of the Assyrians, "(a people) of a stammering tongue, that thou canst not understand." The Jews were no philologists, and were as unlikely to notice the fundamental affinity of Hebrew and Assyrian as an ancient Greek to observe the connection between his own language and the Persian. When the combatants were to each other βάρβαροι, mercy could hardly be expected. The sequence of verses 49 and 50 in Deuteronomy 28:1-68 speaks volumes. Jeremiah 5:16 Their quiver. (See on Jeremiah 4:29.) As an open sepulcher; i.e. furnished with deadly arrows, "fiery darts." So the psalmist, of the "throat" of deceitful persecutors (Psalms 5:9). Jeremiah 5:17 Which thy sons and thy daughters, etc.; rather, they shall eat that sons and thy daughters. In the other clauses of the verse the verb is in the singular, the subject being the hostile nation. They shall impoverish, etc.; rather, it shall batter … with weapons of war (so rightly Payne Smith); kherebh, commonly rendered "sword." is applied to any cutting instrument, such as a razor (Ezekiel 5:1), a mason’s tool (Exodus 20:25), and, as here and Ezekiel 26:9, weapons of war in general. Jeremiah 5:19-29 Judah’s own obstinacy and flagrant disobedience are the causes of this sore judgment. Jeremiah 5:19 Like as ye have forsaken me, etc. The law of correspondence between sin and punishment pervades Old Testament prophecy (comp. Isaiah 5:1-30.). As the Jews served foreign gods in Jehovah’s land, they shall become the slaves of foreigners in a land which is not theirs. Jeremiah 5:21 Without understanding; literally, without heart. This seems at first sight inconsistent with Jeremiah 5:23, where the people is described as having indeed a "heart," but one hostile to Jehovah. The explanation is that a course of deliberate sin perverts a man’s moral perceptions. The prophet first of all states the result, and then the cause. So in Ezekiel 12:2, "Which have eyes and see not," etc.; "for they are a rebellions house." Jeremiah 5:22 Fear ye not me? The Hebrew places "me" emphatically at the beginning of the sentence. By a perpetual decree. This is one of the evidences, few but sufficient, of the recognition of natural laws by the Biblical writers; of laws, however, which are but the description of the Divine mode of working, "covenants" (Jeremiah 33:20; comp. Genesis 9:18) made for man’s good, but capable of being annulled (Isaiah 54:10). Comp. Proverbs 8:29; Job 38:8-12. Jeremiah 5:23 A revolting and a rebellious heart. The heart is the center of the moral life virtually equivalent to "the will;" it. is "revolting" when it "turns back" (so literally here) from God’s Law and service, and "rebellious" when it actively defies and opposes him. Jeremiah 5:24 That giveth rain, etc. The second appeal is to the regularity of the rains. Dr. Robinson remarks that there are not at the present day in Palestine "any particular periods of rain, or succession of showers, which might be regarded as distinct rainy seasons," and that …unless there has been some change m the climate of Palestine, the former and the latter rains seem to correspond to "the first showers of autumn, which revived the parched and thirsty earth and prepared it for the seed, and the later showers of spring, which continued to refresh and forward both the ripening crops and the vernal products of the fields" (’Biblical Researches,’ 3.98). He reserveth unto us, etc.; literally, he keepeth for us the weeks—the statutes of harvest; i.e. the weeks which are the appointed conditions of harvest. The prophet means the seven weeks which elapsed from the second day of the Passover to the "Feast of Harvest," or "Feast of Weeks" (Pentecost) (Exodus 23:16; Exodus 34:22; Deuteronomy 16:9, Deuteronomy 16:10). Jeremiah 5:25 Have turned away these things. "These things" are the benefits mentioned in the preceding verse (comp. Jeremiah 3:3; Jeremiah 12:4). Thus the judgment is not entirely future; a foretaste of it has already been given. Jeremiah 5:26 They lay wait, etc.; rather, they spy (literally, one spieth), as fowlers lie in wait. A trap; literally, a destroyer; i.e. an instrument of destruction (comp. Isaiah 54:16, where" the waster" (or destroyer) probably means the weapon referred to previously). Jeremiah 5:27 A cage. The Hebrew word klub is used in Amos 8:1 for a basket such as was used for fruit; it seems to be the parent of the Greek word κλωβός, used in the ’Anthology’ for a bird-cage. The root means to plait or braid; hence some sort of basket-work seems to be meant. Connecting this with the preceding verse, Hitzig seems right in inferring that the "cage" was at the same time a trap (comp. Ecclesiastes 11:1-10:30, "Like as a partridge taken in a cage ἐνκαρτάλλῳ, a peculiar kind of basket], so is the heart of the proud"). Canon Tristram suggests that there is an allusion to decoy-birds, which are still much employed in Syria, and are carefully trained for their office, But this seems to go beyond the text. Deceit; i.e. the goods obtained by deceit. Jeremiah 5:28 They overpass the deeds of the wicked; rather, they overpass the common measure of wickedness (literally, the cases of wickedness); or, as others, they exceed in deeds of wickedness. Yet they prosper; rather, so that they (the fatherless) might prosper; or, that they (the rich) might make it to prosper. Jeremiah 5:29 A repetition of Jer 5:9 in the manner of a refrain. Jeremiah 5:30, Jeremiah 5:31 The result of the prophet’s examination of the moral condition of the people. Jeremiah 5:30 A wonderful and horrible thing, etc.; rather, an appalling and horrible thins hath happened in the land. The word rendered "appalling" (or stupefying) has a peculiar force, it only occurs again in Jeremiah 23:14, though a cognate adjective is found in Jeremiah 18:13 (comp. on Jeremiah 2:11). Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets … the priests. (See on Jeremiah 2:26.) Bear rule by their means; rather, rule at their beck. (literally, at their hands, comp. Jeremiah 33:13; 1 Chronicles 25:2, 1 Chronicles 25:3; 2 Chronicles 23:18). An example of this interference of the false prophets with the priestly office is given by Jeremiah himself. (Jeremiah 29:24-26). My people love to have it so. Sometimes the prophets speak as if the governing classes alone were responsible for the sins and consequent calamities of their country. But Jeremiah here expressly declares that the governed were as much to blame as their governors. Forgiveness for many through the righteousness of one. I. GOD IS GREATLY TO PARDON HIS . The command is given to "run to and fro" and search for the one righteous man. God thus expresses his anxiety to forgive. "He waiteth to be gracious." The first movement towards exercising pardon comes from God even before men desire it. He will lay hold of the smallest ground for forgiveness. If the one righteous man can but be found, God will forgive the city. II. SOME IS AS A GROUND FOR . If the righteous man cannot be found, the condition of the city is hopeless. There is a propitiatory power in righteousness. Good men are priests, and their lives sacrifices of value for the advantage of others. The righteousness of Christ is an essential element in the atonement (Hebrews 10:9, Hebrews 10:10). It was not possible for the sin of man to be forgiven except on condition of this. Pardon is offered to men only through this (Acts 13:38). III. THE WHICH AVAILS WITH GOD MUST BE SOLID AND . A vain, religious boast counts for nothing (Jeremiah 5:2). 1. The goodness to be sought for is not devoutness of demeanor, but the exercise of justice and the effort to keep good faith. 2. This is to be looked for, not in the temple, but in the streets and lanes and places of public concourse, i.e. in daily life. The best evidences of character are to be seen in home life and conduct in business. When the domestic and commercial morality of a city is corrupt, the condition of that city is ruinous; whatever may be the assiduity and decorum with which religious observances are maintained. IV. THE OF ONE MAY BE FOR THE OF MANY. Sodom and Gomorrah would have been spared for the sake of ten righteous men (Genesis 18:32). Lot was the providential means of saving Zoar (Genesis 19:21). The one man Christ secures salvation for the whole world (Hebrews 7:24, Hebrews 7:25). There is much that is mysterious in the principle of Divine grace which is here revealed—much that we cannot explain. Still, there are truths entering into it which may be discerned, e.g. injustice cannot be done by God in the smallest respect; the righteous are "the salt of the earth," they preserve by preventing complete corruption; there is hope for the city in which but one righteous man lives, since he may be the means of leading others back to righteousness—this principle is one on which God acts in forgiving, not in distributing bare rights; all that he requires is a safe and justifiable ground on which to exercise pardon, not a fund of merit such as could constitute a claim on his grace. Fruitless chastisement. I. THE PURPOSE OF IS . 1. It is to lead men by outward suffering to inward grief ("they have not grieved"). No more hopeless condition can be found than pleasure or indifference in sin. The tears of penitence are the first preparations for reformation. 2. It is to lead men, through outward suffering and inward grief, to a genuine Conversion of character (God looks for a restoration of "good faith"), and to bring them back to God ("they have refused to return"). It is no end in itself, no good except as leading to a further good. It is not given in vindictive rage nor to satisfy the claims of abstract justice. Though it springs directly from the wrath of God, that wrath is based on his eternal love. Because God loves his children he must be angry when they sin. Because he desires their good he must not spare his rod (Proverbs 3:11, Proverbs 3:12). The purpose of chastisement is not so mysterious as is commonly supposed. People often exclaim vaguely, "These troubles must be sent for some good purpose." The purpose is not all hidden. It is mainly that we may be brought nearer to God. II. THE AIMED AT IN IS NOT ALWAYS . A terrible delusion possesses multitudes of suffering people. They have faith enough to believe that trouble is sent for their good, but not spirituality enough to see how to use it for that end. Such people assume that it must benefit them, however they behave under it. Some suppose that if they suffer in this world they will certainly receive compensation in the next. Such ideas imply that chastisement cannot be deserved, or that the mere endurance of it is meritorious, or that, if not exactly punishment for sin, it must be a necessity to be borne now or hereafter for its own sake or to satisfy some strange will of God. But chastisement is a "means of grace," and, like other "means of grace," may be frustrated. We may receive this grace in vain (2 Corinthians 6:1). Consider the causes of the fruitlessness of chastisement. 1. Stoical hardness. We may be stricken, but not grieve. 2. Thoughtlessness. We may feel inward grief, but not reflect on our condition and need. 3. Pride, which suffers pangs of grief but no contrition for sin. 4. Impenitence. We may "refuse to receive correction," harden our wills against submission, and rebel in impatience and complaining against God, instead of returning to him. III. IS WHOLLY AN EVIL THING. Like every other grace, if abused it works injury. Sent to bless, it is converted into a curse. 1. It is wasted suffering. As such it must be reckoned as an evil. Pain in itself is not a good thing. If it works no good, natural instinct is right in regarding it as bad. 2. It leads to an aggravation of wickedness. The very abuse of it is a sin. The wrong temper in which it is received is so much more wickedness added to the long catalogue of unrepented sin. One more call from the Father is spurned by his children. 3. It leaves the heart harder than it finds it. Sorrow, if it does not soften the sufferer, will harden him, as friction, which abrades the tender skin, renders the tough skin more thick and horny. Jeremiah 5:12, Jeremiah 5:13 Culpable unbelief. The Jews are accused of unbelief as a sin. It is therefore sometimes to be regarded in this light (e.g. Hebrews 4:1-16.). Let us consider the characteristics of a culpable unbelief and its origin. I. IS MORALLY WHEN IT ARISES FROM AN EVIL HEART. 1. This unbelief must be distinguished (1) from that of ignorance; (2) from that of prejudice, bad education, etc.; (3) from that of honest doubt. 2. It is recognized (1) as residing in the will rather than in the intellect—a result of wishing a thing not to be true; and (2) as colored by custom, worldly proclivities, base passions, ill feeling against all that the highest truth is concerned with. It is practically equivalent to the willful rejection of truth. He who is blamed for this is not blamed for his opinions, but for the moral determining causes of them. We are not responsible for our beliefs, in so far as they are purely intellectual, but we are responsible for them in so far as they are formed under moral influences. II. THE EVIL TOWARDS A ARE AND . These are not to be found in a simple proneness to err, a natural weakness of faith, nor in the dangers accompanying daring speculation. They are to be traced in conduct and practical affairs. 1. Untruthful habits. Israel had dealt treacherously with God (Jeremiah 5:11). We must be true to discern truth. If the eye is evil, the whole body is full of darkness. There is a close connection between those two evil things which go under the name of infidelity—treachery and unbelief, lack of faithfulness and lack of faith. 2. Resistance to the will of God. The language of the people betrays an animus, a spirit of enmity to God. "They have belied the Lord." Nothing blinds like hatred. 3. Love of ease. The words of Jeremiah were not pleasant; be threatened terrible things. Therefore his hearers refused to accept his message. Their conduct was most illogical, since truth is not affected by our liking for it—are there not many unpleasant truths?—and most injurious to themselves, since it was for their own interest to give heed to the warning of approaching calamity, that foresight might mitigate the force, if it could not now prevent the falling, of the blow. Yet this conduct was most natural. It is constantly to be observed that people listen to the teachers whom they like rather than to those whom they believe to be speaking the most important truths, and accept the opinions which suit their inclinations rather than those possibly less agreeable ideas which stand on the surest foundation of fact. 4. Spiritual deadness. The Jews deny the inspiration of the prophets. To them weighty words such as those of Jeremiah are mere "wind." So there were those who derided him who spake with the weightiest authority and "as never man spake." Sin deadens the soul to the perception of God’s voice in nature, in the Bible, in Christ, in conscience. Suitable retribution. In anticipation of their astonishment at the character of the retribution that is to fall upon them the Jews are to be shown that this is fitting and rightly corresponds to their conduct. I. THEY WHO FORSAKE GOD IN WILL FEEL THE LOSS OF GOD IN . According to the religious conduct in sunny days will be the condition of rest or ruin in dark days. II. THE FALSE GODS OF PROVE IN . Israel served heathen gods in their own laud. In their captivity they are to be slaves to strange men. The gods are then nowhere. Men make gods of wealth, pleasure, fame, etc; and find that, though these may be worshipped, they can do nothing to deliver their devotees. III. THEY WHO THROW OFF THE SERVICE OF GOD MUST SUBMIT TO HARDER SERVICE. They think to be free, but they really are the slaves of sin (John 8:34). They reject the easy yoke and light burden of Christ only to find themselves bound in the galling fetters of Satan. IV. THE ABUSE OF IS BY THE LOSS OF THEM. In their own land the Jews had proved unfaithful to the God who had given it them. They are rightly punished by exile to a strange land, where they must miss his gracious government. Jeremiah 5:22-24 Man rebuked by nature. Man considers himself to be "the lord of creation." He alone of all creatures is made in the image of God. Yet there are things in nature which should put him to shame. Jeremiah indicates two of these. I. THE DIVINE ORDER OF NATURE REBUKES THE WILFUL OF MAN. 1. Nature is ever obedient to the law of God. (1) The greatest powers of nature submit to Divine ordinances. The sea, vast and mighty, is bound by his decree (Job 38:8-11). (2) The wildest convulsions of nature do not transgress these ordinances. The waves may toss and roar, but they cannot pass the bounds that God has set them. Hurricanes, thunder-storms, earthquakes, are as subservient to law as the silent sunshine and the peaceful growth of spring. (3) The simplest means in accordance with Divine laws are sufficient to restrain the fiercest forces of nature. God has placed the sand as a bound of the sea, and the storms are driven back from the sandy beach as surely as from the coast of iron crags. (4) The obedience of nature to these Divine ordinances is everlasting and without exception. The sea is bound by perpetual decrees. 2. Man alone is disobedient to the Law of God. He is the great exception to the order of the universe. The wild sea never transgresses God’s decrees; man is the sole transgressor. The possibility of this strange, solitary rebellion among all the orders of God’s kingdoms of nature is explained by the constitution of man and the character of the obedience which is required by this. Nature is under necessity; man is free. Nature’s obedience is unconscious, material; man’s is deliberate, moral. He is to fear, to tremble, i.e. to obey under the influence of thoughts and feelings of reverence. Lacking these, he can be bound to the throne of God by no chains of compulsion. But how terrible to use the high endowment of liberty only to set at defiance the august decrees before which all other creatures bow unceasingly! II. THE DIVINE OF NATURE REBUKES THE OF MAN. 1. The order of nature is beneficent. God gives the rain "in its season." He keeps for men "the appointed weeks of the harvest." The regularity and harmony of the physical world are beneficial to men. The sun never fails to rise. If it once failed, what disasters would follow! If the motion of the earth were irregular no life could continue to exist. The order of the seasons is a distinct blessing (Genesis 8:22). Instead of shrinking from "the reign of law" as from a cruel tyranny, we should welcome it when we remember that the laws of nature are but the material expression of the will of God, and that will the outcome of his goodness. 2. This beneficence of nature shows all sin to be a mark of ingratitude. God smiles on us in nature (Matthew 5:45). How then can we, while blessed by the very sunshine of that smile, rise up in revolt against him? If the grandeur and splendid harmony of nature do not awe us, shall not its gentleness and kindliness attract us to loyal obedience to him who is at once the Fountain of law and the Father of mercies? The most appalling condition to which a nation can sink. After enumerating the sins of his people in ever-darkening series, the prophet at length reaches a form of evil worse than all others, at the sight of which he starts back with an exclamation of horror; this is corruption at the very fountain of instruction and worship, and the willing acquiescence in it by the nation. I. THE FEARFUL NATURE OF THIS EVIL. 1. False prophecy. The prophet should be the highest oracle of truth. If he utters lies, knowledge is corrupted at its source. The guilt of such conduct is exceptionally great, because (1) it is a sin against light; (2) it is a prostitution of the highest powers to the basest ends; and (3) it is a cause of widespread ruin to those who follow these "blind leaders of the blind." 2. Subservient priesthood. The priests were at the beck of the false prophets. These men had not the excuse of the prophets. The prophets represented a progressive religion, a religion of inward lights, a religion in which new departures were expected, and therefore one in which the excuse of honest though mistaken enthusiasm might be urged in defense of a lapse into error. But the priests were the custodians of a rigid ritual defined by a written Law. They were put in trust, and their apostasy was a deliberate act of unfaithfulness. The Christian teacher, though free from the letter of the Law, and gifted with the spiritual freedom of prophecy, is put in trust with the gospel (1 Timothy 1:11). If he, while retaining the influence and emoluments of his office, consciously forsakes the guidance of the New Testament for the fascinations of groundless speculation, he too is guilty of unfaithfulness; and if he knows the speculation to be false, but accepts it out of deference to its popularity, he is guilty of base treason like that of the commander of a fortress who surrenders to the enemy from sheer cowardice. 3. Popular acquiescence in these evils. "My people love to have it so." This is pleasing, since (1) the false prophets flatter and prophesy smooth things, while the true prophets like Jeremiah must often rebuke and denounce judgments; and (2) the priests are satisfied with an unspiritual religion, ritual without morality, perhaps even immorality in religion. But this fact completes the terrible depravity of the nation. The people cannot plead ignorance nor compulsory obedience. The willing followers of corrupt religious leaders must share their guilt; nay, they are responsible for the aggravation of it by fostering with applause that which would die out if neglected. II. THE FINAL RESULT OF THIS EVIL. "And what will ye do in the end thereof?" It was characteristic of the false prophets that they aimed only at immediate popularity, and thought only of the present, while the true prophets were concerned with the future. But the future wilt some day be the present. Is it not best to inquire what this is becoming while yet there is time to modify it? 1. Consider the moral results of this depravity, the corruption of conscience, the falsifying of the nature of those who live in falsehood, the destruction of all spiritual life in those who lower spiritual functions before the claims of worldly convenience. 2. Consider the penal results of this depravity. Can this of all evils go unpunished? (See verse 29.) BY A.F. MUIR A wicked city spared for the sake of one saint. The challenge is very bold and striking. It proves how thoroughly the prophet, as taught by the Spirit, had read the national corruption. At the same time it furnishes a gauge of the long, suffering mercy of God, and the influence for good of one true man. Jerusalem, the chief city, is chosen as representing what is best and most influential in the nation; and its streets and lanes as the haunts of the multitude, the merchants, the artisans, and common people, who would represent the general public morality. It is as if he had said, "In practical life, amid the miscellaneous throng, seek for the just and honorable man." What light this throws upon— I. THE EXTENT OF IN HUMAN NATURE! The Jewish metropolis had been highly favored. The priesthood had its head-quarters there. The chief messages of the prophets had been delivered in its precincts. It was the center of influence, national spirit, and intelligence. Yet the effect of all this was morally and spiritually rotten. Worse even than Sodom and Gomorrah in actual spiritual condition, as certainly it would be far less tolerable for it than for them in the day of judgment. Ideally it was the city of the saints and of heavenly peace and order; actually its temple was a den of thieves, and its streets the scenes of universal dishonesty, godlessness, and corruption. As has been said of a certain metropolis of Christendom, it would appear to have been the case that "the more churches the less religion." Allowing it to be a rhetorical exaggeration, it was nevertheless a terrible statement to be able to make. But the great cities of the modern world have filled with a like despair the minds of the wisest thinkers. The measure of man’s possible degeneration and depravity who can fix? II. THE OF IN THINGS! The spectacle of Abraham praying for the cities of the plain is most impressive. But may it not be paralleled by the unconscious influence of good men? Even accepting the statement as a challenge, was it not a great thing to say that one man by his holiness could have saved the city? Suppose there had been such a man. One can imagine what would have been his sorrow at the universal evil, and his feeling of helplessness and uselessness amid the prevalent irreligion. Yet would his presence there be no light matter, no vain thing. Though he knew it not, he would have been the savior of the people—immediately from the judgment of God, possibly in the future from the sin that was destroying it. The value, therefore, of individual influence in spiritual matters is incalculable; and no Christian can say that he is of no use. Godward the prayer of the faithful may soar in constant intercession and mediation; manward his character and works are a constant testimony to the unbeliever. III. THE OF GOD’S LONG- LOVE. The presence of one good man in the wicked city would have been an appeal to God’s justice that could not he despised. He could not "destroy the righteous with the wicked." But far more would it have been an appeal to his love. The hope of the future would have been wrapped up in that solitary saint. In him grace would find a secret sanctuary, and the forces of salvation a vantage-point from which to sally forth to the rescue of perishing souls and the work of national, yea, of world-wide, regeneration. The judgments of God are not inflicted arbitrarily or in haste. He has "no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Any reasonable excuse for merciful intervention or delay is welcome. Countless acts of mercy and forgiveness, countless opportunities for repentance, have occurred ere the uplifted axe has dealt its terrible stroke. Learn, then, from this that: 1. The life as the prayer of a righteous man availeth much with God. 2. That God will save us if we will only let him; and 3. He will begin his work of salvation from the least, and tarry it on even to the greatest. IV. THE AND OF THROUGH CHRIST.—M. What God requires of man. "O Lord, are not thine eyes upon the truth?" This is better rendered, "O Lord, look not thine eyes for fidelity?" Faith is the grand requirement. It is the condition of communion between man and God, and man and man. Scripture lays stress on this. Faith cannot be a mere logical abstraction or a condition beyond the reach of man. It must be practical—within the power of the will, and such as may be reasonably looked for in all. "Fidelity," the Old Testament equivalent for the New Testament "faith," has its expression in reality, honesty, thoroughness. These are the marks of the man God delights to honor, and they are the obligation of all (cf. Micah 6:8). I. ITS , , AND OF IT. God could not ask for less than man demands of his fellow, and society requires for its stability and advancement. It is obviously independent of the accidents of culture, fortune, or position; and for any solid understanding between God and man, absolutely indispensable. We are God’s stewards, servants, representatives, etc. Having this, we have all; wanting this, all our other acquirements are vain. II. THE OF IT. A little while ago we read that not a just man could be found in all Jerusalem. Here it is said that even in the most sacred oath there is false swearing. The want of this quality, rather than its presence, strikes the inquirer. This it is that gives rise to wars, jealousies, selfishness, sin in all its forms. III. THE REASON FOR ITS ABSENCE IN MOST MEN. Because men are sinners, alienated from the life of God and unconscious of his claims. The carnal nature is unable of itself even to be real, to be truly honest, or to discharge faithfully and completely the most ordinary duties. A supernatural aid is required. A Savior must die. Through him the soul must be united with God in a true love and holy understanding. The better nature thus awakened, the trust and confidence and love thus created must be reinforced by the Spirit. How terrible the thoughts, "Thou God seest me!" "Be not deceived: God is not mocked!" "His eyes are as a flame of fire!" "The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword," etc.! Who shall deceive that all-seeing One? The eyes of Jehovah, reading the secrets of the soul, look for fidelity, for faith.—M. Jeremiah 5:18 Sparing mercy. The judgments described as about to be inflicted are very fearful, but they were amply deserved. The wickedness of the people was such as to justify their complete destruction. Yet they were spared ere they were totally extinct! Why this unlooked-for restraint? I. IT HAS ALL GOD’S OF MANKIND ON EARTH. The Fall, the Flood, the Exodus, etc; the sparing of the remnant of Benjamin, etc. II. THERE IS BUT ONE FOR IT. It is the possibility of some turning to him truly in the first instance; and, secondly, through them, of the race being saved in the future. God has never utterly cut off even the most sinful. Love, and not. mere vengeance, behaves in this way. 1. Has he not spared us? 2. He has never abandoned his purpose of saving "the whole world."—M. God’s power in restraining the forces of nature. An old, yet ever new, illustration of his power. The tiny grains of sand, the "Portland Beach" of shingle or pebbles, is enough to bold back the mighty ocean. It is but one of many impressive illustrations of his restraining power and goodness. I. IT IS TO INSPIRE AND LOVE. II. OUR UPON HIM IS THUS SHOWN. III. THE POWER OF GOD IN THE SPHERE OF MORAL AND SAVING GRACE as thereby suggested. "’Thus far and no further,’ when addressed To the wild waves, or wilder human breast, Implies authority that never can, And never ought to be the lot of man." It is God’s prerogative. Let us not defy him or arrogate to ourselves that which is his. Let us rather yield ourselves to his gracious dealings and fatherly purpose.—M. BY D. YOUNG Can a righteous man be found in Jerusalem? God’s warnings still go on concerning the same thing—the deeply seated, the deeply destructive wickedness of the people. But though the same subject has to be spoken of, there is no monotony in the treatment of it. It can be looked at from fresh points of view, and put into fresh lights. A careful reading of Jer 4:1-31. will show how many different things can be said concerning wickedness; and now, with Jeremiah 5:1, the reproaches and appeals still continue. Note— I. THE ASPECT OF THE APPEAL. The nation and Jerusalem and the leaders in it have all been referred to; but as long as there are generalities and nothing more individuals will think they can get away from blame under cover of them. Here, then, is a bold challenge which fastens up in a corner every dweller in Jerusalem. The challenge, of course, is not to be taken literally. The true state of things may be known, and known very distinctly, without any running to and fro at all. Let every one take a glance at those whom he knows, and then come home to a candid inquiry concerning the life within his own breast. It is an easy thing to blame others, to throw the fault of disaster upon those who occupy prominent positions. Followers are to blame as well as leaders. The iniquity of Jerusalem, deep, turbid, incessant as the stream of it is, is made of many contributions which, individually considered, may seem very slight. A few men in every age are called to toil for the removal of evils of which, personally, they are not guilty; but every one has the opportunity of improving the world, by doing his best to keep his own heart right. Others are to blame, and there are times when they must be faced, blamed, and resisted; but there is given a daily need, duty, and opportunity to do in cur own hearts what no one else can do for us. III. HOW AND THE IS. It amounts to this, that there cannot be found in all Jerusalem one man who is just in all his dealings, and a seeker after truth. Not one. Must we, then, take this literally? The answer is, No, and Yes. It would have been strange if Jerusalem had become so utterly bad a place that every soul within it was perverted from the ways of right and truth. There must have been some men desiring and striving to live a right life. We bear in mind what God said to Elijah when Elijah said, in the despair and bitterness of his heart, that only he was left to serve God. Not so by any means; the searching God, who counts hearts where fallible men can only Count heads, told his prophet there were still seven thousand with knees unbowed to Baal. And did not Jeremiah discover from his own experience that there were some on Jehovah’s side (Jeremiah 26:24; Jeremiah 39:15-18)? But they were not enough to exert a leavening and recovering influence. And yet the very men whom we may call good and just and true, seeing something of the right, and trying to do it as far as they saw, would have drawn back in confusion and self-distrust if they had been asked, in a direct way and so that the question could not be evaded, "Do you answer this description?’ "Are you doers of justice and seekers after truth?" In trying to answer such a question, would not the moments of unfaithfulness and hesitation come to mind-the occasions when they were tempted to escape from loss and pain by some convenient Compromise? It will never do for us to congratulate ourselves on being a great deal better than others so long as we come short of what God wants us to be. III. The thing to be specially considered is, how THIS APPLES TO THE GREAT MASS OF THE PEOPLE. Many would have said, cynically enough, "Justice and truth are no concern of ours." These are words that sound very well in general statements; but directly the attempt is made to bring them close to the individual, it is alleged that they do not apply, or else there is the name and not the thing. Things are called just which are not just, and true which are utterly false. Let men of noble minds talk of justice and truth, and only too many are found to allege that such speaking is but cant and hypocrisy. When Jesus said to Pilate that he came into the world to bear witness to the truth, Pilate answered him with the question, "What has truth got to do with the matter?" Men want to get on, to get rich, to get known, to live easily, to satisfy the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride of life; and the claims of justice and truth would make sad havoc with such purposes. Those who have learned from Christ that justice and truth are great necessities of life, necessities in a far higher sense than food and clothing, have often to notice, with great pain and concern, the number of those who do not seem to have any conception of what it is really to do justice and seek after truth. They do not comprehend the objects which God and Christ set before them any more than a blind man comprehends colors. Why, then, blame them? it may be asked. The blame is that they will not come to Christ that they may have sight. To Christians the power and disposition are given to do justice. The spirit is put in them to seek for truth as those who seek for hid treasures, and those who seek with such a zeal and impulse can never seek in vain.—Y. Jeremiah 5:3-6 Chastisement thwarted by universal stubbornness. I. THE FACT THAT GOD’S ARE . The chastisements are evidently indicated as severe, and the reason of the severity is hinted in the [preliminary question. God is looking for truth, looking for it in the midst of oaths broken and despised. He looks for faithfulness in all the ways in which it can be shown, There must be correspondence between promises and performances; there must be stability of character; the character must be such that men will be the same out of sight as in sight, working as ever in the Great Taskmaster’s eye. Moreover, God cannot be put off by the most plausible appearance of fidelity; he knows always whether the heart is steadfast in its affection and zeal. And thus seeing all this insincerity among his people, this carelessness about truth, he chastises them to make them feel their wrong, attend to his will, and alter their deceiving ways so as to correspond with it. They are told beforehand what is coming, and the very instrument of chastisement is displayed before them. They had no ground for saying, "Suffering came upon us, and we knew not why it came." We know that Jeremiah’s words must have been very pungent and irritating, and the irritating element was just this, that he persistently spoke of conquest, desolation, and exile as lying in the immediate future for his fellow-country. men. And here Jeremiah, with the prophet’s melancholy privilege, sets forth the future as present. The stroke has fallen; the suffering, the loss, the humiliation, is keen; but there is no understanding in the mind, and no sign of repentance and return. Their faces are harder than the rock. If some sculptor could put into a marble face all that outwardly marks the stubborn mind that would be the expression of Israel now towards Jehovah. No subdued look in the eye; no irrepressible quivering of the lips preliminary to saying, "Father, I have sinned … and am no more worthy to be called thy son" (Jeremiah 3:4). II. THE REASON WHICH THE PROPHET FOR THIS . Remember what we have said already—and let it be said again, for it is essential to a right understanding of the passage—that the purpose of the chastisement was distinctly set forth beforehand. The people had not to grope in the dark as to the reason of their suffering. There was no room for disputing, if only Jeremiah were accepted as indeed a prophet of Jehovah. And to Jeremiah himself the intention of the chastisement was, of course, plain by the very clearest light. And, since it is natural for us to suspect that what is plain to us should be plain to others, Jeremiah could see only one reason for this distressing want of recipiency. Those who are so stubborn he thinks can be but a part of Israel, the poor and foolish, the degraded, brutalized residuum of the nation. Thus Jeremiah illustrates, by this interposed conjecture of his, a very common and perilous tendency among thinking men. We may not be unwilling—indeed, we may only be too eager—to admit the degradation of a large part of mankind, and their stolid indifference to all that is noble, refined, and truly humane. But then, on the other hand, there is an excessive exaltation of the natural man. Genius, intellect, success in research and discovery, such as that of a Newton and a Faraday—these are glorified beyond their due. It is forgotten that while men have natural powers whereby they can climb very high, they must come to God in humility and ask for wings of faith if they are to discover the highest kind of truth, the truth to which man must soar rather than climb. Jeremiah reckons that what he certainly cannot find in some he will assuredly find in others. He will turn away from the ignorant rabble, and go to the men of substance, the men with responsibility, such, doubtless, as the king and the princes, the priests and the prophets. But he goes only to fail only to discover that the wise men of this world are as little disposed to attend to the preaching of the prophet as Paul afterwards discovered them to be to the preaching of the apostle. III. And so we come to THE REAL REASON OF THE . It is something which lies in universal sinful human nature, apart from any special defects or special excellences. The stubbornness may sometimes suddenly vanish where we should expect it to continue, and where we should expect it to vanish it may not only continue but become to all appearance invincible. The heart of unbelief is found in every rank. The experience of Jesus would seem to have been that the poor and the foolish, as Jeremiah would have classified them, were more ready to turn to him than the great. An excellent commentary on the passage we have been considering is to be found in the first and second chapters of Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians.—Y. The vineyard spoiled because of the degenerate branches. I. Look AT THE FIGURE WHICH THIS . We find in other parts of Scripture passages curiously rich in illustration of the emphatic exhortation here. Turn to Isaiah 5:1-7: here is presented to us the picture of a vineyard protected by a fence against marauders and wild beasts, planted with the choicest vine, and tilled in the most complete and careful manner. But when the vineyard, in spite of all care, only yields wild grapes, then the hedge and the wall are taken away and the cultivated land lapses into wilderness. Psalms 80:1-19. contains a very similar passage, save that it is the language of appeal from a suffering people instead of a warning from a disappointed God. God is described as having cast out the heathen to make room for the vine which he had brought from Egypt. And in the land where he planted it, it grew downwards and upwards and outwards, spreading far and wide. "Why then," say the people, "hast thou broken down her hedges, so that all which pass by the way do pluck her? The bear out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it." Once again, there is a very striking passage in Proverbs 24:30, Proverbs 24:31. The wise man passes the vineyard of the man void of understanding, and finds it full of thorns and nettles, and the stone wall thereof broken down. Hence the vineyard, with its need of a strong wall kept in good repair, comes before us almost as distinctly as if it were a familiar sight. II. NOW THE ITSELF. The wall round this vineyard of God, even this vineyard which he so plainly set apart and has cared for so much, is to be broken down. We have not far to seek for the reason. The branches of the vine are not Jehovah’s. "I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?" (Jeremiah 2:21). The wall is not yet in such case as that round the vineyard of the man void of understanding. It has not dropped to pieces through sloth. Its fate, it may be said, is even worse, for it has to come down by an act of judgment. Protection is a mockery and reproach when the thing protected fails to reward the care that has been lavished upon it. God breaks down the fence that he may make a clear way for the removing of the branches. The branches, one may say, are fixed in a true vine and draw nourishment from good soil; yet wild, sour, deluding, discreditable grapes are all the result. The branches, therefore, are to go, but only the branches. A full end is not to be made. The trunk, the roots, still stay. For indeed a word has, by-and-by, to be spoken by Jesus, concerning the vine and the branches, and the branches which are to abjure in the vine that they may bring forth fruit. God will destroy all profitless connection with himself. If men avail themselves of the strength and opportunity which he gives to bring forth fruit, not such as will glorify him, but such as suits the perverted taste of men, then all the branches on which such fruit comes must be unsparingly cut away. And what a thought that fruit which men so much value is after all in God’s sight, which gives the true estimation, a sour and worthless thing!—Y. Those who call the word of Jehovah a lie. It has Been a common folly, in connection with all the revelations which God has made at sundry times and in divers manners, to despise the authority of the messengers. Noah, Moses, David, and many others up to Jesus himself, could tell, along with Jeremiah, the same essential experience of contempt, rejection, and persecution. It is not for God to use those outward pomps and recommendations on which men count so much. A message unwelcome in itself is easily made of no repute when the messenger is devoid of outward state. Outward show, as every age can tell, counts for a great deal. Perhaps the visit of the Queen of Sheba would have been made far less of if she had not been a queen, or had come without the barbaric treasures which she spread forth in such great abundance. Simple lovers of truth, when their station happens to be obscure, are not much remarked. Here then was Jeremiah, asserting that he had come with a message from the Lord of the utmost moment, and he is rejected with the brusque intimation that his message is a lie and he himself an impostor. And this rejection is all the more noticeable because the words of the prophet must surely have had a strange impressiveness. None of the prophets could have spoken in the routine fashion of a herald announcing the proclamation which many times, perhaps, he has announced before. They must all, at least in the judgment of a few, have spoken with authority and not as the scribes. And Jeremiah at all events must have stood before the people, having every channel of outward expression filled from the sad experiences and emotions of his own inward life. The sorrows of which he spoke were as sorrows that he saw rising before his mind’s eye in all the horrors of their reality. The words, as he says in Jeremiah 20:9, were often words that he tried to keep back, but that which was as a burning fire shut up in his bones must break out at last. And therefore, when the words did come, they were charged with a force of personal conviction and brotherly entreaty which in itself ought to have been enough to arrest attention. Moreover, sword and famine, future calamities with all their aggravations, were not the only things of which the prophet spoke. He had to deal with an actual present as well as a foreshadowed future. The present in which he and his audience lived teemed with idolatry, perjury, fraud, and oppression. These things were not lies. It was no lie to point to the manifest seed that Israel was sowing, and surely there was nothing more really reasonable than that there should be a reaping according to the sowing. At this height of rejection, then, God steps in to vindicate and honor his faithful servant. It is a melancholy kind of distinction, but a distinction nevertheless. His words were not only true words, but most terribly near to their fulfillment. It was not that Jeremiah himself was an agent in destroying, but his words became so immediately true, there was such a rapid production and concentration of the agents of destruction, as to make it quite proper to say that these words of the prophet were as consuming fire. But a few years, and many of these despisers found that the alleged lies were only too painfully true. It is not over lapsing centuries that we have to look for the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s gloomy prediction. Isaiah long before had sounded the note of warning, and now the peril is close at hand. It was inevitable that Jeremiah should speak with an urgency and excitement absent from the messages of his great predecessor. As the time of chastisement drew nearer, the warnings had to be louder, more disturbing, possibly more continuous. The mariner setting out on his voyage may be warned of some special danger lying in his track; but the adviser, while he may speak very earnestly, will not speak as does the man who, when the helmsman is close upon the danger, shouts to him, with utmost excitement and agitation, at once to change his course. God gave to Jeremiah this melancholy satisfaction, that while he had been, to his heart’s deepest sorrow, a messenger of woe, he had yet been approved, on the surest evidence, as a messenger of truth.—Y. A lesson from the raging sea. I. WE OBSERVE GOD FIXING LIMITS WITHIN WHICH HIS THEIR POWER. Jehovah speaks here of the sea in particular, but just because it happens to be an excellent representative, for the purpose in view, of the rest of his creation. We may notice God’s boundaries in many places and at different seasons, and surely it must often strike thoughtful minds, as they walk by the mighty deep, that there is, in the arrangement of sea and land, an exquisite illustration of the unfailing wisdom of God. Here is this vast mass of water, covering the surface of the globe, ever in motion and yet ever keeping its place. The true state of the case is even more wonderful than that which was presented to Jeremiah. To him the earth was a flat expanse, and the beach would have the aspect of an embankment which really kept the water back. We, aided by the discoveries of science, know that the real limiting forces of the sea work in a much more mysterious manner. But, of course, the fundamental truth is the same. There must be a great and loving intelligence at work, keeping the waters within their appointed bounds. II. OBSERVE THE WHICH IS MADE BETWEEN MAN AND THE SEA IN A STATE OF STORM. The sea easily gets a kind of personality, and the sea in a storm is very like a proud man chafing against the barriers, which confine him, and trying to break them down. More than that, when God looks down into human society, underneath the (to us) often calm surface, he must see little else than stormy agitation, one human billow dashing against another, each individual in his self-assertion contributing to make a general disturbance, and a disturbance which apparently will not soon have an end. And yet the sea, with all its fury and roar and threatening, with all the destruction it may work out in its own sphere, is powerless to overwhelm the solid land. In the strength of their confidence, men would build large cities close to the ocean-brink and inhabit them without fear. They will go down and look at the tempest in its utmost fury, sure that they are safe. A few yards make all the difference between the agony of deadly peril and perfect ease of mind. The more furious the storm is, the grander it makes the sight without in any wise diminishing the feeling of safety. III. HENCE THERE IS THE FOLLY OF ALL HUMAN TO GOD. The storm rises; it may destroy many ships and lives; but in due time the calm returns and the great features of the scene appear the same. The land is still there. And so men may chafe against the commandments and purposes of God, and may go on without intervals of calm, even exceeding the sea in the continuity of their violence. But what does all the strife avail? The boundaries are fixed. If in that which is natural God has taken so much care in the line between sea and land, is it not certain that he will take equal care in that which is spiritual? God’s work continues on the solid land, away from all disturbance of his foes. Nay, more, looking at the figure here from the Christian point of view, we see that even within what seems its own sphere, the raging of the sea can soon be stopped. Let us think of Jesus quelling the waves, and we shall feel that the greatest storms of opposition and persecution are entirely in the hands of God. How long these storms may rage and what they may do entirely depend on the purpose which he wishes them to subserve.—Y. Jeremiah 5:26-29 The worst kind of wickedness found among the people of Jehovah. God’s people are well acquainted with the voice of those scorners who speak as if hypocrisy was the invariable accompaniment of a religious profession. They do discover, it must be admitted, far more frequently than they ought to discover, that religious profession is a mere pretence; and thereupon they never forget the few well-established instances which are a ground, in season and out of season, for a sweeping charge of hypocrisy. But such people, unfortunately for themselves, are not readers of the Scriptures; else they would discover that God does not wait for outside malevolent critics to make the most of the hypocrisies to be found amongst his people. God not only sees and laments this peculiarly odious form of wickedness, but is exceedingly plain in his description and terribly severe in his denunciation. In this matter outsiders cannot tell God’s people anything they do not know already. Note— I. THAT WHICH OUGHT TO BE FOUND AMONGST GOD’S PEOPLE. This is just the thing which makes the whole discovery so inexpressibly sad—that this wickedness is found where there should have been found a character diametrically opposite. It is the scene of the wickedness that indescribably aggravates the wickedness itself. That a good man, a really good man, should be found in a den of thieves is impossible. Vain would it be for him to continue there and yet plead his uprightness. A den of thieves does actually give character to every one who willingly inhabits it, and so, passing from the bad to the good, a certain high reputation must attach to every one who openly ranks himself among the people of God. It was not because these Israelites dwelt in a certain territory or were descendants from certain ancestors that they were reckoned the people of God. There was a covenant, the terms of which were to be taught to every generation and diligently observed by it. And this covenant emphatically required that these people should live among themselves an upright, brotherly, loving life. Without this, worship was vain; indeed, without this, worship, in the true sense, was impossible. In the home, union was to be preserved by subordination and purity; and in society, by the safety of life and property to the individual. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ A prophecy, in five stanzas or strophes, vividly describing the judgment and its causes, and enforcing the necessity of repentance. Jeremiah 6:1-8 Arrival of a hostile army from the north, and summons to flee from the doomed city. Jeremiah 6:1 O ye children of Benjamin. The political rank of Jerusalem, as the capital of the kingdom of Judah, makes it difficult to realize that Jerusalem was not locally a city of Judah at all. It belonged, strictly speaking, to the tribe of Benjamin, a tribe whose insignificance, in comparison with Judah, seems to have led to the adoption of a form of expression not literally accurate (see Psalms 128:1-6:68). The true state of the ease is evident from an examination of the two parallel passages, Joshua 15:7, Joshua 15:8, and Joshua 18:16, Joshua 18:17. As Mr. Fergusson points out, "The boundary between Judah and Benjamin … ran at the foot of the hill on which the city stands, so that the city itself was actually in Benjamin, while, by crossing the narrow ravine of Hinnom, you set foot on the territory of Judah" (Smith’s ’Dictionary of the Bible,’ 1.983). It is merely a specimen of the unnatural method of early harmonists when Jewish writers tell us that the altars and the sanctuary were in Benjamin, and the courts of the temple in Judah. The words of "the blessing of Moses" are clear (Deuteronomy 33:12): "The beloved of the Lord! he shall dwell in safety by him, sheltering him continually, and between his shoulders he dwelleth;" i.e. Benjamin is specially protected, the sanctuary being on Benjamite soil. And yet these highly favored "children of Benjamin" are divinely warned to flee from their sacred homes (see Jeremiah 7:4-7). Gather yourselves to flee; more strictly, save your goods by flight. In Jeremiah 4:6 the same advice was given to the inhabitants of the country districts. There, Jerusalem was represented as the only safe refuge; here, the capital being no longer tenable, the wild pasture-land to the south (the foe being expected from the north) becomes the goal of the fugitives of Jerusalem. In Tokoa. Tokoa was a town in the wild hill-county to the south of Judah, the birthplace of the prophet Amos. It is partly mentioned because its name seems to connect it with the verb rendered blow the trumpet. Such paronomasiae are favorite oratorical instruments of the prophets, and especially in connections like the present (comp. Isaiah 10:30; Micah 1:10-15). A sign of fire in Beth-hakkerem; rather, a signal on Beth-hakkerem. The rendering of Authorized Version was suggested by Judges 20:38, Judges 20:40; but there is nothing in the present context (as there is in that passage) to favor the view that a fiery beacon is intended. Beth-hakkerem lay, according to St. Jerome, on an eminence between Jerusalem and Tekoa; i.e. probably the hill known as the Frank Mountain, the Arabic name of which (Djebel el-Furaidis, Little Paradise Mountain) is a not unsuitable equivalent for the Hebrew (Vineyard-house). The "district of Beth-hakkerem" is mentioned in Nehemiah 3:14. The choice of the locality for the signal was a perfect one. "There is no other tell," remarks Dr. Thomson, "of equal height and size in Palestine." Appeareth; rather, bendeth forward, as if it were ready to fall. Jeremiah 6:2 I have likened … a comely and delicate woman. This passage is one of the most difficult in the book, and if there is corruption of the text anywhere, it is here. The most generally adopted rendering is, "The comely and delicate one will I destroy, even the daughter of Zion," giving the verb the same sense as in Hosea 4:5 (literally it is, I have brought to silence, or perfect of prophetic certitude). The context, however, seems to favor the rendering "pasturage" (including the idea of a nomad settlement), instead of "comely;" but how to make this fit in with the remainder of the existing text is far from clear. The true and original reading probably only survives in fragments. Jeremiah 6:3 The shepherds with their flocks, etc.; rather, To her came shepherds with their flocks; they have pitched their tents round about her; they have pastured each at his side. The best commentary on the last clause is furnished by Numbers 22:4, "Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field." Jeremiah 6:4 Prepare ye war; literally, sanctify (or, consecrate) war. The foes are dramatically described as urging each other on at the different stages of the campaign. The war is to be opened with sacrifices (comp. Isaiah 13:3 with 1 Samuel 13:9); next there is a forced march, so as to take the city by storm, when the vigilance of its defenders is relaxed in the fierce noontide heat (comp. Jeremiah 15:8); evening surprises the foe still on the way, but they press steadily on, to do their work of destruction by night. The rapidity of the marches of the Chaldeans impressed another prophet of the reign of Josiah—Habakkuk (see Habakkuk 1:6, Habakkuk 1:8). Woe unto us! for the day goeth away; rather, Alas for us! for the day hath turned. Jeremiah 6:5 Let us go; rather, let us go up. "To go up" is the technical term for the movements of armies, whether advancing (as here and Isaiah 7:1) or retreating (as Jeremiah 21:2; Jeremiah 34:21; Jeremiah 37:5, Jeremiah 37:11). Jeremiah 6:6 Hew ye down trees; rather, her trees. Hewing down trees was an ordinary feature of Assyrian and Babylonian expeditions. Thus, Assurnacirpal "caused the forests of all (his enemies) to fall" (’Records of the Past,’ 3.40, 77), and Shalmaneser calls himself "the trampler on the heads of mountains and all forests ". The timber was partly required for their palaces and fleets, but also, as the context here suggests, for warlike operations. "Trees," as Professor Rawlinson remarks, "were sometimes cut down and built into the mound" (see next note); they would also be used for the "bulwarks" or siege instruments spoken of in Deuteronomy 20:20. Cast a mount; literally, pour a mount (or "bank," as it is elsewhere rendered), with reference to the emptying of the baskets of earth required for building up the "mount" (mound). Habakkuk (Habakkuk 1:10) says of the Chaldeans, "He laugheth at every stronghold, and heapeth up earth, and taketh it" (comp, also 2 Samuel 20:15; Isaiah 37:33). The intention of the mound was not so much to bring the besiegers on a level with the top of the walls as to enable them to work the battering-rams to better advantage (Rawlinson, ’Ancient Monarchies,’ 1.472). She is wholly oppression, etc.; rather, she is the city that is punished; wholly oppression is in the midst of her. Jeremiah 6:7 As a fountain casteth out; rather, as a cistern keepeth fresh (literally, cool). The wickedness of Jerusalem is so thoroughly ingrained that it seems to pass into act by a law of nature, just as a cistern cannot help always yielding a supply of cool, fresh water. Violence and spoil; rather, injustice and violence (so Jeremiah 20:8; Amos 3:10; Habakkuk 1:3). Before me, etc.; rather, before my face continually is sickness and wounding. The ear is constantly dinned with the sounds of oppression, and the eye pained with the sight of the bodily sufferings of the victims. The word for" sickness" is applicable to any kind of infirmity (see Isaiah 53:3, Isaiah 53:4), but the context clearly limits it here to bodily trouble. Jeremiah 6:8 Be thou instructed; rather, Let thyself be corrected (Authorized Version misses the sense, a very important one, of the conjugation, which is Nifal tolerativum (comp. Psalms 2:10; Isaiah 53:12). The phrase equivalent to "receive correction" (Jeremiah 2:30; Jeremiah 5:3), and means to accept the warning conveyed in the Divine chastisement. Lest my soul, etc.; rather, lest my soul be rent from thee (Authorized Version renders the same verb in Ezekiel 23:17, "be alienated"). Jeremiah 6:9-15 It is an all but complete Judgment, which Jehovah foreshows. Unwilling as the people are to hear it, the disclosure must be made. Jeremiah 6:9 They shall thoroughly glean, etc. "Israel" has already been reduced to a "remnant;" the ten tribes have lost their independence, and Judah alone remains (Jeremiah 5:15). Even Judah shall undergo a severe sifting process, which is likened to a gleaning (comp. Isaiah 24:13; Obadiah 1:5; Jeremiah 49:9). The prospect is dark, but believers in God’s promises would remember that a few grapes were always left after the gathering (comp. Isaiah 17:6). Turn back thine hand. If the text is correct, the speaker here addresses the leader of the gleaners. Keil thinks this change of construction is to emphasize the certainty of the predicted destruction. But it is much more natural (and in perfect harmony with many other similar phenomena of the received text) to suppose, with Hitzig, that the letter represented in the Authorized Version By "thine" has arisen by a mistaken repetition of the first letter of the following word, and (the verbal form being the same for the infinitive and the imperative) to render turning again the hand. In this case the clause will be dependent on the preceding statement as to the "gleaning" of Judah. Into the baskets; rather, unto the shoots. The gleaners will do their work with a stern thoroughness, laying the hand of destruction again and again upon the vine-shoots. Jeremiah 6:10 Their ear is uncircumcised; covered as it were with a foreskin, which prevents the prophetic message from finding admittance. Elsewhere it is the heart (Leviticus 26:41; Ezekiel 44:7), or the lips (Exodus 6:12) which are said to be "circumcised;" a passage in Stephen’s speech applies the epithet both to the heart and to the ears (Acts 7:51). Jeremiah 6:11 Therefore I am full; rather, But I am full. I will pour it out. The text has "pour it out." The sudden transition to the imperative is certainly harsh, and excuses the conjectural emendation which underlies the rendering of the Authorized Version. If we retain the imperative, we must explain it with reference to Jeremiah’s inner experience. There are, we must remember, two selves in the prophet (comp. Isaiah 21:6), and the higher prophetic self here addresses the lower or human self, and calls upon it no longer to withhold the divinely communicated burden. All classes, as the sequel announces, are to share in the dread calamity. Upon the children abroad; literally, upon the child in the street (comp. Zechariah 8:5). The assembly of young men. It is a social assembly which is meant (comp. Jeremiah 15:17, "the assembly of the laughers"). Jeremiah 6:12 Shall be turned; i.e. transferred. Their fields and wives. Wives are regarded as a property, as in Exodus 20:17 (comp. Deuteronomy 5:21). Jeremiah 6:13 Given to covetousness; literally, gaineth gain; but the word here rendered "gain" implies that it is unrighteous gain (the root means "to tear"), Unjust gain and murder are repeatedly singled out in the Old Testament as representative sins (comp. Ezekiel 33:31; Psalms 119:36; Isaiah 1:15; Jeremiah 2:34; and see my note on Isaiah 57:17). There is a special reason for the selection of "covetousness" here. Land was the object of a high-born Jew’s ambition, and expulsion from his land was his appropriate punishment (comp. Isaiah 5:8, Isaiah 5:9). Jeremiah 6:14 They have healed, etc. The full force of the verb is, "they have busied themselves about healing" (so Jeremiah 8:11; Jeremiah 51:9). Of the daughter. Our translators evidently had before them a text which omitted these words, in accordance with many Hebrew manuscripts and the Septuagint; Van der Hooght’s text, however, contains them, as also does the parallel passage (Jeremiah 8:11). Slightly; or, lightly; Septuagint, ἐξουθενοῦντες. Saying, Peace, peace. Always the burden of the mere professional prophets, who, as one of a higher order—the bold, uncompromising Micah—fittingly characterizes them," bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace;" i.e. draw flattering pictures of the state and prospects of their country, in order to "line their own pockets" (Micah 3:5). Jeremiah 6:15 Were they ashamed? The Authorized Version certainly meets the requirements of the context; there seems to be an implied interrogation. Most, however, render, "They are brought to shame;" in which ease it seems best to take the verb as a perfect of prophetic certitude, equivalent to "they shall surely be brought to shame." When; rather, because. Nay, they were not at all ashamed; rather, nevertheless they feel no shame (i.e. at present). They shall be cast down; rather, they shall stumble. Jeremiah 6:16-21 Without hearty repentance, there is no hope of escape. But hitherto Judah has rejected all admonitions. What availeth mere ceremonial punctuality? Jeremiah 6:16 Stand ye in the ways; literally, station yourselves on (or, by) roads, i.e. at the meeting-point of different roads. There (as the following words state) the Jews are to make inquiry as to the old paths. Antiquity gives a presumption of rightness; the ancients were nearer to the days when God spoke with man; they had the guidance of God’s two mighty "shepherds" (Isaiah 63:11); they knew, far better than we, who "are but of yesterday, and know nothing" (Job 8:9), the way of happiness. For though there are many pretended "ways," there is but "one way" (Jeremiah 32:39) which has Jehovah’s blessing (Psalms 25:8, Psalms 25:9). Jeremiah 6:17 Also I set; rather, and I kept raising up (the frequentative perfect). Watchmen; i.e. prophets (Ezekiel 3:17, and part of Isa 52:8; Isaiah 56:10). Hearken, etc. probably the words of Jehovah. Standing on their high watch-tower (Habakkuk 2:1), the prophets scrutinize the horizon for the first appearance of danger, and give warning of it by (metaphorically) blowing a trumpet (so Amos 3:6). Jeremiah 6:18 Therefore hear, etc. Remonstrance being useless, the sentence upon Israel can no longer be delayed, and Jehovah summons the nations of the earth as witnesses (comp. Micah 1:2; Isaiah 18:3; Psalms 49:1). O congregation, what is among them. The passage is obscure. "Congregation" can only refer to the foreign nations mentioned in the first clause; for Israel could not be called upon to hear the judgment "upon this people" (Jeremiah 6:19). There is, however, no other passage in which the word has this reference. The words rendered "what is among them," or "what (shall happen) in them," seem unnaturally laconic, and not as weighty as one would expect after the solemn introduction. If correct, they must of course refer to the Israelites. But Graf’s conjecture that the text is corrupt lies near at hand. The least alteration which will remove the difficulties of the passage is that presupposed by the rendering of Aquila (not Symmachus, as St. Jerome says; see Field’s ’Hexapla’) and J. D. Michaelis, "the testimony which is against them." Jeremiah 6:19 The fruit of their thoughts. That punishment is the ripe fruit of sin, is the doctrine of the Old as well as of the New Testament (James 1:15). Jeremiah 6:20 To what purpose … incense from Sheba? This is the answer to an implied objection on the part of the Jews, that they have faithfully fulfilled their core-menial obligations. "To obey is better than sacrifice" (1 Samuel 15:22); "And what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah 6:8; comp. Isaiah 1:11; Amos 5:21-24; Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:6-8). All these passages must be read in the light of the prophets’ circumstances. A purely formal, petrified religion compelled them to attack the existing priesthood, and a holy indignation cannot stop to measure its language. Incense from Sheba; frankincense from south-west Arabia. This was required for the holy incense (Exodus 30:34), and as an addition to the minkhah, or "meal offering." Sweet cane. The "sweet calamus" of Exodus 30:23, which was imported from India. It was an ingredient in the holy anointing oil (Exodus, loc. cit.). Not to be confounded with the sugar-cane. Jeremiah 6:21 I will lay stumbling-blocks, etc, Of the regenerate Israel of the future it is prophesied (Isaiah 54:15) that his enemies shall "fall upon him [or, ’by reason of him’]." Of the unregenerate Israel of the present, that he shall "fall" (i.e. come to ruin) upon the "stumbling-blocks" presented, not without God’s appointment, by the terrible northern invader. Jeremiah 6:22-30 The enemy described; the terror consequent on his arrival; a rumored declaration of the moral cause of the judgment. Jeremiah 6:22 From the north country (so Jeremiah 1:14 (see note); Jeremiah 4:6). Shall be raised; rather, shall be aroused. The sides of the earth; rather, "the recesses (i.e. furthest parts) of the earth" (so Jeremiah 35:1-19:32; Isaiah 14:13). Jeremiah 6:23 Spear; rather, javelin (or, lance). They are cruel. The cruelty of the Assyrians and Babylonians seems to have spread general dismay. Nahum calls Nineveh "the city of bloodshed" (Nahum 3:1); Habakkuk styles the Chaldeans "bitter and vehement, terrible and dreadful" (Habakkuk 1:6, Habakkuk 1:7). The customs brought out into view m the monuments justify this most amply, though Professor Rawlinson thinks we cannot call the Assyrians naturally hard. hearted. "The Assyrian listens to the enemy who asks for quarter; he prefers making prisoners go slaying.; he is very terrible in the battle and the assault, but afterwards he forgives and spares" (’Ancient Monarchies,’ 1.243). Their voice roareth. The horrid roar of the advancing hosts seems to have greatly struck the Jews (comp. Isaiah 5:30; Isaiah 17:12, Isaiah 17:13). Jeremiah 6:24 We have heard the fame thereof. The prophet identifies himself (comp; for the same phenomenon, Jeremiah 4:19-21; Jeremiah 10:19, Jeremiah 10:20) with his people, and expresses the general feeling of anxiety and pain. The phraseology of the closing lines reminds us of Isa 13:7, Isaiah 13:8. Jeremiah 6:25 Go not forth into the field. The "daughter of Zion" (i.e. the personific population of Jerusalem) is cautioned against venturing outside the walls. The sword of the enemy; rather, the enemy hath a sword. Fear is on every side; Hebrew, magor missabib; one of Jeremiah’s favorite expressions (see Jeremiah 20:3, Jeremiah 20:10; Jeremiah 46:5; Jeremiah 49:29; and comp. Psalms 31:13 [14].). Naturally of a timid, retiring character, the prophet cannot help feeling the anxious and alarming situation into which at the Divine command he has ventured. Jeremiah 6:26 Wallow thyself in ashes; rather, sprinkle thyself with ashes, a sign of mourning (2 Samuel 13:19; so Micah 1:10). Mourning, as for an only son. The Septuagint renders πένθοςἀγαπητοῦ. Possibly this was to avoid a supposition which might have occurred to some readers (it has, in fact, occurred to several modern critics) that the "only son" was Adonis, who was certainly "mourned for" by some of the Israelites under the name of Thammuz (Ezekiel 8:14), and whose Phoenician name is given by Philo of Byblus as Ἰεούδ (i.e. probably Yakhidh, only begotten, the word used by Jeremiah; comp. Βηρούθ, equivalent to Berith). M. Renan found a vestige of the ancient festival of Adonis at Djebeil (the Phoenician Gebal) even at the present day. There would be nothing singular in the adoption of a common popular phrase by the prophet, in spite of its reference to a heathen custom (comp. Job 3:8), and the view in question gives additional force to the passage. But the ordinary explanation is perfectly tenable and more obvious. The phrase, "mourning [or, ’lamentation’] for an only begotten one," occurs again in Amos 8:10; Zechariah 12:10. In the last-mentioned passage it is parallel with "bitter weeping for a firstborn." Jeremiah 6:27 I have set thee, etc.; literally, as an assayer have I set thee among my people, a fortress. Various attempts have been made to avoid giving the last word its natural rendering, "a fortress." Ewald, for instance, would alter the points, and render "a separator [of metals]," thus making the word synonymous with that translated "an assayer;" but this is against Hebrew usage. Hitzig, assuming a doubtful interpretation of Job 22:24, renders " … among my people without gold," i.e. "without there being any gold there for thee to essay" (a very awkward form of expression). These are the two most plausible views, and yet neither of them is satisfactory. Nothing remains but the very simple conjecture, supported by not a few similar phenomena, that mibhcar, a fortress, has been inserted by mistake from the margin, where an early glossator had written the word, to remind of the parallel passage (Jeremiah 1:18, "I have made thee this day a fortress-city," ’it mibhcar). In this and the following verses metallurgic phraseology is employed with a moral application (comp. Isaiah 1:22, Isaiah 1:25). Jeremiah 6:28 Grievous revolters; literally, rebels of rebels. Walking; rather, going about, as a peddler with his wares (so Proverbs 11:13; Proverbs 20:19; Le Proverbs 19:16). Jeremiah had good reason to specify this characteristic of his enemies (see Jeremiah 18:18). Brass and Iron; rather, copper and iron, in short, base metal, Jeremiah 6:29 The bellows are burned. The objection to this rendering is that the burning of the bellows would involve the interruption of the process of assaying. We might, indeed, translate "are scorched" (on the authority of Eze 15:4), and attach the word rendered "of the fire" to the first clause; the half-verse would then run: "The bellows are scorched through the fire; the lead is consumed," i.e. the bellows are even scorched through the heat of the furnace, and the lead has become entirely oxydized. But this requires us to alter the verb from the masculine to the feminine form of third sing. perf. (reading tammah). It is better, therefore, to give the verb (which will be Kal, if the nun be radical) the sense of "snorting," which it has in Aramaic and in Arabic, and which the corresponding noun has in Hebrew (Jeremiah 8:16; Job 39:20; Job 41:12). The masculine form of the verb rendered "is consumed" is still a difficulty; but we have a better right to suppose that the first letter of tittom was dropped, owing to its identity with the second letter, than to append (as the first view would require us) an entirely different letter at the end. This being done, the whole passage becomes clear: "The bellows puff, (that) the lead may be consumed of the fire." In any case, the general meaning is obvious. The assayer has spared no trouble, all the rules of his art have been obeyed, but no silver appears as the result of the process. Lead is mentioned, because, before quicksilver was known, it was employed as a flux in the operation of smelting, Plucked away; rather, separated, like the dross from the silver. Jeremiah 6:30 Reprobate silver … rejected them; rather, refuse silver … refused them. The verbal root is the same. Wells of wickedness. I. IF IS AND , IF MUST COME FROM A DEEP SOURCE. The wickedness of Israel is constantly renewed—ever fresh and abundant, like water in a well. Such water must flow out of deep fountains. The continuity of a course of sin proves that its origin is deep seated. The sin of hasty temper is less than that of deliberate calculation, the fall before sudden temptation more excusable than the willful choice of evil, the occasional slip less culpable than the continuous habit of wickedness. This habitual sin must be rooted. in a man’s nature. Springing out under all circumstances, it is seen to be, not an outside defect, but a fruit of his own inner life. Constantly flowing in spite of all restraints of law, social influence, and conscience, it shows how thoroughly corrupt the heart must be (Matthew 15:18). II. IF IS DEEP-SEATED IN THE HEART, IT MUST FLOW OUT IN ACTS. The spring cannot restrain its waters; the heart cannot repress its imaginations. These must come forth and express themselves in deeds. Men may aim at living two lives—an inner life of sin and an outer life of propriety; but the attempt must ultimately fail. The greater the evil of the heart, the more completely must this color the life. III. DEEP-SEATED AND EVER-FLOWING THE FROM GOD. Jeremiah points to this as the terrible justification for the approaching desolation of the land. 1. In itself it is most heinous, and carries the greatest guilt. 2. It is so radically evil that it impregnates the whole nature of the people in whom it dwells, so that they cannot be regarded as doers of wickedness only, but as wicked; not as those who have committed acts of dishonesty, untruth, violence, etc; but as thieves, liars, murderers, etc. 3. Ever-flowing, it promises no better things for the future. If left to itself, it will but repeat the sickening tale of the past with aggravated depravity. 4. It is the source of evil to others. The sin flows out. It must be checked for the protection of all who come under its influence. Jeremiah 6:10, Jeremiah 6:11 The indifference of men and the burden of truth. We have here revealed to us a conflict in the mind of the prophet. At first it seems vain for him to speak, for none heed his warnings (Jeremiah 6:10); but then he feels the awful burden of his message compelling utterance. While he looks at his audience he loses heart and sees little good in attempting to influence them; but when he looks within at his trust he finds that this has claims and powers before which he must bow obediently. Thus the teacher of high truth is often discouraged when he considers the unfitness of men to receive it, until he realizes more fully the majesty of the truth itself which possesses him and is not simply a treasure to be regarded as his property, but a Lord demanding his faithful service. I. THE OF MEN. Here was the source of Jeremiah’s discouragement, and we can sympathize with him. What is the use of uttering truths that men are not fit to receive—only to waste our powers, create misunderstandings, and provoke opposition? 1. The reception of truth depends on the condition of the receiving mind. Language requires ears as well as tongues. Outward ears are useless without the inward ears of an understanding mind. An ass has no lack of ears, but what are a prophet’s words to him? There are people to whom the solemn utterance of the most awful truths is but so much noise. Therefore (1) it behooves men to beware of mocking at the supposed folly of any teaching till they have ascertained whether the fault lies with the teacher or with the taught. And (2) it is not enough to utter truth; we should seek for men the right preparation for receiving it—the plowing of the hard soil in readiness for the sowing of the seed. 2. When the mind is in a wrong condition for the reception of truth this may meet with ridicule and dislike. Truth may meet with ridicule. The word of Jehovah was "a mockery to the Jews." Ridicule may be both a result of misunderstanding the truth and a cause of further mistakes. Truth may also meet with dislike. The Jews had "no delight" in the Divine Word. This was a proof of their not understanding it; for to know it is to love it (Psalms 119:16). It was also a cause of their not rightly receiving it; for dislike to truth Minds the eye to the nature of it. II. THE BURDEN OF TRUTH. In spite of all these grounds for discouragement, Jeremiah feels that he must utter his message when once he considers its origin and character. 1. Truth is a trust from God. It is "the fury of the Lord ’ that possesses the prophet, not the mere passion of his own thoughts. He who holds a Divine truth is a steward of an oracle of God. Woe to him if he consult his own convenience and rely only on his own judgment when, as a steward, he is called to be faithful to his Master’s will. His duty is to speak; the consequences may be left to God. 2. Truth is an inspiration from God. Jeremiah is "full of the fury of Jehovah." The Spirit of God has possessed him; he is brought into sympathy with the thought and feeling of God: he must needs utter this. If men feel the inspiration of truth they will be carried away by it and poor considerations of worldly expediency will be swept on one side by the flood of a Divine passion. 3. Truth is a burden on the soul which cries for utterance. Jeremiah exclaims, "I am weary with holding in! Woe is me!" cries St. Paul, as he thinks of the suggestion to restrain his preaching the gospel. Under great passions men do not speak measured words, chosen in strict consideration for their hearers; they speak to give vent to their own souls. The grandest utterances of humanity, in prophecy and in poetry, are free from all calculations as to the reception of them by an audience. They are unrestrainable expressions of the soul; like the songs of birds flowing from the very fullness of the heart. 4. Truth is for the good of mankind. Jeremiah must speak, for what he utters concerns others than himself. No one has a right to the monopoly of any great truth. It is common property, and he who hides it steals it. If his excuse is that men cannot understand it, let him remember (1) that he is not an infallible judge of the capacities of other men; and (2) that his duty is to bear his testimony, whether men will hear or no, and to leave all further responsibility with them. False peace. I. THE CRAVING FOR PEACE IS NATURAL. These false prophets gained their influence by professing to satisfy a natural instinct. The Jews dreaded war with their great neighbors. 1. All wicked men are at heart in a stats of unrest. The soul that sins is at war with God, with the law and order of the universe, with its own nature. 2. This condition is distressing. The outward warfare begets inward unrest. Then, above all things, peace is the great want of the soul. Wealth success, happiness, can be spared if but this jewel is still preserved. All great philosophies and all earnest religions set themselves to the task of discovering or creating it. II. THE OF FALSE PEACE ARE . The prophets dissuaded their hearers from attending to the warning words of Jeremiah, and endeavored to make them believe that they were in no danger. There is much that is very popular in arguments such as theirs. 1. They agree with the wishes of the hearers. Men are always inclined to believe what they wish. 2. They flatter the pride of the populace. The people are told that they are too great and too favored of Heaven to suffer any serious calamity, and they are only too ready to believe it. 3. They claim the merits of charity. They promise pleasant things. This looks more charitable than the threatening language of stern censors. Hence the prophets win favor for their apparent geniality and liberal sentiments. 4. They require no sacrifices from those who accept them. The doctrine is popular because the practice flowing from it is easy. The flattering prophets called to no reformation of character. 5. They have appearances in their favor. At present all looks fair. Is not this a presumption that the future will be happy? The sun is rising in gold and crimson; why, then, prophesy the approach of a storm? III. THE OF FALSE PEACE ARE RUINOUS. 1. These pretensions do nothing to secure the peace. They simply lead men to believe that they are to enjoy it. Such a belief cannot alter facts. If there is no peace we do not make peace by crying, "Peace, peace!" This is the language of folly and indolence. 2. These delusions only aggravate the danger. They prevent men from preparing for the calamity by blinding them to the near advent of it. IV. THERE IS A WAY BY WHICH THE NATURAL CRAVING FOR PEACE MAY BE . The deceiving prophets do not make peace; they only talk of it. Bat in the teaching of true prophets and apostles the way to secure solid peace is revealed. 1. This is shown to be not immediate. Jeremiah was right in saying that the people must suffer before they enjoyed peace. Christ, the Prince of peace, came to "send a sword" (Matthew 10:34). The gospel does not preach "peace at any price," but peace after victory in warfare, rest after patient endurance of tribulation. 2. This is shown to be through repentance and renewal of life. The deceiving prophets promise peace to the people as they are. While we are in sin we cannot have true peace (Isaiah 48:22). Peace follows the advent of the Spirit of Christ (John 14:26, John 14:27). The old paths. I. THE TO FOLLOW THE OLD PATHS. 1. The course of life should be determined after thoughtful deliberation. Jeremiah is to "stand in the ways and see." It is foolish to go with the multitude without individual convictions of what is right, or to follow our own private impulses blindly and aimlessly. 2. The choice should fall on a good way. Other ways may be smooth, pleasant, flowery at the starting, only to lose themselves in the pathless wilderness, while this may look more rugged and steep at first; but it should not be the present attractiveness, but the direction, the whole course and the end of a way, which should determine our choice of it. 3. There are old paths of right. Religion has not to be made anew. It is not left for the latest saint to discover the way of holiness. 4. Having found the right way, we should forthwith "walk therein." Knowledge is useless without practice; nay, guilt is aggravated if, knowing the right, we follow the wrong. 5. In the right way is rest for the soul. Even while on the earthly pilgrimage many quiet resting-places may be found (Psalms 23:2), through all the course an inward peace may be enjoyed (Proverbs 3:17), and at the end will be found the perfect rest of the home of God (Hebrews 4:9). II. THE GROUNDS ON WHICH THIS IS BASED. 1. Old ways have been tested by experience. We choose for a guide one who has already traversed the country. In an unknown land we naturally turn to beaten tracks in preference to following stray footprints across the wild, or striking out for ourselves a pathless way. If others have done rough pioneer work, why should not we avail ourselves of it? If they have reached the goal, they have proved that it is attainable by their way. This is fact; that a new way will be easier or shorter is conjecture. There is, therefore, a presumption in favor of the old. 2. Old ways in religion are nearer to the original fountains of inspiration. Israel was referred back to the old ways marked out by Moses, the great founder of the Jewish faith. Christians are referred back to primitive Christianity, to the teaching of the apostles, to the life and example of Christ. Christianity is not a speculation, a creation of the spirit of the age. It is a tradition, a following of those Divine counsels which are indicated in the New Testament. III. THE TO THE OF THIS . 1. The old ways are to be followed only in so far as they are good. Still we must judge by our own conscience. Antiquity must not be taken as a despotic master. There are bad old ways. The first-born man struck out an evil way; it was left to Abel, the second-born, to show the better course. 2. In considering the character of an old way, we must take note of the character and light of those who founded it. There have been dark ages in the past. Corruption soon crept in. Things are not good just in proportion to their age. Christians must look, not to the Puritans, the Reformers the mediaeval Church, the Fathers, but, passing numerous errors and corruptions, reach back to Christ himself for the true old way. He is the Way (John 14:6). 3. We must ever progress beyond the attainments of the past. We are to follow those old ways that are good; we are to build on the one foundation. But we are not to be content with having the foundation. The fabric must rise higher and higher (1 Corinthians 3:11-15). Christianity is a religion of progress. It is not to be subject to revolutions. Progress must follow the lines laid down by Christ and his apostles. Christianity is not strengthened nor adorned, but only burdened and hidden, by a mere accretion of human ideas and institutions; yet it is a seed which grows, developing larger, fuller life out of its own essential principles (Matthew 13:31). Jeremiah himself took a great stride forward beyond the limits attained by antiquity, though in the direction of the old path, i.e. in the spirit of the religion of his fathers (Jeremiah 31:31-34). "These times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those which we count ancient, ordine retrogrado, by a computation backwards from ourselves" (Francis Bacon). Watchmen. I. THE MISSION OF THE . 1. They are appointed by God. God raises up prophets, preachers, teachers of righteousness. Unless they have a Divine call they are usurping a position to which they have no right (Galatians 1:1, Galatians 1:15). Hence see (1) the authority of the watchmen; (2) the merciful kindness of God in providing warning and instruction. 2. They are to observe what goes on around them. The prophets are seers of spiritual truths, observers of events of history in the light of those truths, and thus, as watchmen, able to discern approaching dangers. The Christian teachers must not be wrapped up in abstract truth. They must see the application of this, note the condition and needs of men, discern the "signs of the times." The prophets were political leaders. They discoursed on subjects which in our day would be discussed in the newspaper. 3. They are to blow the trumpet. The seer is to be a prophet. He who knows truth must make it known to others. The watchman must not simply "let his light shine;" he must blow a trumpet, demand attention, compel men to hear. The enemy is at the gate. This is no time for mild disquisitions on military tactics; it is a moment when men must be awaked from their sleep and summoned to arms. The Christian preacher speaks to men who are asleep and in great danger. His duty is not simply to let the truth be known. He must arouse, urge, "compel" men to hear his message. II. THE OF THE MISSION OF THE . The watchman has done his duty in sounding the trumpet. If none will hear, he is free. 1. Men must hearken to the Divine message before they can profit by it. To be warned is not to be saved. If men refuse to accept the truths of Christianity these can do them no good, and they are left free to follow or to neglect them. 2. Men must obey the Divine message before they can profit by it. It is nothing to tremble at the warning of judgment unless we are moved to actions of precaution. Felix trembled, and was none the better for this proof of the powerful effect of the preaching of St. Paul (Acts 24:25). 3. If the Divine message is heard and disregarded, the folly, guilt, and ruin will only be aggravated. The plea of ignorance is gone. Indifference is converted into obstinate rebellion (Jeremiah 6:19). Worthless sacrifices. I. ARE WHEN THEY ARE NOT OFFERED IN THE RIGHT SPIRIT. The mere gifts are of no use to God-(Psalms 50:8-13). They are only valuable as expressing the thoughts and feelings of the giver. Religious services are simply good as the outward expression of worship. 1. Sacrifices are worthless when they are not prompted by spiritual devotion; religious services are unacceptable when they are only external performances. The true sacrifice must be of the will, i.e. self-dedication. 2. Sacrifices are worthless when they are accompanied by immorality of conduct. Worship at church is a mockery if daily conduct in the world is corrupt (Isaiah 1:15). II. MAY HAVE ALL THE OF . 1. They may be offered to God. There may be a real intention to approach God, yet this is vain if the heart is wrong. 2. They may be according to prescribed order. The formally obedient Jews were rigidly subservient to the ordinance of the authorized ritual. 3. They may be costly—incense from Sheba, sweet cane from India. But men cannot buy acceptance with God by signing heavy checks. III. THE OF IS A SERIOUS FAULT. 1. It is an insult to God. Better offer nothing than the worthless gift when all he really asks for, the heart, is withheld. 2. It is a source of self-delusion. The offering being given, the conscience feels relieved, false pride is stimulated, and the real spiritual condition is hidden. People have a vague feeling that they have done a good thing in attending church, in sitting out a service, in mechanically following the forms of worship. Yet, as this is really utterly worthless, the impression of self-complacency it produces is highly injurious, Jeremiah 6:27-30 Testing fires. Under the image of an assayer and his fire, Jeremiah is led to regard his mission, and the troubles of Israel, with which this is so much concerned, as means for testing the character of the Jews. I. THE OF IS DIVINE TRUTH. The prophet is to be an assayer. Men are to be judged by the truths of righteousness which he is inspired to see and to declare. God has revealed standards of judgment. We are not free to shape our lives according to fancy, taste, or unaided private judgment. The truths of Scripture constitute the standard by which we shall be measured. This will be applied according as it is known. Jeremiah was the watchman before he was the assayer. He blew the trumpet, preached the truth he saw. They who have not received the fuller revelation will be judged by what light they possess (Romans 1:18-20; Romans 2:12). II. THE TEST IS APPLIED IN THE FIRES OF . Trouble is not only sent for discipline and chastisement; it is a test, a revealer of character. It reveals a man to himself and to others. If he has any true spiritual life, any precious metal, it must come out when, one after another, the worthless ideas and feelings fail before the searching flames of the baptism of fire. Trouble shows: 1. Whether religion is real and heartfelt, or formal and superficial. 2. How far faith is a practical trust, and how far it is a barren conviction. 3. Whether love and devotion to God are deep enough to stand against the temptation to rebel or despair. III. THEY ARE UTTERLY WHO DISPLAY NO GOOD AFTER THE TRIAL OF . This follows from the preceding statements. It was terribly applicable to Israel. We should ask how far it applies to ourselves, and beware of two delusions, viz.: 1. The delusion that merit may be still, hidden after God has applied his most thorough test. A religion which is completely secret, never discoverable, must be a poor and worthless thing. The heart cannot be right if it never gives proof of good qualities when tested in all ways. 2. The delusion that trial can destroy spiritual worth. The silver is not burnt if it is not forthcoming. True religion will survive the hardest test that may be applied to it. It is only the superficial, unreal sentiment of religion that is scorched up by persecution and affliction; the growth on the barren rock, not that in the good soil (Matthew 13:5, Matthew 13:20, Matthew 13:21). IV. GOD WILL REJECT NONE WITHOUT FULL TRIAL. Character is to be assayed. God judges before he condemns. The reprobate silver has been well tried. No soul is reprobated by God till every means has been used to search for some good in it. See, then, the merciful intention of trial. The fires are fierce because the intention is to discover some small good thing hidden from every milder test, if only this exists. God is not anxious to find the evil, but to find the good, in men, as the assayer is searching for silver. He will gladly welcome the faintest indication of the least good. No genuine silver can miss the Assayer after his most searching tests. God will abandon no soul till he has sought for all that can be brought in its favor. He is loath to give his children up (Hosea 11:8). BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 6:4-8 The apostate city that cannot be let alone. Godlessness is condemned by its impracticableness as a universal and thorough-going principle of human life. It is also an evil that defies ordinary restraints, and constantly becomes worse. "This is the strongest and most dangerous mining-powder of cities and fortresses when sin, shame, vice, and wantonness get the upper hand" (Cramer). The city that has forsaken God is— I. A SOURCE OF AND . It is likened to a fountain casting forth wickedness. It is an originative agent of evil. Its private, social, and public life multiplies occasions and causes of sin. There is no power within itself sufficient to restrain or purify. Its very laws and regulations tend to foster vice. As of the natural heart our Savior said that out of it "proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, etc.," so, where there are multitudes of such, there will be an exaggeration of the individual tendency and influence. As the leader of fashion, and dominant authority in new customs and ideas, there is an eclat transferred from it to what is evil. Its existence becomes, therefore— II. AN OF INJURY AND DANGER TO ALL WHO HAVE TO DO WITH IT. It is as a fire that has broken out amidst combustible material. By-and-by "the wicked city" is felt to be an intolerable evil. It is a menace to the peace and good government of its neighbors. They cannot afford to ignore it. No time must be lost in bringing it to reason. Its excitements and dissipations wax madder and more widespread. No time can be lost. Hence the avengers come from all quarters in baste and eagerly. "Sanctify war against her! Arise, let us go up at noon!"—the heat being no barrier to their setting out; "Arise, and let us go up in the night!"—the darkness and weariness being forgotten in their hatred and vengeance. For the same reason no terms can be made with it. The Mosaic regulations in warfare are set aside (Deuteronomy 20:19, Deuteronomy 20:20). There is no chivalrous respect inspired by it, and as it shows no mercy, none is accorded to it. III. IT IS A OFFENCE TO GOD. God’s love for it had been great, and he had purposed to make it a center of redeeming love. This aim had been thwarted. So it has been with the city life of man everywhere. As a natural development, and a providential result in human history, the city is intended to enlarge the powers of doing good and to bless the world. But how seldom has this been the case! The centralization of life has but intensified its corruption. Is there any place where the salvation of society seems more hopeless than in our great cities? And God’s patience threatens to give out. He cannot bear the noisomeness of its evil. He is about to turn from it in utter loathing and final abandonment. But not yet. Warning is given; a prophet is sent. Nay, the Son himself, if haply they will hear him, in whom alone a sufficient antidote is found. In him is salvation, for of the holy city, the New Jerusalem, the scene of regenerated society, he is Center and Lord. He is the "Fountain opened for sin and for all uncleanness"—M. The ministry of deceit. The extent to which corruption prevailed is suggested when even the prophets and priests share the general apostasy: "Every one dealeth falsely." I. THE DUTY IT HAD TO FULFIL. The priest dealt with ritual, the prophet with moral and doctrinal questions in religion. They had to act as the spiritual guides and overseers of the people of God. Here they are represented as behaving like quack doctors in cases of grave injury or disease. They were appointed for the spiritual health and well-being of men. Circumstances in the condition of their flocks would determine the manner in which they should exercise their functions, and the special direction in which their attention should be directed. Israel had fallen into serious wickedness. It was no isolated acts of transgression of which she was guilty; her whole spiritual state was one of alienation from God. In such a case the utmost faithfulness and severity were required; as the surgeon has to probe the wound, and use sharp instruments for excising the part that is diseased; or the physician has to make a thorough diagnosis of a patient, and in desperate sickness to use desperate remedies. Here an opposite course had been pursued. The gravity of the "hurt" was overlooked or ignored, and merely outward signs of amendment were regarded as complete reconciliation with God. 1. That which separates men from God is no slight matter. It is a deadly thing. If it continues, it must inevitably destroy. The observances of religion will be nullified until it is put fight. Men must be told of their sin, not merely in a round and general manner, but judiciously, and according to the specialties of individual or class peculiarities. The unbelief of the natural man is the parent of his misdeeds and sin, and keeps him from any real communion with God. 2. The minister of religion is bound to be discerning and faithful. 3. It is only through a real and spiritual repentance that reconciliation can be effected. At such a juncture spiritual religion ought to have been insisted on, and the enormity of the offence exposed. Preliminary acts of contrition; experiences and discoveries of the heart such as conviction of sin, etc.; the necessity of love, obedience, and faith ought not to be slurred over. II. FAILURE IN THIS DUTY AND ITS CAUSES. The root-cause is undoubtedly the share which the religious teachers had in the general depravity. There was also a consequent lack of spiritual discernment. The greatness of the fall from the former position occupied by Israel was not appreciated, and the nature of true religion was not understood. A ministry under court patronage and a merely popular ministry are alike subject to the temptations to please rather than to deal honestly with the evils of individuals, society, and the state, and to rectify them. "They who live to please must please to live." There is such a thing always as a making of religion too easy either in its moral conditions or its doctrinal realizations. It is fearfully wrong to say a man is a Christian when he is not a Christian; or so to deal with him in pastoral relations that he fancies himself in possession of salvation and spiritually secure when he is in heart and life far from God. Flattery has a thousand forms, and there is no falsehood to which it contributes that is more insidious or wide-reaching than this. III. THE RESULTS. These are terrible in the extreme. From the authority of office they are credited in their declarations, and national and individual offences are condoned and perpetuated. Possible for a man to be deceived on this most vital question; to think himself a child of God when he is in reality a child of Satan. Death-bed repentances. 1. The divorce of morality from religion. 2. The intensified wrath of God at hypocrisy and sham religion. 3. Eternal death and irretrievable loss.—M. Men are surrounded from their earliest years with various religious systems, the claims of which conflict. To a conscientious mind, intellectual disquietude is the first result of this; in those less in earnest it produces and justifies indifference. All religious tend, under these circumstances, to assume the aspect of speculative questions, and the moral life is increasingly detached from religious sanctions. Morality must thereby be impaired, if it do not ultimately disappear. The prophet, therefore, recalls the people to the consideration of religion as a practical question. It is with him a question not of pure theory, but of conduct and experience. He urges the settlement of the conflict upon these grounds, and furnishes certain criteria by which to determine it. I. IS A TEST OF TRUE . Man is a religions being by nature, and God has never left himself without a witness in the world. There has been no generation in which some have not sought and found him. From the very first, therefore, there must have been religions conditions observed, which from their nature must be, as they were intended to be, permanent. The argument for the existence of God, for instance, is greatly strengthened by the evidence of the recognition of him by primitive and ancient peoples. Even in their errors and mistakes, when their views and observances are collated and compared, witness is given to fundamental truths. But the argument is stronger still when the people appealed to are those who, like Israel, have an historical faith. Ages of faith were behind them, illustrated by mighty heroes and saintly men of God, For ages a certain communion had been observed between the nation and its theocratic Head. What was the secular character of those’ ages? Were they marked by political strength, social order and purity, and commercial prosperity? Were the leaders of the people men whose ideal of life and actual behavior commended themselves to the general conscience of the world? Was it to be supposed that any essential truth for the spiritual guidance of men had to be discovered thus late in the day? Were men to be always on tiptoe to learn what the last finding of research might be? There were paths that had been tried by holy men. When the nation was at its best, it acknowledged God in these ways. The vast majority of those who were holiest and best had tried them and found them satisfactory. II. BUT IS , The children of Israel were to "stand in the ways," i.e. to examine the different systems of religion and morals that laid claim to their attention. Critical and historical judgment had to be exercised. It is not simply the oldest religion that is to be retained and followed, but that in the religious history of the past which has most evidently conduced to noble action, spiritual health, and well-being. The’ heathenisms of the world are self-condemned; immorality has ever tended to destruction. The Englishman, therefore, is not to look to the Druids for infallible teaching; nor Christians to the saints of the Old Testament times. The dictum of Ignatius is sound: Nobis vera antiquitas est Jesus Christus. But the teaching and personality of Jesus were commended by their essential agreement with Mosaicism in its most ancient form; as that in turn was but a confirmation and elaboration of patriarchal convictions, experiences, and revelations. The truth that has been held in all ages is retained in each new development of revelation and history, but it is spiritualized and grounded upon deeper and wider sanctions. III. THE NATURAL HUMAN DESIRE FOR MERE NOVELTY HAS TO BE . True religion is not to be despised because it is old. The truth, when carefully studied and spiritually realized, is ever new and fresh. And the "new truths" to which advancing time introduces us are justified only as we can organically and spiritually evolve them from their archaic predecessors. Obligations which are merely relative will change or disappear with the relations upon which they are founded, but the cardinal truths of heart and life must ever retain their authority, and new experience will but tend to deepen and strengthen their hold upon the religious nature. If, on the other hand, the teachings of experience and the warnings of prophets are despised, new heinousness will be added to the wickedness of the wicked. It will be willful disobedience, and as such will be more severely punished. IV. TO THESE OF WILL CONFIRM AND SATISFY THE SOUL. If, in spite of these corroborations, the doctrines were productive of misery and spiritual unrest, then they would go for nothing. But this is the final and absolute criterion—Do they tend to the welfare and increase of spiritual life, and to the satisfaction of the deepest longings of the soul?—M. Jeremiah 6:18-20 The reasonableness of the Divine judgments. The language employed suggests publicity. The world is called into solemn council—a "congregation" for judgment. 1. Not that upon questions of this nature the carnal mind is any authority of and by itself. "Who art thou that judgest?" might well be asked of any who assumed such an office. It is only as confirming and justifying the action taken by God. Thus understood, the testimony of the world is most valuable, being different from what might be expected. It is a great mystery, this judgment of God’s apostate people by the heathen nations. 2. And yet we must not understand it as a mere figure of speech. There is a real endorsement of the righteous judgments of God in the mind of the world—one of those revealing circumstances which show "the Law of God written upon their heart." When the question is a broad, simple, and evident one, even the most perverted soul will affirm the sentence of Heaven. Unbelief is only superficial. Beneath the crust of hardened consciences there still remains a primitive sense of justice; and to this will the final sentence of condemnation appeal, when we shall give account of the deeds done in the body. The sinner will not only hear the decision from the great white throne, but he will stand self-condemned; and the universal assembly will confirm the verdict. 3. How fearful, too, must have been the guilt of God’s people that on this occasion such umpires could have been so confidently appealed to! The features of their criminality that are emphasized are these: obstinacy and hypocrisy. The latter is but the abettor of the former. The unreality of Israel’s repentance was especially abhorrent to Jehovah. It vitiates all the costly articles and enhancements of their worship, and is but the cloak of a real continuance in sin. If, then, they do in heart refuse to obey God, what more reasonable than that he should suffer the laws of his universe to deal with them, and punish them with "the fruit of their thoughts?" The angels of vengeance that wait upon sin, licentiousness, luxury, and waste, will be suffered to do their work; and they shall learn by experience that "the way of transgressors is hard." But the instant that the spirit of reality and sincerity revisits their hearts, his ear will be open to their cry, and his mercy will redeem.—M. The prophet a spiritual assayer. Of interest as a description of process of refining precious metals among ancient peoples. The grinding and washing of the ore to discover and separate the precious metals, the fusing of the silver with lead in order to its further purification, and the repetition of this under severer heat, are processes which are used to illustrate the influence of the words of revelation upon the human heart. These words— I. REVEAL . "Some believed, and some believed not," is the consequence always following upon the faithful preaching of the truth. "It is a hard saying; who can hear it?" How instantaneous were the results in this way attendant on the proclamations of Biblical prophets and preachers! They addressed the conscience, the affection, and the will, and pressed for a verdict and practical following up of opinion in action. Much more is this the case with the gospel, because of its deeper and more spiritual force. It is by hearing the Word, and looking into the mirror it affords, that a man is discovered to himself. II. DESTINY. Sometimes in a good, sometimes in a bad sense. In the case before us it is wholly the latter, As there was no reality or earnestness in Israel, so there was no point at which a commencement could be made towards reformation. They are all concluded guilty and worthless. It was a severe judgment, but was meant in mercy to the people themselves. They were thereby warned of the need of radical change, and the supernatural, saving grace of God. It is by the determinations and effects produced by the hearing of the Word that the future is influenced. There is a distinct moral responsibility incurred each time the truth is proclaimed in our hearing. Nothing else so searches into and potently affects the moral nature, because the conscience is most vividly aroused and reality in all its naked force bursts upon the soul. The furthest developments of personal character, interest, and occupation may be thus conditioned: "See, then, how ye hear!" III. ARE ADAPTED, BY SEVERE , TO EFFECT THEM. They result in rejection, and this is rendered inevitable by the utter worthlessness of character and work exhibited. If there is any good in a man, the truth will discover it, and sympathetically develop and reinforce it; if not, it will only the more utterly and unquestionably condemn him. The ear does not try words more delicately or decisively than words of God try the heart. According to their spiritual state will men be condemned, approved; received or rejected by the hearing of the gospel. Some men have been tried and condemned by it already; to others it opens more and more widely the door of hope.—M. BY S. CONWAY A dreadful onlook. Such was the vision of Jeremiah which he saw concerning the coming wrath upon Judah and Jerusalem. It was the sad sight which the sinners in Jerusalem never, but the seer ever, saw clearly, vividly, heart-brokenly. The vision of Jeremiah for Jerusalem was the forerunner of our Lord’s in substance, spirit, and result. Now, with regard to this awful onlook of the prophet which is here related, note— I. HOW IT WAS. The people of Judah and Jerusalem were in no fear, and for forty years and more this vision was not realized. Other eyes saw nothing to be troubled about, and men generally were at ease in Zion. It was only the purged vision of the prophet that pierced the future and portrayed the dread realities of that fast-coming day. He saw clearly what others saw not at all. And so it is always. But why is this? Why do sinners not see? Take an answer from those senseless exhibitions in which the performers place themselves in positions of frightful peril, so that a moment’s unsteadiness of nerve, the slightest slipping of hand or foot, would lead to their immediate inevitable and dreadful death; running all this risk to amuse the gaping, shameless crowds, who stare, stamp, and shout their applause at what never ought to be done. But let these performers provide us a reply to the question we have asked. They will tell you that at first they approached those dangerous places with great fear; how it was long ere they could walk with ease along that slender cord, or stand fearless on that dizzy height. But they got at length so used to these things that now they go through their perilous performances without the slightest fear. And so is it with grievous sinners against God. They have got so used to the threatening of his anger that they think nothing of it after a while, and go on unconcernedly until almost the moment of his vengeance bursts upon them. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore," etc. Their heart wishes that there may be naught to fear. The long-suffering and forbearance of God are perverted, by the deceitfulness of sin, to foster that belief, and so they at length persuade themselves that what God’s servants see so clearly and warn them of so faithfully has no real existence, and "as it was in the days of Noah, so is it also in the days when the Son Of man cometh." Oh, what need for the prayer, "From all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil, good Lord, deliver us"! This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Ch. 7-10.—Severe rebukes of idolatry alternating with announcements of the impending judgment. The circumstances connected with this discourse, or part thereof, appear to be detailed in Jeremiah 26:1-24. Among the parallelisms between the two sections, notice especially the reference to the fate of the temple of Shiloh (comp. Jeremiah 26:14 with Jeremiah 26:6). The date of the original utterance of the prophecy is thus fixed for one of the early years of the reign of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah 10:1-16, however, requires separate consideration. Jeremiah 7:1-7 The Divine requirements and the corresponding promise. Jeremiah 7:2 Stand in the gate; i.e. not an outer gate (for the outer court would be filled with the people whom Jeremiah was to address), but one of the three gates which led from the inner court to the outer. Probably it was the gate where Baruch recited the prophecies of Jeremiah at a later period, and which is designated "the new gate of the Lord’s house," and said to have been situated in the "upper" i.e. inner court (Jeremiah 36:10; comp. Jeremiah 26:10). We may conjecture that either one of the three great festivals or some extraordinary fast had brought a large number of people together at the temple. Jeremiah 7:4 The temple of the Lord. Notice the iteration of the phrase, as if its very sound were a charm against evil. It reminds us of the performances of the howling dervishes at Cairo, who "sometimes remain for hours, incessantly shouting the Muslim confession of faith (la ilaha, etc.)". The phrase is repeated three times to express earnestness of the speakers (comp. Jeremiah 22:29, "O earth, earth, earth"). These false prophets evidently retained a large amount of the old materialistic faith of the Semitic nations (to whom the Israelites belonged by race), which localized the presence and the power of the divinity. The temple was, in fact, their palladium, and as long as it stood, the national independence appeared to them to be secured. They faithfully handed on the teaching of those prophets of the last generation, who, as Micah tells us (Micah 3:11), were wont to "lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us." How Isaiah met this error we may collect from Isaiah 28:16 (see my Commentary). Are these; i.e. these buildings. Jeremiah 7:5 If ye thoroughly amend, etc.; a development of the ides of Jer 7:3. The true palladium of Judah would be the faithful performance of Jehovah’s moral laws, especially those referring to the conduct of the rulers. Observe the stress which all the prophets lay on the virtues of civil life. Jeremiah 7:6 The stranger, the fatherless, and the widow; specially commended to the care of the Israelites (Exodus 22:21, Exodus 22:22—a passage belonging to one of the most evidently primitive portions of the Pentateuch; Deuteronomy 24:17, Deuteronomy 24:19, Deuteronomy 24:21; Deuteronomy 27:19; comp. Isaiah 1:17, Isaiah 1:23; Isaiah 10:2; Ezekiel 22:7). In plus; i.e. specially in Jerusalem, but not altogether excluding the rest of the kingdom (see Jeremiah 7:3, Jeremiah 7:7). Jeremiah 7:7 Forever and ever. It is doubtful, both here and in Jeremiah 25:5, whether these words should be joined to "gave" or "cause you to dwell." Still, the latter connection is both in itself the more probable one, and that suggested first of all by the accentuation. It was not the extent of the original premise, but that of the enjoyment of the gift, which was in question. A more exact rendering of the prophet’s formula is that of the Septuagint ἐξαἰῶνοςκαὶἕωςαἰῶνος: i.e. from the most remote antiquity to the most distant future. Jeremiah 7:8-15 The formalism of Jewish religion exposed. The lesson of Shiloh. Jeremiah 7:8 Lying words; such as those quoted in Jeremiah 7:4. Jeremiah 7:9 Will ye steal, etc.? rather, What I stealing, murdering, etc.? The construction is formed by a series of infinitives, preceded by an interrogative expressing extreme surprise, equivalent to "Is this your way of life—a course of theft, and so forth?" Jeremiah 7:10 And come, etc.; rather, and then ye come, etc. We are delivered to do, etc.; rather, we have escaped, in order to do, etc. To make the concluding words of the verse a part of the speech seems hardly fair to the Jews, who would certainly not proclaim that they had made their escape from the threatened judgment with the object of prosecuting abominable acts. Such a view, moreover, greatly weakens the force of the emphatic "We have escaped." "In order to do," etc; are the words of the prophet, who thus lays bare the secret intentions of these formal worshippers. Jeremiah 7:11 Even I have seen it; understand, "and I will therefore destroy the house which gives shelter to evil-doers." Jeremiah 7:12 But go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh. Jeremiah attacks this false confidence in the temple of Jerusalem, by pointing to the destruction of an earlier sanctuary, of which very little is known, indeed only so much as to give an edge to our desire for more. It is certain, from Joshua 18:1 and 1 Samuel 4:3, that the tabernacle and the ark found a resting-place at Shiloh (an Ephraimitish town to the north of Bethel), nearly the whole of the period of the judges, or more exactly between the latter days of Joshua (Joshua 18:1) and the death of Eli (1 Samuel 4:3). Manifestly, then, there must have been some sort of "house," i.e. temple, at Shiloh; a mere tent would not have been sufficient for so long a period. This presumption is confirmed by the language of Jeremiah, and by the expressions of the narrative books. The fate which the prophet is bidden to announce for the existing temple is analogous to that which fell upon "Jehovah’s place in Shiloh." The latter was, therefore, not merely a deportation of the ark, such as is referred to in 1 Samuel 5:1-12. And when the narrator of the times of Samuel speaks of Eli as "sitting by the door-post of the temple of Jehovah" (1 Samuel 1:9), is it more natural to suppose t the word "temple" is here applied to the tabernacle, or that there was really a house, however rude, as sacred in the eyes of the faithful as was afterwards the splendid temple at Jerusalem? The latter view is strongly confirmed by Judges 18:31, "All the time that the house of God in Shiloh existed" (Authorized Version is misleading), and Judges 19:18, where the Levite travelling to Mount Ephraim says, "I am going to the house of Jehovah." It is no doubt strange at first sight that so little information is given us as to this central sanctuary of the true religion; but are there not other omissions (especially in the history of the judges), which are equally strange as long as we look upon the Old Testament as primarily an historical document? We do know something, however, and more than is generally suspected; for when the right translation is restored in Judges 18:31, it follows, from a comparison of this and the preceding verse, that the temple of Shiloh was destroyed simultaneously with the captivity of the northern tribes. The impression produced by this emphatic announcement of Jeremiah is revealed to us by a later passage in his book (see Jeremiah 26:1-24.). Jeremiah 7:13 Rising up early and speaking; i.e. speaking zealously and continually (so Jeremiah 7:25; Jeremiah 25:4; Jeremiah 26:5; Jeremiah 29:19). It is an expression peculiar to Jeremiah. Jeremiah 7:14 To Shiloh. Shiloh and the temple of Shiloh are interchanged, precisely as Jerusalem and the temple of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 26:9; Micah 3:12). Jeremiah 7:15 I will cast you out of my sight; viz. into a foreign land (see Deuteronomy 29:28). The land of Israel was in a special sense "Jehovah’s land" (Hosea 9:3; Leviticus 25:23). Ephraim; here used for the northern tribes collectively, as Isaiah 7:2; Hosea 4:17; Hosea 5:9; Hosea 12:1. Jeremiah 7:16-20 The hypocrisy of the worship of Jehovah proved; its punishment. Jeremiah 7:16 Pray not thou for this people. Abraham prayed for Sodom (Genesis 18:23-32); Moses and Samuel for Israel (Exodus 32:11-14; Exodus 17:11; Numbers 14:13-20; Psalms 106:23; 1 Samuel 7:9, 1 Samuel 7:10; 1 Samuel 12:17, 1 Samuel 12:18, 1 Samuel 12:23); and Jeremiah would fain perform the same pious duty to his people. We have a specimen of his intercession in Jeremiah 14:19-22 (comp. Jeremiah 18:20), followed immediately by a rejection of his prayer, parallel in thought to the present passage. Verbal parallels are Jeremiah 11:14; Jeremiah 14:11. Cry; i.e. cry for help (see on Jeremiah 14:12); parallel with "prayer," as Jeremiah 11:14; Psalms 17:1 Psalms 61:1. Jeremiah 7:17 In the streets. A climax. Them is no sense of shame left. Jeremiah 7:18 The children … the fathers … the women. All ages were represented in this idolatrous act, thus justifying the sweeping character of the judgment as described in Jeremiah 6:11. Cakes (comp. Jeremiah 44:19). The word is peculiar (kavvanim), and perhaps entered Palestine together with the foreign rite to which the cakes belonged. Various conjectures have been offered as to their nature, but without any demonstrable ground. Sacrificial cakes were not uncommon. Hosea refers to the luscious raisin-cakes used by idolaters (Hosea 3:1). To the queen of heaven. This title of a divinity only occurs in Jeremiah (here and in Jeremiah 44:17-19, Jeremiah 44:25). It reminds us, first, of titles (such as "queen of the gods") of the Babylonic-Assyrian goddesses, Bilat (Beltis) and Istar, who, though divided in later times, were "originally but two forms of the same goddess" (Sayce, Transactions of Society of Biblical Archaeology, 3.169). It is, however, perhaps an objection to the view that Bilat or Istar is intended, that neither here nor in Jeremiah 44:1-30. is there any allusion to that characteristic lascivious custom which was connected in Babylonia with the worship of Istar (Herod; 1.199). The phrase has, however, another association. It reminds us, in the second place, of the Egyptian goddess Neith, "the mother of the gods." The first mention of "the queen of heaven" in Jeremiah occurs in the reign of Jehoiakim, who was placed on the throne by Pharaoh-Necho, one of the Saite dynasty (Says was the seat of the worship of Neith). If the "queen of heaven" were a Babylonic-Assyrian goddess, we should have looked for the introduction of her cultus at an earlier period (e.g. under Ahaz). But it was in accordance with the principles of polytheism (and the mass of the Jews had an irresistible tendency to polytheism), to adopt the patron-deity of the suzerain. Subsequently Judah became the subject of Nebuchadnezzar; thus it was equally natural to give up the worship of an Egyptian deity. Jewish colonists in Migdol would as naturally revert to the cultus of the Egyptian "mother of the gods". The form of the word rendered "queen" being very uncommon, another reading, pronounced in the same way, obtained currency. This should be rendered, not "frame," or "workmanship", but "service." The context, however, evidently requires a person. Jeremiah 7:19 Do they provoke me, etc.? literally, Is it me that they provoke (or, vex)? Is it not themselves Jeremiah 7:20 Upon man, and upon beast. That all creation shares in the curse of man is repeatedly affirmed in the Old Testament as well as the New. Inferentially, this doctrine appears from the narrative of the Fall, and still more clearly from Isaiah’s description of Paradise regained (Isaiah 11:1-16). Hosea speaks of sufferings of the animals arising out of the guilt of Israel (Hosea 4:3), and a consciousness of the "solidarity" of all living creatures is ascribed to a Ninevite king in the Book of Jonah (Jonah 3:7, Jonah 3:8). In general, the origin of this community of suffering is left mysterious, but in Genesis 6:12 it is expressly stated as the cause of the Deluge, that "all flesh [i.e. both man and beast.] had corrupted its way upon the earth;" i.e. apparently, that contact with man had led to a corruption of the original innocence of the lower animals. It is a common experience that intercourse between Christianized (not to say civilized) man and the domestic animals produces a sometimes pathetic change in the psychic phenomena of the latter. Is the reverse process utterly inconceivable? Jeremiah 7:21-28 Jeremiah dispels the illusion that God’s claims are satisfied by a merely formal service. Jeremiah 7:21 Put your burnt offerings, etc. Throw all your sacrifices into a mass, and eat them at your pleasure. Ye have my perfect permission, for they are of no religions value. According to the Law, the burnt offerings were to be entirely consumed by fire, while the other sacrifices were mostly eaten by the offerers and by their friends. There is a touch of contempt in the phrase, eat flesh; they are merely pieces of flesh, and ye may eat them. Jeremiah 7:22 I spake not unto your fathers, etc. An important and much-disputed passage, from which Graf, Colenso, and Kuenen derive one of their chief subsidiary arguments for the post-Exile date of the Levitical legislation. The prophet here appears to deny in tote that Jehovah at Mount Sinai had given any injunctions on the subject of sacrifice. But the prophet must at any rate be consistent with himself; he cannot utter anything by Divine command which is fundamentally at variance with other equally authoritative declarations. Do the statements of Jeremiah elsewhere justify us in accepting the words in their literal, superficial meaning? There are three other passages which have a claim to be considered. In Jeremiah 17:26 the prophet draws a picture of the happy condition in which the Jews might be, were they only obedient. One of the features of this picture is that the Jews would still bring all the various kinds of sacrifices to the house of Jehovah. In Jeremiah 31:14 a similar description is closed with the promise to "satiate the soul of the priests with fatness," implying that there would be a great abundance of thank offerings in regenerate Israel. In Jeremiah 33:11, among other blessings of the future, the prophet mentions the praiseful exclamations of those who would bring the sacrifice of thanksgiving. These passages do not contain any statement respecting the origin of the sacrificial system; but they do expressly assert that Jehovah contemplates that system with pleasure, and apparently that he designs it to be permanent among his people Israel. Let us now turn to Jeremiah 33:17-24. Here the prophet, in the Name of Jehovah, declares that there is a Divine covenant "with the Levites, the priests," who shall never "want a man before me … to do sacrifice continually." A covenant with the priests implies a covenant with the people, the priests being the representatives of the people. This passage, therefore, is more distinct than those previously quoted; it does appear to maintain that the range of the Sinaitic covenant included the duties of the priesthood, i.e. sacrifices. On the other hand, it should be observed that the genuineness of this latter passage is not beyond dispute, the whole section in which it occurs (Jeremiah 33:14-26) being omitted in the Septuagint. We have now to inquire, Is there a real discrepancy between the words of Jeremiah (strictly speaking, of Jehovah) in the verse now before us, interpreted literally, and the passages adduced above? Are they more inconsistent than such an utterance as Jeremiah 6:20 (first half of verse), which appears to deny the utility of sacrifices altogether? If the latter may be explained as a forcible oratorical exaggeration, why not also the present passage? Jeremiah sees the people attaching a pernicious importance to the opus operatum of sacrifice. On one occasion he tells them that Jehovah cares not for sacrifices; he means, as the context shows, the sacrifices of men without spiritual sensibilities. On another, that Jehovah never commanded their fathers to sacrifice; he means the mere outward forms of the ritual, divorced from the sentiment and practice of piety, which, as Hosea tells us (Hosea 6:6), Jehovah "delights in and not [equivalent to ’more than’] sacrifice." There is, therefore, no fundamental inconsistency between the passage before us and the three passages first quoted, and if so there can be no real discrepancy with the last-mentioned passage, for the priests (as was remarked) perform their functions on behalf of the people, and the permanence of Jehovah’s covenant with the priests depended on the spiritual life of the people they represented (read Jeremiah 33:1-26, as a whole). This view seems less arbitrary than that of Ewald, who thinks that the sacrifices spoken of in our passage are merely the free-will offerings of the rich; and than that of Dahler, who interprets, "My chief care was not to prescribe rules for holocausts and sacrifices, but this is what I commanded thee above all," viz. moral obedience. According to it, the prophet’s denial is not absolute, but relative—relative, that is, to the notion of sacrifices entertained by the Jews whom he addresses. Of course, Graf’s view, that the denial is absolute, will equally well suit the context. The people were surprised at Jeremiah’s objurgations, because they thought they had fulfilled the claims of the covenant. Jeremiah’s purpose is equally well fulfilled whether his denial is qualified or unqualified, absolute or relative. Our object has been to separate the exegesis of our passage from a still doubtful controversy, and to offer a tenable view of it, based upon grounds purely internal to Jeremiah. It may be suggested, however, to the student of Leviticus, that even if the Levitical legislation in its present form were proved to be of a pest-Exile date, it would still be doubtful whether any believing temple-worshipper could help assuming that Jehovah had, from the first existence of the nation, given his direct sanction to the offering of sacrifices. If so, it is comparatively unimportant (except with regard to the progressive revelation of the strictness of the law of truth) whether the Levitical code was given to Moses at Mount Sinai in its present form or not. Jeremiah 7:23 But this thing … Obey my voice, etc. Comp. Deuteronomy 6:3, "Hear [the verb rendered here ’obey’] therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with thee," etc. The words, I will be your God; rather, to you a God, etc; occur in Le Deuteronomy 26:12 (comp. Exodus 6:7; Deuteronomy 29:13). Walk ye in all the ways, etc; is not a citation, but reminds us of passages like Deuteronomy 9:12, Deuteronomy 9:16; Deuteronomy 11:28; Deuteronomy 31:29. That it may be well unto you is a characteristic phrase of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 43:6; Jeremiah 38:20; Jeremiah 40:9); but is also frequent in Deuteronomy (comp; besides the passage quoted above, Deuteronomy 4:40; Deuteronomy 5:16; Deuteronomy 6:18; Deuteronomy 12:25). Jeremiah 7:24 Imagination; rather, stubbornness (see on Jeremiah 3:17). Went backward, and not forward; rather, turned their back, and not their face (literally, became backwards, and not forwards). Jeremiah 7:27 Therefore thou shalt speak etc. rather, and though thou speak … yet will they not, etc.; and though thou call unto them, yet will they not answer thee. Jeremiah 7:28 But thou shalt say; rather, thou shalt therefore say. A nation; rather, the nation. "What one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself?" (2 Samuel 7:23). And yet "this is the nation that have not hearkened," etc. Truth; rather, good faith (as Jeremiah 5:1). Is cut off from their mouth; i.e. their oaths to Jehovah are false oaths (Jeremiah 5:2). Jeremiah 7:29-34 Tophet, the greatest of all abominations; the beginning of the Divine retribution. Jeremiah 7:29 Cut off thine hair. The "daughter of Zion," i.e. the community of Jerusalem, is addressed; this appears from the verb being in the feminine. It is a choice expression which the prophet employs—literally, shear off thy crown (i.e. thy chief ornament). The act was to be a sign of mourning (see Job 1:20; Micah 1:16). Some think there is also a reference to the vow of the Nazarite (the word for "crown" being here nezer, which is also the word rendered in Authorized Version, "separation," i.e. "consecration," in the law of the Nazarite (Numbers 6:1-27.). But neither in this context nor anywhere else have we any support for the application of the term "Nazarite" to the people of Israel. On high places; rather, on (the) bare hills (see on Jeremiah 3:21). The generation of his wrath; i.e. on which his wrath is to be poured out (comp. Isaiah 10:6). Jeremiah 7:30 They have set their abominations, etc.; alluding, doubtless, to the altars which Manasseh built "for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of Jehovah," and especially to the image of the Canaanitish goddess Asherah, which he set up in the temple itself (2 Kings 21:5, 2 Kings 21:7). Jeremiah 7:31 The high places of Tophet; rather, the high places of the Topheth—(on the "high places" (Hebrew bamoth)—here probably artificial mounds to erect the altars upon, and on "the Topheth," see Commentary on 1 Kings). In the valley of the son of Hinnom. Hitzig and others would take Hinnom as a noun meaning "groaning" (Rashi, the great Jewish commentator. had already proposed this view), which is at first sight very plausible. But this name of the valley is already found in the description of the boundaries of Judah and Benjamin in Joshua 15:8; Joshua 18:16. To burn their sons, etc. (On the worship of Moloch (Saturn), see on Le Joshua 18:21, and comp. Ezekiel 16:20, Ezekiel 16:21, from which it appears that the children were first slain before being "caused to pass through the fire.") Jeremiah 7:32 The valley of slaughter; with reference to the great slaughter reserved for the unbelieving Jews. The scene of their sin shall be that of their punishment. Till there be no place; rather, for want of room (elsewhere). Jeremiah 7:33 And the carcasses etc.; almost verbally identical with Deuteronomy 28:26. Jeremiah 7:34 The land shall be desolate; rather, shall become a waste. The curse denounced upon the disobedient people in Leviticus 26:31, 33 (for another parallel between this chapter and Leviticus 26:1-46; see Leviticus 26:23). In both passages the word for "waste" is khorbah, which, as Dr. Payne Smith remarks, is "used only of places which, having once been inhabited, have then fallen into ruin." Hebrew is rich in synonyms for the idea of "desolation." Preaching repentance. I. THE . It was in the gate of the temple, where the crowd of worshippers would pass, and at the time of their going up to worship. 1. In a public place, (1) that men might not have to seek the preacher, but rather be sought by him; and (2) that all might hear, for truth, warnings of judgment, and gospels of deliverance are for all. 2. At the entrance to the place of worship, because (1) worship should be associated with instruction; (2) many people who observe religious ordinances need to be convinced of their sin and urged to repentance as much as the "publicans and sinners;" and (3) we must repent of sin before we can be accepted by God; so Jeremiah was to preach to the people as they went in to the temple, not as they came out. II. THE . The Jews are not accused of Church sins, neglecting religious ordinances, etc. Their sins were against common morality. 1. Though men may be very observant of religious ordinances they may yet be guilty of the grossest wickedness (verse 6). 2. God is most concerned with our conduct in daily life. Here is the true life, the life which occupies the larger part of our time, engages most of our energies, gives freest scope for good or evil. III. THE . Practical amendment is sought. 1. There must be an amending. Repentance is not merely sorrow for the past; it is a change of desire and effort for the future. 2. This must be practical. The Jews are to amend their ways. True repentance is more a matter of conduct than of emotion, it must bring forth fruits (Matthew 3:8). 3. This must be definite. Particular sins are specified as to be abandoned (verse 6). Men must repent of their own sins, their characteristic sins, their habitual sins. We are too ready to renounce the sins which do not belong to us, and to pass over our most familiar sins unnoticed. 4. This must be thorough. The Jews are to "thoroughly amend" their ways. A half-hearted repentance is a mockery. As well not flee from the City of Destruction at all as linger regretfully about its vicinity like Lot’s wife, only to suffer a similar fate to hers. IV. THE . The Jews are warned of the danger of a false ground of confidence (verse 4), and threatened with approaching judgment. 1. If we believe that men are in danger, that is a false charity which hides the danger out of consideration for feelings of mere temporary comfort. 2. There is an advantage in using the minatory language of Scripture, though (1) with deep solemnity, (2) with sadness and kindliness of purpose, (3) without the amplification of imaginative sensationalism, (4) accompanied by clear indications of the way of escape and encouragements for hope in following it. V. THE PROMISE. (Verse 7.) Repentance is to be followed by forgiveness and the restoration of favor. God charges us with our sins, and threatens judgments, all in love that he may thus lead us to safety and blessedness. The most wicked men may find forgiveness and ultimate salvation if they will but repent and turn to God (verse 6). The confidence of superstition. I. IS NO FOR A SECURE OF TRUST. The Jews are vehement in exclamation; but their words are boastful without ground. Frequent repetition is no evidence of the truth of a saying. Yet, though against all reason, and by mere force of urgency, how many convictions have been thus forced on the belief of mankind! Trite sayings are commonly accepted for true sayings. We do not think to test the genuineness of the old worn coin so much as that of the new coin. We naturally believe that with which we are familiar. Indeed, we may persuade ourselves to believe almost anything by simply dwelling upon the idea of it till this becomes inseparable from our consciousness. And all this without the slightest reason! II. THE OF MAY BE FOUND IN MEN WHO HAVE LOST THE OF IT. The Jews neglected the spiritual worship, which was all that was really valuable in the temple service, but they clung to the idea that there must be a sanctity about the very walls of the temple which would make it a place of safety for those who took shelter within them. Superstition is the disease of religion. When spiritual holiness is gone, a sanctity is ascribed to material things. They who have no faith in God may have strange faith in charms and spells, like the Jews who, perhaps, thought to work a charm by the threefold iteration of their cry, "The temple of the Lord," etc. III. No REAL CAN RE FOUND IN THINGS. The temple building was no palladium to the bad men who sought refuge in it. It is vain to be near the Church if we are far from God. Religious ordinances, membership in a Church, official association with religion as priest, prophet, or minister, and the like outside affairs, contain no promise whatever of protection, and the man who shelters himself beneath the whole of them and does not seek spiritual shelter is as much exposed to the tempest of judgment as if he stood out in the open plain of bare infidelity. IV. THE TRUE TEMPLE OF THE LORD IS THE HEART OF A GOOD MAN. God does not dwell in temples made with hands. Earthly temples of stone may represent his dwelling, but they cannot bring him nearer to men nor confine his presence within limits. But the soul of a good man is a real temple wherein God’s Spirit truly abides and effectively operates (1 Corinthians 6:19). Such a temple is safe from all harm. Thus we must seek safety, not by entering a temple, but by becoming a temple—not by securing the external protection of holy things while the heart and life are unholy, but by receiving God within the heart and sanctifying the life to him. The voice unheeded. I. GOD IS EVER TO HIS . There is a Divine voice speaking, not to favored prophets in rare moments of spiritual elevation, but to all men, that all who will may hear. This voice comes to us in many forms. 1. The voice of nature—the proclamation of the power and wisdom of God in the awful, silent speech of the stars (Psalms 19:3), and the gentler language which tells of his tenderness and beneficence in the cheery songs of spring and the glad shout of the harvest. 2. The voice of history. God is in history, and speaks to us through the events of the past, warning by judgments (Jeremiah 7:12), inviting by acts of deliverance and gifts of mercy (see Psalms 105:1-45.). 3. The voice of providence in daily life. Has not God been speaking to us through our own experience—using various prophetic agencies—the advent of a new joy, the cloud of a great sorrow, a visitation of the angel of death to the home? Has he not repeatedly roused, invited, pleaded, and consoled us with voices from out eternity? 4. The voice of prophecy. God had often so spoken to the Jews before the days of Jeremiah, and reference is plainly made to this fact in the text. That voice still lives, because truth is eternal. Thus God speaks to us through the inspired thoughts of the Bible. 5. The voice of Christ. He is the "Word" of God made articulate in the dialect of men (John 1:1-14). He who sees Christ hears the voice of God. 6. The voice of conscience. This is God speaking within the soul. Every time we feel compunction at doing wrong, or an inward urging to do the right, God is pleading in our heart by direct communion, spirit with spirit. II. THE VOICE OF GOD IS URGENT. God speaks with urgency—"rising up early and speaking." 1. The urgency of God’s voice is a proof of his great love to his children. He speaks with frequency, repeating the same unheeded lesson, and even when none attend to his voice. God speaks to his children before they pray to him. The first impulse, to spiritual communion comes from God, not from us (Psalms 27:8). Christ stands at the door and knocks (Revelation 3:20). We may see in this an evidence of the long-suffering mercy of God—a mercy which "endureth forever," and we may see an encouragement to listen and turn to him. Still he "waiteth to be gracious." 2. The urgency of God’s voice is a proof of the great importance of what he says. God is urgent. What tremendous destinies must turn on a question which even he must rouse and bestir himself about! We might expect that any voice from the awful majesty of God would be full of deep and vast meaning. What must be the significance of his words when even he speaks with earnest insistence, with pressing urgency? How can such an utterance be passed unheeded? III. GOD’S VOICE IS OFTEN NOT HEEDED. He speaks with the authority of the majesty of heaven, with the yearning love of a Father, with the urgency which betokens matters of profound interest, and with a direct reference to the most fearful woe and the most glorious blessedness of his children. Yet men turn aside with indifference. What are the causes of this appalling wonder? 1. Spiritual deafness. There are men who have no ears for the voice of God. Yet God can open our ears if we are willing to hear. 2. Hatred to the highest truth. Men stop their ears against the sound of honest words which are hateful to sinful hearts. 3. Consciousness of guilt. Fearing words of doom, men refuse to hear any words from God; but (1) the doom will not be the less because the warning is unheeded, and (2) God warns to save. 4. Unbelief. Doubt as to whether a voice is Divine is often natural, and if the doubt grows into widespread skepticism the cause may be intellectual rather than moral. Bat when once a voice is recognized as Divine, unbelief is distrust in God; is "making him a liar." IV. THE REFUSAL TO GIVE HEED TO GOD’S VOICE IS A FATAL EVIL. 1. It aggravates guilt by adding to it (1) fresh rebellion against our great King, (2) ingratitude to the pleading love of our merciful Father, (3) willful sin against light. 2. It leaves the purpose of God’s voice unaffected. He urges and pleads with his children, but he does not force them to return to him. If they will not heed his voice that voice is lost upon them, and the ruin from which it would call them unaverted. Forbidden prayers. Certain prayers must be regarded as unlawful. I. PRAYERS OF DEMAND. Many men pray as though they were dictating to God. Prayer is petition, not command. The suppliant should assume the attitude of a mendicant. II. PRAYERS WHICH AIM AT TURNING THE WILL OF GOD. We may believe that God will do in answer to prayer what he would not do apart from prayer, because the very prayer may be the one essential condition which makes that fitting which would not be fitting without it. But this must be in accordance with God’s will, which is always perfect, while ours is often evil. III. PRAYERS FOR WHAT IS WRONG IN ITSELF. God cannot grant such prayers. We may pray for all men, but we may not pray for every imaginable favor to be given to all men. Thus it is wrong to pray that the impenitent wicked should not be punished. The purpose of the text seems to be just to forbid this prayer. Jeremiah is not to pray that the calamities he sees approaching may not fall on the guilty people. It would be bad for them and an outrage on justice that, while they refused to hear the Divine voice warning them of their danger and inviting them to the way of safety, God should hear the voice of any intercessor pleading that the threat should not be accomplished, and that the wicked people should be saved from just punishment. Declension. Jeremiah endeavors to rouse a sense of guilt in his hearers by pointing to the sad downward course of their history when this is regarded in the light of Divine requirements and inducements to follow them. I. THE DIVINE . These were not for the offering of mere formal sacrifices, but for obedience to God in heart and conduct (1 Samuel 15:22). Men need to be repeatedly reminded of this fact, because there is a common tendency to separate religion from morality, to believe that God is pleased with the performance of Church services by those whose lives are spent in sin and selfishness, and that the devotions of the sanctuary atone for the wickedness of daily life. Jeremiah and the prophets generally teach (1) that religious services are worthless except as expressions of inward devotion, and (2) that no religious service is acceptable while obedience in common life is neglected. II. THE TO FULFILL THESE . 1. A clear statement of them. Jeremiah was not the first to reveal them. They were well known and easily understood. 2. Rewards promised for obedience. It would be "well with" the people if they walked in all the ways that God commanded them. Disobedience led to the Captivity. Obedience is the only condition on which we can enjoy liberty. 3. Repeated warnings. (Verse 25.) By all forms in which the Divine voice reaches us God is continually reminding us of his will and urging us to obedience. III. THE CAUSES OF . 1. Inattention. "They hearkened not." People are too preoccupied by worldly concerns to give the requisite thought to higher interests. 2. Self-will. "They walked in the counsels and stubbornness of their evil heart." Men disobey through the conceit of superior knowledge and through the obstinacy of selfish aims. IV. THE OF . 1. Departure from God. Israel turned "the back and not the face" to God. In disobeying the will of God we necessarily cease to walk with God, lose the light of his presence, become godless. 2. A constant deterioration of morals. The contemporaries of Jeremiah "did worse than their fathers." Progress is the natural order. But, left to itself, the leaven of wickedness will spread as surely as the seed of goodness would grow if that were allowed free development. V. THE OF . 1. Hardening against the reception of truth. (Verse 27.) The people have reduced themselves to such a condition that they cannot receive the prophet’s message. 2. Inability to profit by correction. "This is a nation that … receiveth not correction" (verse 28). 3. Destruction of the value of religious services. The burnt offering should express the dedication of the worshipper. But as it does nothing of the kind, it is worthless, and may as well serve as flesh for a common meal (verse 21). Religion, which should be the inspiration of morality, is dead and powerless in the hands of people of corrupt lives. The noblest exercise of humanity is thus reduced to a nullity. Jeremiah 8:3 Horrors of retribution. I. THERE IS REASON TO BELIEVE THAT HORRORS OF SIN WILL BE BY HORRORS OF . 1. Justice requires a proportionate relation of punishment to sin. The Jews had sinned greatly. It was right that they should be punished with severity. Mild views of the requirements of punishment may be the result of a dullness of conscience which does not recognize the depth of guilt. When men are most deeply convinced of sin, they are also most apprehensive of the merited wrath of God. 2. Punishment, to be effective, must be proportionate to guilt. In its three functions as deterrent when threatened, chastisement for correction when received, and warning to others when witnessed, it can only be effectual if a due proportion be observed. 3. The nature of God leads us to suppose that he may exact horrible retribution for horrible sin. He is almighty, and if his anger, which is slow to rise, is at length roused, this must be terrible indeed. God is long-suffering, merciful, ready to forgive; but he is not weak and indifferent to the great evils of sin. It is not reasonable to suppose that the Divine anger will be the less in its outpouring because it is long withheld. II. THERE ARE OF THE HORRORS OF IN THE IT. Jeremiah is speaking chiefly of physical horrors which are to accompany the overthrow of Jerusalem. But he suggests that these contain certain necessary elements of retribution. 1. Death. Tophet shall be a valley of slaughter. The great and ultimate punishment is always regarded, not as pain, but as death (Romans 6:23). 2. Shame. The corpses are to be unburied and exposed to the ravages of unclean animals—for the Jew a fearful degradation. Sin exposed, confounded, defeated, will reflect burning shame on the sinner. 3. Anguish. "The voice of mirth," etc; will cease; men will prefer death to life (Jeremiah 8:3). 4. A peculiar relation of penalty to offence. Tophet, the scene of horrible wickedness, shall be the spot for retributive slaughter. Where wretched men immolated their children their own dead bodies shall be cast. The sun and moon and stars which they worshipped shall look down on their bones bleaching out in the open. III. THERE ARE TIMES WHEN IT IS TO MAKE MEN THINK OF THE HORRORS OF . The language of Jeremiah is explicit and graphic. 1. Details of future retribution should not take the chief place in instruction. They lose their effect by too frequent repetition. By themselves they are not able to produce a better life, but may result in hardness, unbelief, and disgust. The love of God in Christ is the great power to lead to holiness. 2. Nevertheless we must not shun to declare "the whole counsel of God." Thoughts of retribution may be powerful means for rousing convictions of sin, if they are accompanied by appeals to conscience which make men feel the due proportion of guilt to punishment. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 7:1-3 Keeping the temple gate. It was probably not the outer gate, but one of the gates which led from the outer to the inner or upper court (cf. Jeremiah 19:14; Jeremiah 26:10; Jeremiah 36:10). "From this point the prophet could view the whole assembly of the people in the outer court, as well as the gates leading from without into it’ (Lange). Christ seems to have stood thus at times. I. THE OF TRUTH DOES WELL TO CHOOSE THE MOST , , AND FOR THE OF HIS MESSAGE. The great aim of the preacher is to get a hearing for what he has to say. Tact (to a certain degree), artistic juxtaposition and arrangement, sympathy with the spirit of the times, etc; are indispensable qualities to him who would give the Word of God bold and effective expression. Public occasions may, therefore, frequently be utilized for special services, etc. Passing movement and contemporary events may give fresh interest to permanent truth. A curious ingenuity is sometimes exhibited in making the preacher inconspicuous and reducing his office to a matter of routine. He ought always to feel that his message is an extraordinary one, requiring all the earnestness and effort of which he is capable to convey it with due effect. And even then it must have suffered at his hands, and in much he will be an unprofitable servant. II. MAY BE VERY , AND ALL BUT , WHERE THERE IS LITTLE REAL . One has to distinguish between the outward and the inward, the religion of rite and ceremony and that of the heart. Here apparently the representatives of "all Judah" were assembled, and yet it was no sign of national piety, but rather the contrary. Instead of the carnal nature Being checked and corrected, it was directly fostered by such worship. Public worship is a phrase which often includes elements that have nothing to do with the worship of God. That the services of God’s house should be chaste and attractive will be generally admitted. But architectural adornments, musical accessories of an ornate or merely artistic nature, displays of rhetoric, and similar additions to the essential character of the worship, may prove popular and entertaining, and yet be spiritually pernicious. In the case of Judah the whole worship was on a low intellectual and spiritual key. The gods of heathenism and Jehovah were worshipped alike, and the licentious rites of idolatry mingled with the sacrifices of the Law. This had resulted in the temple being polluted and becoming a "den of thieves." Our aims in worship, the purity and concentration of our hearts, the moral relation between our every-day life and our temple service, have all very intimately to do with the question of the value of public religious observances. III. OUGHT TO BE TO WORSHIP. "Amend your ways and your doings" is the demand the prophet makes in proof of the genuineness of their worship. Religion is a matter of life, and not of showy observances and empty protestations. The best proof that we intend serving God is that we have already begun to do so in business and morals. This duty, although difficult, is the best preparation for exalted spiritual experiences and sincere adoration. Men are not fit to appear before God when their misdeeds are still being repeated and their moral habits are not under the influence of his Spirit. IV. UNREAL WORSHIP OF GOD IS CERTAIN TO BE AND EXPOSED. We can imagine the shame of the nobility and people whom the prophet from his unlooked-for vantage-point so sharply rebuked.—M. Jeremiah 7:4-7 Who shall dwell in the house of the Lord? I. AN . They arrogate to themselves, not only the exclusive possession of a meeting-place between God and man, but they speak of themselves as in a special and peculiar sense the temple of God. 1. There is an argument latent here. The temple is looked upon as a permanent and immovable building—a place of intercourse between Jehovah and his people. It is the only place of the kind, and it will stand for aye. But the Jews are so related to the temple, so bound up with its existence and maintenance, that they esteem themselves identified with it, and therefore partaking of its attributes. By an easy transition, to which language affords many parallels, they come to say, "The temple of the Lord is this [i.e. are we]." 2. And yet this very pretension, when spiritually interpreted, expresses a gracious and mysterious truth. That is the intention and aim of man’s creation. Every man, as man, is made to be a temple of the Holy Ghost. This is his purpose and obligation; but, instead of this, how opposite is the actual condition of most men! Not, therefore, as a matter of course, independently of moral resolve and Divine inspiration, but as something to be striven after and earnestly realized in holiness of life, is man the "temple of the Lord." 3. And as is often the ease, the illegitimate narrowing and monopoly of this Divine indwelling is the very sign of its absence. They who rest upon other than moral grounds for the claim to the presence of God within them are usurpers. It is the universal privilege of those who serve God acceptably in spirit and in life. That which has a moral condition cannot be confined to local or sectarian limits. II. A WITH PROMISE. A rehearsal of common duties enjoined by the Law of Moses. It is terse, prosaic, detailed, and altogether opposed to the absurd pretension it is meant to correct. Just those duties, too, are mentioned which the prophet was well aware had been neglected by Judah. There is nothing brilliant or magnificent about the catalogue of deeds. They are just such actions as are obligatory upon all men. It was not even necessary for a man to be a Jew to do them; for when the Gentiles do these things it shows that there must be a law written upon their hearts by nature or grace. And yet the greatest in Jerusalem could not, any more than the heathen, do the least of them perfectly. How gracious that to them, therefore, is attached this premise of temple consecration] So the grand human duties and merciful dispositions, without which life would be so hard, are recommended and enforced by that comprehensive promise, to be immediately realized in personal blessing and consecration, to be completely fulfilled when "the tabernacle of God shall be with men."—M. Jeremiah 7:13, Jeremiah 7:25 Rising up early. A striking expression concerning Jehovah. In Jeremiah 7:25 it is strengthened: "Daily rising up early." It speaks to us— I. OF THE ANXIETY OF JEHOVAH FOR HIS PEOPLE. He who has important business on hand, or dear ones in trying circumstances, or great results dependent upon immediate and strenuous exertion, will show diligence in some such way. He will be unable to rest. So it is with God and his Church. Not that he can be said to fear or be uncertain as to the issues. But the interest he has in the fortunes and spiritual state of his people is of this description. It is no impassive God who is presented to us in Scripture. A profound concern for the interests of our race ever fills the mind of God. His deepest affections are engaged. He mourns the sin and rejoices in the salvation of men. II. OF HIS IN FOR THE WANTS OF HIS PEOPLE. It is no aimless, helpless anxiety that fills his breast. The most practical measures of help and direction are devised and carried into execution. Prophets, the plenipotentiaries of Divine grace, are sent in immediate response to the needs and demands of men. No age of the world or the Church but has its thick succession. Heaven is in continual activity on behalf of sinners. The choicest spiritual gifts are ceaselessly rained upon the earth. The most devoted servants of God are raised up and sent. Truth in quick evolution anticipates the spiritual necessities of those who would seek God. There is no flagging, no cessation, from Adam’s fall to the uplifting of the second Adam. And onward from that Divine spectacle, in which was displayed the "fullness of the Godhead bodily," events hurry to the culminating glories of Pentecost and the marriage supper of the Lamb. III. IF THIS BE THE CASE, HOW OUGHT WE TO STUDY AND LAY HOLD OF THE MESSAGE OF ? Is there not a contrast between the affectionate concern and sacrifice of God and the languid indifference or stubborn refusals of men? How shall we escape if we neglect this infinite mercy? How shall we excuse the manner in which we listen to the Word of God?—M. Jeremiah 7:17-20 Idolatry a detailed insult to Jehovah. This is frequently stated in the Bible. It must be the case from the very nature of the worship of false gods. It is a denial and robbery of the true God. But the description here given helps us to realize more completely the intense sinfulness of the worship of idols, because of the circumstances attending it. I. . 1. It was done publicly in the streets of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah. God was displaced from the land he had given. The place that was consecrated by the faith and worship of the saints and the ceaseless mercies of Jehovah is desecrated by the orgies and profanities of heathenism. The worship of the "queen of heaven" (the female representative—Astarte—of the nature principle, of which Baal is the male principle) could not but be public. As the Baal worshippers poured forth their libations to the sun-god in broad day, so the worshippers of the moon made no secret of their devotions. It was done literally and perforce "in the face of heaven." And celebrations of the most obscene description mingled with their sacrifices. Yet was there no shame. 2. It absorbed the attention and energies of the people. Here is a picture of a whole family, from the eldest to the least, occupied in tasks connected with the worship of Astarte. How different from the perfunctory or imperfect service rendered to Jehovah! No time was left for the true worship. And is it not just so today under new forms and conditions? The idolatry of pleasure, gain, ambition, personal and social ideals,—does it not absorb the minds and bodies of its devotees? How little time is left for Christian duty and sacrifice! How weary and useless are those faculties which are professedly placed at the service of God! Our life-work is too often in the market-place, in the forum of personal display and self-seeking, etc; instead of the service of Jesus and the house of God. 3. It involved the waste of the natural products of the land. II. THE . There was not wanting this expressed defiance. The idea is that they would annoy and exasperate Jehovah with impunity to themselves, as mean natures delight in awakening the jealousy, etc; of others. In this way they showed how completely they misunderstood the relations of Jehovah with his world and his people, his command over the forces of nature, and his power of retaliation through the ordinary laws of nature. III. ITS . 1. According to natural laws. Affecting, therefore, the objects they required for their sacrifices to Astarte, and cutting off the supplies requisite for man and beast. 2. To their own confusion. God will be unaffected; they themselves wilt be put to shame. The idolater and atheist are their own worst enemies. 3. Not to be escaped or ended. They are playing with fire. It will soon find its proper objects in themselves and their profaned offerings. Nor will they be able to quench that which they have kindled. So helpless will transgressors ever be. In the least of the calamities that they provoke upon themselves there is a beginning of penal fires and eternal miseries.—M. Jeremiah 7:31-33 The desecration of Tophet. This valley was the scene of Solomon’s Moloch-worship, of the child-sacrifices of Ahaz and Manasseh, and of the varying idolatrous rites of succeeding times. If the temple still maintained externally its consecration to Jehovah and its position as the center of the theocracy, the valley of Ben-Hinnom was the acknowledged center and high place of Moloch. Its vicinity to Jerusalem brought it into prominent opposition to the temple. Some signal exhibition of the Divine wrath is, therefore, called for. This is furnished by the iconoclastic zeal of Josiah, the great slaughter of Israel in war, and the gradual use of it as a receptacle for filth, sewage, unburied dead, etc. The prophecy, repeated in Jeremiah 19:11, is speedily translated into history. We have here an instance of the Divine laws— I. THAT THAT WHICH IS MORALLY CORRUPT SHALL ENTAIL . Where there is filth in God’s universe there will be fire. Corruption is the beginning of death, in this world and that which is to come. II. THE INWARD, MORAL OF THINGS AND PERSONS SHALL HAVE . It will not always be concealed. That which is whispered in the ear shall be spoken from the house-top. The trap will be labeled and the pitfall plainly shown. The externalizing processes of history and development in nations, individuals, etc; tend to declare by outward and unmistakable signs the real character. Of this Tophet is an illustration. The judgment its revolting practices bring upon its votaries is the occasion of its permanent defilement. It gradually is transformed into a scene of physical abomination, and, to the spiritual imagination, the type and symbol of eternal perdition. Gehenna fires—how different their first and last senses, and yet how related! The same law will operate in holy and spiritual men. The inward nature will cast the slough of corruption, and shall be clothed upon with a "body," which shall express, further, and fulfill it. When that which is really and spiritually filthy is sentenced to be ’ filthy still," the saints shall find embodiment and circumstances corresponding to their inward condition, and constituting the elements of their reward.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 7:1-34 The relations of righteousness and religion. This chapter, as indeed so much other of Jeremiah’s prophecies, teaches not a little Concerning this great theme. In this chapter we note how it shows— I. THAT IS THE THING. 1. It is God’s solemn demand (verse 2). (1) Jeremiah is charged to proclaim it in the Name of the Lord and as his word. (2) He is to go where there will be a vast congregation of the people: "In the gate of the Lord’s house." (3) Probably at a time of national gathering, at one of the feasts, so as to secure a yet larger audience. (4) At a moment when the word of the Lord might be expected to win most attention from them—as they were "entering in at the gates to worship the Lord." 2. It is God’s perpetual demand. See the whole chapter, the whole prophecy. "Amend your ways and your doings" (verse 3) is its constant appeal. 3. At first it was his only command, and it is ever his first command. (verse 22). Our first parents were commanded to obey before sacrifice or any rites of religion were appointed. And so with Israel (verse 22). The moral Law was given before the ceremonial. And it was given in a far more imperative form. The moral Law begins "Thou shalt;" the Levitical (Leviticus 1:2—2:1), "If any man will." Hence from all the foregoing it is evident that righteousness stands before all else in the Divine esteem. II. WAS GIVEN FOR THE SAKE OF AND AS AN AID TO . Righteousness is not for the sake of religion, but vice versa. No doubt they render mutual help, but the proper relation of the two is as aforesaid. And religion can be a help to righteousness and ought ever to be, even as it has often been and is. 1. My supplying fresh motives. Apart from religion, righteous conduct becomes simply morality, and bases itself upon laws of expediency, or at best draws its force from motives that rise no higher than earth and man and the present life. But religion gives the love of God in Christ as its all-constraining force. Under the influence of this, what have not men done and borne; and what will they not do and bear? 2. By lending intensity to those already in action. How puny the power of hope, when it has none other recompense than that which this life and this world can furnish, contrasted with its invincible force when the recompenses of eternity, made known to us by religion, are set before it and held out to it! And so with the motive of fear. What an immense addition is made to the deterrent force of fear when the idea of God and his awful displeasure are present before the mind! "His love will all vain love expel, His fear all fear beside." 3. By furnishing a perfect example. In our blessed Lord’s life, short as it was in duration, and far removed from us as it is in time, place, and circumstance, nevertheless in it there is to be found a standard and model of righteous conduct for all ages and all lands, such as can be found nowhere else. His life has been the compass by which many a saint has steered across the difficult ocean of life, and by its aid arrived safely at the desired haven. 4. By winning for us, in response to our fervent prayers, the ever-present and potent help of the Divine and transforming Spirit. By his aid the very "body of sin" within us is crucified, and we become new creatures in Christ. 5. By its ordinances of worship: its continual teaching, its Church fellowship, and its varied sacred observances, keeping alive within us those beliefs and sentiments which are ever the most powerful prompters to all righteousness of life. Thus the Israelite of old found the Law of God (cf. Psalms 119:1-176.) his perpetual aid, and the worship of God’s house a constant solace and strength. And it is so still. By the truths and the ordinances of religion, the weak, wavering will is steadied, the feet are kept from falling, and the soul is preserved from death. Such ought ever to be the case, ever is so, where religion is the worship of God in spirit and in truth; and this was the Divine design and intent in giving it to us. III. BUT THEY ARE AT TIMES FOUND ASUNDER. Religion may flourish, but righteousness be only conspicuous by its absence. It was so in the time of the prophet. We see a whole apparatus of religion—temple, altar, priests, sacrifices, services; nothing omitted in external observances. And there was a national profession of it; large sums of money were lavished on it, and there was a universal outward regard for it. But, on the other hand, all this went on whilst the most gross unrighteousness characterized the very people who outwardly were so religious (cf. verses 5, 6, 9, 18). This was an appalling fact. Nor, alas! is it one that now has no existence; the same sad separation of religion from righteousness may be too often seen in our days as of old. The murderous banditti of Southern Europe are diligent at Mass, and pay all honor to the Virgin and saints. The midnight assassins of Ireland are all good Catholics. And many a chapel and church in our own land has amongst its seemingly most religious worshippers, men who are cruel, hard, fraudulent, impure—"saints at the prayer-meeting and sacrament, but very devils at home." IV. THEY MAY BE EVEN OPPOSED TO ONE ANOTHER. Not merely separate, but antagonistic. Yes, religion, which was designed to minister to righteousness, may not only be severed from it, but be actually found undermining it, sapping its very life and strength. Thus: 1. By begetting false confidence. (Cf. verse 4.) The Jews thought that all this religion must guarantee them immunity from the Divine displeasure, must ensure them his safeguard and protection. He, so they thought, could never suffer harm to come to his own temple—"the temple of the Lord." And still it is hard to persuade our hearts that all our religion goes for nothing, and worse than nothing, when it brings forth no fruit of righteousness. So many prayers, such liberal gifts, such good desires, such correctness of creed and of outward demeanor, such devotional fervor,—surely these things must propitiate Heaven, must ward off the Divine displeasure! 2. By teaching men truths which they can readily wrest to evil. (Cf. verse 10.) The meaning (see Exposition) is not "We cannot help ourselves; God has given us over to sin;" but "We are delivered by our religious observances—sacrifices and the like; the score is cleared off; we are secured against harm; we may go and live as we list." Thus they "tamed the grace of God into lasciviousness," and "continued in sin that," etc. And is not this done still? It is to be feared that not a few suck a poisonous pleasure from the Messed doctrine of the forgiving love of God. Thus the gospel itself may become a "savor of death unto death" to those who thus "make Christ the Minister of sin." And because religion has been seen so often severed from righteousness, and sometimes even ministering to unrighteousness, many have been and are eager to sweep it away altogether as a hindrance rather than a help to moral well-being. A highly educated German gentleman, whom the writer met abroad, expressed it as his strong and deliberate conviction that the religiousness and the decay of a people stand related as cause and effect. He argued that England must sink because her leading statesman was an eminently religious man. And were religion necessarily or generally severed from righteousness, still more if it were necessarily or generally opposed to righteousness, then it would deserve the denunciation of all right-minded men, and the sooner it were swept utterly out of the way the better. But all we can say is that if righteousness be not found in company with religion, it is to be found nowhere else; and if the Church of God, the great company of those who profess to be actuated by religious motives and aims, do not furnish and nurture God-like and righteous souls, then there is no other company on the face of the earth that does so. Bad as the Church may be, the world is far worse. V. WHAT, THEN, IS OUR DUTY? Not to inveigh against religion, still less to seek its destruction, but to do all we can to restore the original and God-designed relationship between it and righteousness. "What God hath joined together, let," etc. And it is on this restoration of right relationship between the two that God so strenuously and sternly insists here and throughout his Word. If (verse 3) they will amend their ways, then his blessing; but if not, he will have no mercy. He cites the instance of Shiloh as a solemn warning to them (verse 14). He forbids Jeremiah even to pray for them whilst they continue as they are (verse 16). He pours his contempt upon all their religion, their burnt offerings, and sacrifices (verse 21), whilst severed from righteousness. He tells them that all along in their history, from the first until now, he had asked for, though he had never received it from them, not religion merely, but righteousness—obedience to his Word (verses 21-28). Instead of that they had committed all abomination, and therefore they should miserably perish (verses 29-34). How dreadful, then, must be the separation, and yet more the antagonism, between these whom God united! As he gave Eve to be a help-meet to Adam, so did he give religion to be the help-meet of righteousness. Let us tremble with a holy fear if we find ourselves able to go on contentedly in religious observances, whilst conscience becomes less and less sensitive, and our love and loyalty to righteousness grow feebler day by day. Our subject shows us that such a disastrous condition is possible. But that we may escape it, let us resolve that, inasmuch as God has given us religion for our help—a help which our blessed Lord himself ever made use of- "Cold mountains and the midnight air Witnessed the fervor of his prayer;" This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Jeremiah 8:1-3 Punishment will even overtake the sinners who have long since been deceased. Jeremiah 8:1 They shall bring out the bones. Not only shall many of the dead bodies remain unburied, but the sepulchers of those who have till now "lain in honor, each one in his house" (Isaiah 14:18), shall be violated. The inhabitants of Jerusalem meant are evidently those of the upper class, for the others were buried, with but little regard to the security of the corpses, in the valley of Kedron (2 Kings 23:6). According to some, the motive of this invasion of the chambers of the dead is avarice (comp. Herod; 1.187, Darius at the tomb of Nitocris); but the context, without excluding this view, rather suggests malice and contempt. Thus "the wrath of man" was to "praise" Jehovah (Psalms 76:10). Jeremiah 8:2 And they shall spread them, etc. Not as an act of solemn mockery, for the agents are idolaters themselves, but God so overrules the passions of his unconscious instruments that no more effective ceremonial could have been devised. Whom they have loved, etc. The prophet is designedly diffuse in his description. With all their misspent zeal, these unhappy idolaters cannot even find tombs. Jeremiah 8:3 Which remain. The words are certainly to be omitted in the second place where they occur. In the Hebrew they stand after in all the places, and the word for "places" is feminine, whereas the participle, "the remaining," is masculine. The Septuagint and Peshito have nothing corresponding. There is a clerical error in the Hebrew. Verses 8:4-9:1 The incorrigible wickedness of the people, and the awfulness of the judgment. Jeremiah 8:4 Moreover thou shalt say, etc.; literally, and thou shalt say. The section is introduced by a formula which connects it with Jeremiah 7:2, Jeremiah 7:28. Shall they fall, etc.? rather, Do men fall … doth a man turn away? One of those appeals to common sense in which the prophets delight. Who ever sees a fallen man stay quietly on the ground without attempting to rise? or a man who has wandered out of the path persist in going in the wrong direction? Jeremiah 8:5 Slidden back … backsliding. The verb is the same verb (in another conjugation) as in Jeremiah 8:4, and the noun is a derivative from it. The Authorized Version, therefore, has slightly weakened the force of the argument. They hold fast deceit. They cling to a false view of their relation to their God (comp. Jeremiah 4:2; Jeremiah 5:2). Jeremiah 8:6 I hearkened and heard. The Divine Judge condescends to speak after the manner of men. He will be his own witness; for it is his own people, Jeshurun, which is on its trial. Not aright. It is a compound expression, equivalent to "insincerely," "untruly" (comp. Isaiah 16:6). Repented … turned; rather, repenteth … turneth (or, returneth). To his course. The Hebrew text, sometimes represented as having a different reading ("courses," in the plural) from the margin, really gives the same reading with one letter misplaced. The singular stands in the parallel passage, Jeremiah 23:19, and offers no difficulty. As the horse rusheth; literally, over-floweth. Both the Authorized Version and the Vulgate (impetu vadens) efface the second metaphor. The uncontrollable passion of both people and war-horse is compared to the all-subduing course of a winter stream or torrent. Jeremiah 8:7 The appeal to the regularity of animal instincts reminds us of Isa 1:3. Yea, the stork, etc. The minatory birds obey their instinct with the most unfailing regularity. Those referred to are: (1) the stork, whose "regular and sudden return is one of the most interesting natural sights of Palestine. The expression ’stork in the heavens’ refers to the immense height at which they fly during migration" (Tristram); (2) the turtle, or turtle-dove, whose return is the sure sign of spring (Son 2:11); (3 and 4) the crane and the swallow, or rather, "the swift and the crane." These birds are again mentioned together in Isaiah 38:14 (the psalm of Hezekiah), where special reference is made to the penetrating quality of their note. "The whooping or trumpeting of the crane rings through the night air in spring, and the vast flocks which we noticed passing north near Beersheba were a wonderful sight." The introduction of the swallow in the Authorized Version is misleading, as that bird is not a regular migrant in Palestine. The note of the swift is a shrill scream. "No bird is more conspicuous by the suddenness of its return than the swift," is the remark of Canon Tristram, who saw large flocks passing northwards over Jerusalem, on the 12th of February. It is an interesting fact that the swift bears the same name (sus) in the vernacular Arabic as in the Hebrew of Jeremiah. The judgment; better, the law (see on Jeremiah 5:4). Jeremiah 8:8 How do ye say, We are wise? Jeremiah is evidently addressing the priests and the prophets, whom he so constantly described as among the chief causes of Judah’s ruin (comp. verse 10; Jeremiah 2:8, Jeremiah 2:26; Jeremiah 4:9; Jeremiah 5:31), and who, in Isaiah’s day, regarded it as an unwarrantable assumption on the part of that prophet to pretend to instruct them in their duty (Isaiah 28:9). The law of the Lord is with us. "With us;" i.e. in our hands and mouths. (comp. Psalms 1:1-6:16). The word torah, commonly rendered" Law," is ambiguous, and a difference of opinion as to the meaning of this verse is inevitable. Some think these self-styled "wise" men reject Jeremiah’s counsels on the ground that they already have the divinely given Law in a written form (comp. Romans 2:17-20), and that the Divine revelation is complete. Others that torah here, as often elsewhere in the prophets (e.g. Isaiah 1:10; Isaiah 8:16; Isaiah 42:4), simply means "instruction," or "direction," and describes the authoritative counsel given orally by the priests (Deuteronomy 17:11) and prophets to those who consulted them on points of ritual and practice respectively. The usage of Jeremiah himself favors the latter view (see Jeremiah 2:8; Jeremiah 18:18; and especially Jeremiah 26:4, Jeremiah 26:5, where "to walk in my Torah" is parallel to "to hearken to the words of my servants the prophets." The context equally points in this direction. The most natural interpretation, then, is this: The opponents of Jeremiah bade him keep his exhortations to himself, seeing that they themselves were wise and the divinely appointed teachers of the people. To this Jeremiah replies, not (as the Authorized Version renders) Lo, certainly in vain made he it, etc.; but, Yea, behold I for a lie hath it wrought—the lying pen of the scribes. Soferim (scribes) is the term proper to all those who practiced the art of writing (sefer); it included, therefore, presumably at least, most, if not all, of the priests and prophets of whom Jeremiah speaks. There are indications enough that the Hebrew literature was not entirely confined to those whom we look up to as the inspired writers, and it is perfectly credible that the formalist priests and false prophets should have availed themselves of the pen as a means of giving greater currency to their teaching. Jeremiah warns his hearers to distrust a literature which is in the set-vice of false religious principles—a warning which prophets in the wider sense of the term (’The Liberty of Prophesyings’) still have but too much occasion to repeat, tit is right, however, to mention another grammatically possible rendering, which is adopted by those who suppose torah in the preceding clause to mean the Mosaic Law: "Yea, behold, the lying pen of the scribes hath made (it) into a lie;" i.e. the professional interpreters of the Scriptures called scribes have, by their groundless comments and inferences, made the Scriptures (especially the noblest part, the Law) into a lie, so that it has ceased to represent the Divine will and teaching. The objections to this are: (1) the necessity of supplying an object to the verb—the object would hardly have been omitted where its emission renders the meaning of the clause so doubtful; (2) that this view attributes to the word soferim a meaning which only became prevalent in the time of Ezra (comp. Ezra 7:6, Ezra 7:11).] Jeremiah 8:9 The wise men are ashamed. It is the perfect of prophetic certitude, equivalent to "the wise men shall certainly be ashamed." And why? Evidently because they have not foreseen the calamities impending ever their nation. They have preached, "Peace, peace; when there was no peace" (Jeremiah 8:11); and hence they find themselves "taken" in the grip of a relentless power from which there is no escape. What wisdom; literally, wisdom of what? i.e. in respect of what? Jeremiah 8:10-12 These verses are almost the same as Jeremiah 6:12-15; the differences are in Jeremiah 6:10. They are omitted in the Septuagint, and Hitzig regards them as an interpolation, at any rate from the point where the present passage coincides verbally with its parallel. His grounds are: (1) that Jeremiah 6:13 follows more naturally on Jeremiah 6:10 (" … them that shall inherit them") than on Jeremiah 6:12; (2) that Jeremiah 6:10 is deficient in symmetry; and (3) that the deviations from Jeremiah 6:13-15 sometimes loosen the connection of the clauses, sometimes sink into the colloquial style. The arguments seem to be inconclusive. Jeremiah is apt to repeat himself; and the element which is common to this paragraph and to ch: Jeremiah 6:12-15 seems equally appropriate in both connections. It should be added, however, that the cautious and reverent block has come to the same conclusion as Hitzig. To them that shall inherit them; rather, to them that shall take possession of them, i.e. by violence. Verses 8:13-9:1 Further description of the judgment; grief of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 8:13 There shall be no grapes, etc.; rather, there are no grapes … and the leaf is faded. It is the actual condition of things which the prophet describes. Elsewhere Judah is compared to a vine with bad grapes (Jeremiah 2:21); here the vine does not even pretend to bear fruit. Another figure is that of a barren fig tree (comp. Matthew 21:19). And the things that I have given them, etc.; rather, and I gave them that which they transgress (viz. laws). The construction, however, which this rendering implies is not perfectly natural, though supported by most of the ancient versions, and it is better to alter a single vowel-point, and render "And I will give them to those who shall pass over them." The phrase to pass away is constantly used of an invading host; e.g. Isaiah 8:7; Daniel 11:10, Daniel 11:40. Jeremiah 8:14 Why do we sit still? The prophet transports us by a stroke of his pea into the midst of the fulfillment of his prophecy. The people of the country districts are represented as urging each other to flight. True, it is the resource of despair. No defensed cities can defend them against the judgment of Jehovah. Let us be silent; rather, let us perish; literally, let us be put to silence. Hath put us to silence; rather, hath caused us to perish; i.e. hath decreed our destruction. Water of gall; a phrase characteristic of our prophet (see Jeremiah 9:14; Jeremiah 23:15). It is a little difficult to find a rendering which shall suit all the passages in which rosh (gall) is mentioned. In Deuteronomy 32:33 (and so Job 20:16) it is clearly used for "venom" in general; and yet in Deuteronomy 32:32 of the same chapter it obviously means a plant. Another general application of the term seems to have been to bitterness in general, the ideas of bitterness and poisonousness being taken as interchangeable. The Authorized Version may therefore stand. Jeremiah 8:15 Health; rather, healing. Another rendering is tranquility (same sense as in Ecclesiastes 10:4). Trouble; rather, terror. Jeremiah 8:16 The invader is introduced with the same mysterious indefiniteness as in Jeremiah 4:13. From Dan; i.e. from the northern frontier (see on Jeremiah 4:15). Trembled; rather, quaked (so Jeremiah 49:21). His strong ones. The phrase "strong ones" generally denotes oxen, but here (as in Jeremiah 47:3; Jeremiah 50:11) horses. Jeremiah 8:17 A new image to intensify the impression of dreadfulness. Serpents, cockatrices; rather, serpents (even) basilisks. The second noun is in apposition to the more general "serpents." "Basilisks" (Serpentes regulos) are the renderings of Aquila and the Vulgate. Some species of highly venomous serpent is clearly intended; more than this we cannot say. The root probably means "to hiss." Canon Tristram thinks of "a very beautifully marked yellow serpent, and the largest of the vipers found in the Holy Land," called the Daboia xantheina. He adds that it is one of the most dangerous. Verses 8:18-9:1 The captivity of Judah and the deep sorrow of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 8:18 When I would comfort myself, etc. The text is here extremely difficult, and if there is corruption anywhere it is in the opening of this verse. Ewald and Graf suppose an ellipsis, and render, "(Oh for) my enlivening [i.e. an enlivening for me] in trouble!" Hitzig more naturally renders in the vocative, "My enlivener in trouble" which he supposes to be in apposition to my heart. Do Dieu wavers between this and the view that it is an address to his wife, "Quae marito solatio est." (See, however, Jeremiah 16:2.) Jeremiah 8:19 Because of them that dwell in, etc. The Hebrew simply has "from them," etc. The prophet is transported in imam-nation to the time of the fulfillment of his prophecies. He hears the lamentation of his countrymen, who are languishing in captivity. Is not the Lord in Zion, etc.? is the burden of their sad complaints; "king" is a familiar synonym for "God" (comp. Isaiah 8:21; Isaiah 33:22; but not Psalms 89:18, which is certainly mistranslated in Authorized Version). But why" in Zion?" "Zion" was properly the name of the eastward hill at Jerusalem, where lay the oldest part of the city (called "the city of David"), and the highest portion of which was crowned by the temple. Why have they provoked me to anger, etc.? is the reply of Jehovah, pointing out that their sufferings were but an exact retribution for their infidelity (comp. Jeremiah 5:19). Jeremiah 8:20 The harvest is past, etc. For "summer," read fruit-gathering. The people again becomes the speaker. The form of the speech reminds one of a proverb. When the harvest was over and the fruit-gathering ended, the husbandmen looked for a quiet time of refreshment. Judah had had its "harvest-time" and then its "fruit-gathering;" its needs had been gradually, increasing, and, on the analogy of previous deliverances (comp. Isaiah 18:4; Isaiah 33:10), it might have been expected that God would have interposed, his help being only delayed in order to be the more signally supernatural. But we are not saved (or rather, delivered). Jeremiah 8:21 For the hurt, etc.; literally, because of the breaking, etc; I am broken; comp. Jeremiah 23:9, and the phrase "broken in heart" (Isaiah 61:1, etc.). The prophet feels crushed by the sense of the utter ruin of his people. I am black; rather, I go in mourning (so Psalms 38:6; Psalms 42:9). The root means rather "foulness" or "squalor" than "blackness" (comp. Job 6:16, where "blackish," an epithet of streams, should rather be "turbid"). Jeremiah 8:22 No hope or remedy is left; again a proverbial expression. No balm in Gilead. Gilead appears to have been celebrated in early times for its balsam, which was expected by Ishmaelites to Egypt (Genesis 37:25) and by Jewish merchants to Tyro (Ezekiel 27:17). It was one of the most costly products of Palestine (Genesis 43:11), and was prized for its medicinal properties in cases of wounds (comp. Jeremiah 46:11; Jeremiah 51:8). Josephus mentions this balsam several times, but states that it only grew at Jericho (’Antiq.,’ 15.4,2), Tristram searched for balsam in its ancient haunts, but in vain; he thinks Jeremiah means the Balsamodendron gileadense or opobalsamum, which in Arabia is used as a medicine both internally and externally. But if Pliny (’Hist. Nat.,’ 24.22) may be followed in his wide use of the term "balsam" so as to include the exudations of the "lentisens" or mastick tree, then "balm of Gilead" is still to be found; for the mastick tree "grows commonly all over the country, excepting in the plains and the Jordan valley". Is there no physician there? We hear but little of physicians in the Old Testament. They are only mentioned again in Genesis 1:2 (but with reference to Egypt, where medicine was much cultivated), and in 2 Chronicles 16:12; Job 13:4. From the two latter passages we may, perhaps, infer that physicians were rarely successful; and this is certainly the impression produced by Ecclesiasticus 38:15, "He that sinneth before his Maker, let him fall into the hand of the physician." The remedies employed in the Talmudic period quite bear out this strong saying. The physicians of Gilead, however, probably confined themselves to their one famous simple, the balsam. Is not the health … recovered? Gesenius renders, less probably, "hath no bandage been applied to the daughter of my people?" Jeremiah 8:4-6 Persistent depravity. I. MUST BE FROM A CASUAL LAPSE INTO SIN. 1. This is marked by a constant habit of sin, a falling without rising again. The best man is often guilty of mistakes, but he soon seeks to recover himself (Psalms 37:24). His habit is upright, the direction he follows on the whole, though now and then he may lose ground for a short time, is right. But the man who is persistently depraved makes the wrong way his main course, and if he ever deviates from it does so accidentally or only under some temporary impulse, soon returning as by instinct to wallow in the mire, where only he feels at home (2 Peter 2:22). 2. This is characterized by absence of repentance after sinning. No man is heard to repent (Jeremiah 8:6). After a good man has fallen into sin he is overwhelmed with shame, plunged into dark depths of grief, tortured with bitter pangs of contrition, like Peter when he "went out and wept bitterly." But the persistently depraved man feels no such distresses. The sun shines as brightly after he has contracted a new crime as before. His serene self-complacency is not ruffled by one spasm of inward revulsion. 3. This is characterized by an impetuous impulse to sin. A good man may fall into sin. One who is persistently depraved rushes into it. To the former sin comes as defeat after a battle in which his better nature has fought and failed; to the latter it comes unresisted, welcomed: he "returneth to his course" with eagerness, "as the horse rusheth into the battle." II. IS FAR MORE THAN A CASUAL LAPSE INTO sin. All sin is culpable. Sin cannot be entirely accidental in any case, or it would cease to be sin. But persistent sin is by far the most evil form of sin. 1. A casual fall may be induced by powerful external temptation; persistent depravity must rise from an internal appetite. 2. A casual fall may come as a sudden surprise when a man is off his guard; persistent depravity must be clearly perceived and consciously cherished. 3. A casual fall may be the result of a sudden outburst of passion which results in something approaching temporary insanity; persistent depravity must be calm and cold-blooded, standing the test of reflection. This is altogether beyond what could be anticipated. You are not surprised that a man should stumble occasionally in the darkness of this world, amidst the snares and pitfalls of temptation, with the natural weakness of humanity, or that he should sometimes miss his way or be lured aside from the right road to pleasanter paths; but that he should not care to rise after falling, not think of returning when he sees the error of his way, but should keep to it with a consistency which would be heroic in a better course,—such depravity is unnatural and monstrous. A lesson from the birds. It is interesting to observe that the Scripture references to natural history are hot directed so much to theological arguments as to moral lessons. While questions concerning the being and nature of God absorb almost the exclusive attention of the natural theologian, the prophet, who assumes the belief of his hearers in the immanence of God in Nature, is more concerned to show how she rebukes man for his own shortcomings and incites to goodness by her mute example. The scriptural treatment is, therefore, more nearly followed by the regard for the human and moral aspects of nature in the spirit of Wordsworth and Ruskin, which is characteristic of the better thought of our own age, than by the cold, prosaic examination of the physical world, as simply affording one section of the evidences of religion, which was pursued in the days of Paley. I. THE BIRDS REMIND US THAT WE ARE BY DIVINE . Migratory birds have their appointed times. Every creature has its special vocation. To the lower animals this comes as a necessary law, as a course determined by unconscious instinct. To man it comes as a mandate of duty, an impulse in the conscience, a way to be clearly perceived and freely chosen. But, though the same method for exacting the performance of the Divine ordinances which obtains in nature is not enforced on man, those ordinances extend to him; to him also they come with Divine sanction. Though man is physically free to rebel, morally he is no more his own master than are the birds who are bound by the laws of their instincts. Freedom from compulsion is not freedom from obligation. II. THE BIRDS REMIND US THAT IT IS AS WELL TO OBEY THE DIVINE . In their migrations they find their welfare secured. Driven by the inward impulse of Divine law written on their instincts, they speed them over vast tracts of unknown lands, and at length find themselves in the clime and at the season which is beat suited for them. What an image of implicit faith I We are called to go forth, like Abraham, we know not whither, but like him to find a possession in the unknown land (Hebrews 11:8). The future is unseen, the way is wild and pathless, dark clouds as of brooding storms gather on the horizon; but if we take as our compass the known will of God, we too shall find sunny climes beyond the seas of trouble, a home at the end of our pilgrimage. III. THE BIRDS, BY THEIR EXAMPLE, REBUKE OUR TO THE DIVINE . Free to roam through illimitable regions of air, the high-flying stork, the turtle-dove, the swift, and the crane all keep to their true course, not dropping down, tempted by the attractions of leafy vales or fruitful gardens, not turned aside terrified by the horrors of high mountains, lonely deserts, or stormy seas, till they reach their destination in punctual obedience to the mysterious law of their nature. These migratory birds are representative of external liberty restrained by inward law. We are not under any outward compulsion nor any inward law of instinct like that of the birds. But we are capable of following a higher law. We have light which is denied to them, and high motives of fear and love to prompt to obedience. If we disobey, the obedience of the birds is an ever-recurring rebuke. Jeremiah 8:8, Jeremiah 8:9 Untrustworthy literature. I. MAY HAVE MANY AND YET BE . 1. Authority. They were official prophets and teachers whom Jeremiah opposed. Errors gain power when they are pronounced ex cathedra. The belief in papal infallibility is but one instance of a common human weakness. 2. Pretentiousness. The self-styled wise men of Jeremiah’s age were confident and boastful. The world is too ready to take a man at his own estimate of himself. Vehement assertion is often accepted instead of solid proof. 3. Numerical force. Jeremiah stood as one against many. No mistake is greater than the assumption of so-called common sense, that truth may be presumed to reside with the majority. How often from the days of Noah downwards has it been found with the few! 4. Popular style. These "wise" men knew how to suit the taste of the multitude; they could prophesy smooth things. There is a fearful fascination in literary style. The great danger to the cultivated is that they should select for their guides those writers whose language is most pleasing in place of those whose arguments are most sound. Lies may be commended by brilliant epigrams, and unwholesome passions fostered by splendid poetry. The ease and fluency of Hume and the wit of Voltaire were effective with many persons who would not have been moved by bare arguments. II. IF IS UNTRUE IT SHOULD BE TREATED AS . 1. Style is but the vesture of thought, and thought is but idle fancy if it does not correspond to fact. The first question to be asked about a writer is not, "Are his ideas novel, original, striking? Are they beautiful, grand, imposing? are they pleasing, popular, acceptable?" but simply, "Are they true?" If this question in answered in the negative, all other recommendations may be considered as worse than worthless. The sweeter the bait, the more dangerous the trap. 2. The test of truth in religious literature is conformity to the Word of God. The Scripture is a guide and authority to the Christian. God’s word in nature, providence, and conscience must be heard and interpreted if men would speak truly on these subjects. The profession to be speaking Divine words founded either on a pretended revelation or a boast of superior intelligence, is vain unless the private words of the individual harmonize with the general truth of God’s world-wide revelations. 3. Experience will test the truth of literature. If literature concerns itself with serious subjects, it cannot be regarded as a trifle of idle hours. It will be brought into judgment. Experience will try it. No lie can be eternal. The self-styled "wise" men will "have to be ashamed," "dismayed and taken," when events contradict their untrue language. Jeremiah 8:11 (See on Jeremiah 6:14.) Jeremiah 8:14, Jeremiah 8:15 Despair. I. DESPAIR WILL ARISE ON THE THAT THERE IS NO WAY OF ESCAPE FROM RUIN. The miserable Jews are pictured as first sitting still helplessly, and then rousing themselves to enter the fenced cities, only to find that death awaits them there as surely as in the open plain. People are too ready to believe that "something will turn up," and so hold on, in confidence and indifference, till their eyes are suddenly opened, and they see room for nothing but despair. II. DESPAIR WILL ARISE ON THE OF THE WRATH OF GOD. The Jews are to see that their God has put them to silence. Philistines, Egyptians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, might all be resisted; but who shall resist God? Men can only fight against God with confidence until they perceive him fighting against them. Then hope is madness. III. DESPAIR WILL BE BY THE SENSE OF GUILT. The Jews are to see that their calamity is the punishment of sin. It is deserved. It is justly given. Men hope on while they refuse to admit their sin; but conviction of sin is fatal to hope. IV. DESPAIR MAY FOLLOW A HOPE. The Jews had looked for peace and for a time of health. Yet none came. Hope may be very bright and yet very delusive. The splendor of the sunrise contains little promise that the day will close without storms. Subjective confidence is no guarantee of objective truth. Things are not the more true because we believe them very firmly. We may feel safe and be in danger. A peaceful death is no security for a joyful resurrection. It is little that a man has overcome the fear of death; the important question is whether he has removed the ground for that fear. The faith that saves is not confidence in our own security, but submissive and obedient trust in Christ. V. THE OF DESPAIR IS , NOT TO PRODUCE IT, BUT TO WARN Us FROM IT. If it were inevitable, or, being experienced, invincible, it would be cruel to prepare any for it. Why not let the poor doomed wretch enjoy his brief hour of sunshine before he is sent "to dwell in solemn shades of endless night?" But the revelations of a possibly dark future are given in mercy to warn us from sowing the seeds of despair and to point to the way of escape. No soul need despair since there is One who "is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him" (Hebrews 7:25). Harvest contrasts. The seasons have their lessons for all of us, teaching both by analogy and by contrast; for the warnings suggested by the opposition of our own condition to that of the natural world may be as instructive as the encouragements arising out of the harmony between the two. To Jeremiah the harvest came in its brightness only to show the condition of the Jews in the deeper shadow. A similar experience may occur to those of us who have no harvest-song in the soul to respond to the harvest-gladness of the world without. I. THE MOST HOPEFUL EVENT IS NO FOR FROM THE OF LIFE. Even harvest did not bring deliverance. People are too ready to rest their confidence on various indications of God in the outside world. 1. Time. The harvest is a new waymark in the course of time. Many trust blindly to time to bring them some help, while they do not stir a finger to secure it. 2. Change. The harvest indicates a new season. The sanguine are too ready to believe that any change must be for the better. 3. Material prosperity. The harvest brings bread for the body. Must it not, therefore, lay the foundation of perfect and lasting good? To those men whose "god is their belly" the harvest would seem to promise complete satisfaction. 4. Indications of the merciful kindness of God. He sends the harvest. Then, it is reasoned, he wishes to bless, and therefore will permit no harm. But experience proves the error of these anticipations, and reflection should soon detect the fallacy which underlies them. Outward events do not always correspond to inward experiences; the latter have their own separate conditions. God may deal mercifully with us now and in earthly things, but his present forbearance is no proof that we shall never suffer from his righteous wrath in the season of judgment. II. THE MOST HOPEFUL EVENT DEEPENS THE SENSE OF THE WITH WHICH IT IS . The harvest past, and yet undelivered! 1. A new stage of time has gone, and the deliverance is still delayed. 2. Outside events change, but the essential condition remains unchanged. 3. Material good is enjoyed while real good is still unattained, and this makes the minor blessing seem but a mockery. 4. God is merciful, and yet we are not delivered! Some fearful evil must be at the foundation of such a strange condition. 5. A time of rest is looked for but comes not. After harvest should come rest. Distress is heightened by the disappointment of expected deliverance. 6. Approaching troubles increase the gloom of present distress. The harvest is past. Now we look forward to chill autumn, to stormy winter. Not saved in harvest! What are we to expect in less propitious times? Balm in Gilead. I. THE WORLD NEEDS FOR MORAL AND SOCIAL HEALING. Jeremiah regarded the Jews as wounded by the cruel calamities which were to overwhelm them; but beneath the wounds he detected an unhealthy national condition which equally needed healing. Men suffer thus from the external wounds of adversity and from the internal disease of sin. How small a part of mankind can be considered in a thoroughly healthy condition! Men are not only imperfectly developed; they are suffering from positive disorders. The world needs medicine as well as food—the physician as well as the farmer. Nations need healing for political disorganization within and wrongs of subjection to a foreign yoke without. Society sadly requires to be purified, even regenerated. Individual men suffer from the smart of sorrow and the disease of sin—both signs of an imperfect, disorganized condition, needing cure. The one disease which is at the root of all the chief maladies of mankind is moral evil. The forgiveness of sins must come as a healing of sickness (Mark 2:9). II. MANY ARE . Gilead has her balm. Every new physician has his patent nostrum. The world does not suffer from the small number of remedies which have been proposed to cure all the ills that flesh is heir to. It is rather in danger of being poisoned by a superabundance of most incongruous drugs. Every religion brings its own remedy. Philosophy, in its highest ambition, aims at a practical cure of society. Political innovations, social reforms, education, sanitary improvements,—all seek this result. III. No EARTHLY SUFFICE FOR THE NEEDED CURE. The balm of Gilead is found in abundance, but, alas! it will not heal the smart of Israel. Physicians advise, but their advice is futile. Nothing could effect the deliverance of the Jews in the days of Jeremiah, though lying prophets and astute politicians did their best. No earthly remedy can heal the widespread evil of the world (Isaiah 1:6). 1. Earthly remedies are external. They may change the social order; they cannot cure the false ideas, unregulated passions, and vitiated conscience of which the habits of society are but symptoms. Spiritual disease must be treated with spiritual medicine. The physician for the body can do little in ministering to "the mind diseased." You cannot make men moral by the strictest puritanical legislation. (1) The disease of sin is in the heart, and the remedy must reach the heart. (2) So the deepest distress of mankind cannot be cured by the amelioration of physical comforts. A princely legacy is no consolation to a mother for the loss of her child. 2. Earthly remedies partake of the character of the disease. Human religions bear on their faces the marks of that very moral corruption which they aim at destroying. Sin can only be cured by something outside the sinful world; sorrow, by something above the scene of human distresses. We must go further than Gilead for the true balm, for Gilead will share with Israel the trouble for which we seek a remedy. IV. GOD HAS HIS OWN REMEDY FOR THE MORAL AND SOCIAL HEALING OF THE WORLD. Christ is "the good Physician." The miracles of healing which he wrought on the bodies of men were signs of the work he came to effect for their souls. 1. Christ’s remedy comes from higher than human sources. The healing of the sinless One is not tainted with the corruption which marks all simply human attempts at cure. 2. Christ’s remedy goes to the root of the evil of mankind. His great work is not to effect an external revolution of society, but to cleanse the conscience (Hebrews 9:14) and heal the heart. 3. Individually, healing is brought to all, and the worst cases are just those for which Christ chiefly came (Matthew 9:12). When all other remedies fail, his is most effectual, because it is (1) most needed, and (2) most glorified by the result. 4. Society must be healed by the application of Christian principles to politics, to commerce, to literature, to recreation, to domestic life. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 8:4-7 Apostasy an anomalous and incalculable thing. I. THE Or COMMON SENSE AND ARE . (Jeremiah 8:4-6.) If a man fall, he will rise again to his feet; if he has made a mistake or gone in a wrong direction, and discovers it, he will turn again, unless he be absolutely bereft of his senses. One might expect similar behavior in spiritual matters. But in the wickedness and defection of Israel it was not so; their apostasy seemed perpetual. The migratory birds are taught by instinct when to return. The season of their coming again is almost as calculable as that of their going. But the departure of the sinner is incomprehensible, and his return cannot with certainty be expected. Nay, the likelihood is he will continue in his sin, and pursue his own destruction to the hitter end. In this, as in many other instances, the career of the sinner can only be explained on the score of infatuation. His moral sense is perverted or destroyed. In place of that quick response which conscience ought to make to the voice of duty, there comes over his spirit an insensibility to moral considerations, and a growing ignorance of things Divine gradually deepening into outer darkness. II. IT IS UNMOVED BY THE THAT OUGHT TO AFFECT IT. (Jeremiah 8:5.) The growing misery and unhappiness which it occasions are not strong enough to check the tendency to sin, if indeed their connection with it is clearly perceived or acknowledged. The cravings of the spiritual nature have to give place to "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life." By-and-by they are stilled, not by being satisfied, but by being stifled; and a curious heedlessness, which is deaf to all the voices of prophetic warning and entreaty, increasingly characterizes it. Under such circumstances it is difficult to discover any common point of contact or argument that shall be valid to both parties. When reason is left behind, it is not to higher, but to lower, susceptibilities that appeal has to be made. III. THE CONCERN, THE CLAIMS, AND THE OF GOD ARE AS NOTHING. (Jeremiah 8:6.) The saint in the times of his calamity calls upon God to incline his ear. In the fearful condition and moral insensibility of his people to Shelf wickedness and danger God is represented as of himself inclining his ear and listening attentively for the lightest sigh of repentance. He calls, but no notice is taken. The means of salvation he has provided are neglected, or abused. The form of godliness is cultivated when the spirit has fled and the exercises of religion are the chief foes to its reality. What can be the conclusion to all this? They are spiritually dead. There is neither power nor inclination to seek for better things. Nothing but supernatural grace and long-suffering love can avail to save them.—M. Jeremiah 8:8-12 Peace, peace; when there is no peace. The present condition of the country, the evils that lowered upon the horizon,—these alike bore their message even to the natural conscience. If Israel was in the right way, and really understood the will of the Lord to do it, why these scandals, miseries, and impending evils? Again, the better to reach the perception of those who were thus unable to draw the inference for themselves, the condemnation was to be in kind—a sort of elementary lesson in the "correspondences" that marked the Divine government of the world was to be read to them. The scribe who had prophesied "smooth things" would be confronted with his own writings and compelled to eat his own words. I. DIVINE ALONE CAN GIVE TRUE OF GOD’S WORD. The priests and scribes, because of familiarity with holy things, claimed to be wise. They were satisfied with the spiritual state of Israel. Had they been wise, they would have anticipated what took place. The Holy Spirit alone bestows Divine insight and foresight. II. THE OF DIVINE TRUTH, AND THOSE WHO FALSELY PRETEND TO ITS CUSTODY, WILL BE PUT TO SHAME. "Refuges of lies" will be swept away. The judgment, when it comes, will find them wholly unprepared and helpless. "Take heed that the light that is in thee be not darkness." "Blind leaders of the blind," the sorrowing comes to them in vain for comfort, or is deceived to his own hurt; at last the victim of a misplaced confidence, to find himself "of all men most miserable." The sinner meets with no true correction or instruction; and in his desperation he receives from them no help. Their judgment is that they will share the fate of their victims and dupes.—M. Jeremiah 8:13-15 False hopes ministering despair. The lessons of life are not readily learned by most men. They require to be frequently repeated ere they produce an impression. God, therefore, deals severely with his people, whose delusion is the more unpardonable because of the piety of their fathers and the light of revelation which had been given. He will, therefore, make to "pass away from them" one by one the things that he had given: the fruits of the earth shall be cut off; the comforts of life shall be at an end; trouble and sorrow shall seize upon them. I. HOW HARD IT IS FOR MEN TO REALIZE THAT THE OUTWARD OF LIFE DO NOT OF SATISFY, AND CANNOT BE RELIED UPON! Each of US can remember how, one by one, the things of life had to be taken from him ere he learnt their real littleness and insufficiency. This is often the way God seeks to bless us. He takes away the object whose possession is misunderstood and whose properties are abused, that he may remove the temptation from the heart and leave it free for heavenly affections. "We can do without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness." But to only a few is it given to know this. The multitude are as foolish scholars, "ever learning, and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth." II. HOPE WHICH HAS BEEN SO AND TOO TO DESPAIR. AS the lesson has not been learned, there is no perception of the real mistake. The old blunders are repeated until, in the sweeping away of all that we had held dear, we feel that life itself is not worth living, because we can see no real good within our reach. "Who will show us any good?" We are convicted, too, of unpardonable folly. The dissatisfaction with the things of life is gradually equaled, if not surpassed, by dissatisfaction with ourselves. We are conscious of needs that are not met and yearnings that refuse to be stilled. And beneath all these is the miserable consciousness that, in pursuits so trifling and tastes so mean, our true nature is being degraded. We grieve over our shattered idols and our vanished comforts, and yet more, are angry with ourselves that we should so grieve. The question will at last come, "If these things be our chief good, what security is left of ultimate happiness? If the real end of life has not been sought, we are not only unfortunate—we must be culpable." For to seek the truth, etc; of life is not only a possible enjoyment we have missed, but a duty we have neglected. And yet of our own selves we feel unable to retrace our steps. Having the desires we have, which have been strengthened by years of indulgence, we cannot all at once or of our own motion replace them with better ones. A feeling of helplessness, convicted folly and sin, and indefinite denudation gradually dawns upon our affrighted conscience. How shall we escape from the consequences of our own actions? Whither shall we flee who, in seeking our good always in material things, have been living in practical atheism? We can do nothing else but, like the smitten Israelites, betake ourselves to our closets and sit still. III. BUT THE OF HEAVEN UPON THE SINNER, HOWEVER IN , ARE NOT MEANT TO PRODUCE THIS DESPAIR. The false trust is removed, that we may find the true one. The worst calamities of life, and its grievous disappointments, will be more than compensated for if they lead us to the Savior. The prophet, speaking representatively for Israel, says, "Let us submit to God’s judgment, and confess our sin as its cause." "Silence before the Lord" is the sure way to his restored favor and help.—M. Occasions of hoped-for salvation that have not availed. Probably a proverbial expression. It is not admissible for us to understand the words of help expected from Egypt, which would be to make them an anachronism. They well describe the result of hoping against hope, and in this sense might be spoken by those who have been reduced to extremity by worldliness of spirit and unholiness of life. "It is plain that a great part of Israel imagined, like their heathen neighbors, that Jehovah had need of them as much as they had need of him; that their worship and service could not be indifferent to him; that he must, by a natural necessity, exert his power against their enemies, and save his sanctuaries from profanation. This, indeed, was the constant contention of the prophets who opposed Micah and Jeremiah (Micah 3:11; Jeremiah 7:4, seq.; Jeremiah 27:1, seq.); and from their point of view the captivity of Judah was the final and hopeless collapse of the religion of Jehovah, (W.Robertson Smith). I. HOW MANY HAVE THERE BEEN ON WHICH WE HAD AN GOOD, OR LOOKED FOR A WHICH NEVER CAME! The man who has sought for wealth becomes rich only to find that his possessions fail to yield him the satisfaction he expected. False expectations have been entertained by the victims of misfortune that God would deliver them. True, they have no claim upon him, and they know that, if they were to be requited as they deserved, they would be left alone. The victim of unhallowed desires, hurried and driven as by an inward demon, fancies that, in his own nature or the course of life, he will come to a turning-point. He will "sow his wild oats" now; by-and-by he will settle down and marry and be respectable and virtuous. The events of life to which he looks forward take place, but there is no deliverance wrought by them. So many seek the Divine favor in formal religious observances, and do not find it. When many around us are being awakened from their indifference and converted to God, we are alarmed at our own spiritual deadness. The time of grace has slipped past unimproved. God has been gathering in his children, and we are left out. II. To WHAT OUGHT THIS TO LEAD US? That we ought to be anxious and in earnest there can be no question. Our chances appear desperate. Our power of moral recovery is greatly lessened as compared with the freshness of childhood’s days. But whilst there is life there is hope. We have reason to congratulate ourselves that we have not been cut off in the midst of our sins. The door is still open. Let us, as those "born out of due time," awake to righteousness, and seek with tears an offended but loving Father. "Now is the accepted time;… now is the day of salvation."—M. Physician, heal thyself. Gilead, an outlying district of Palestine, was celebrated for its aromatic balsam, of great virtue for wounds, sores, etc. The natives of the place doubtless became expert in the application of their famous herb. By virtue of its possession, Israel might be said to be the healer of the surrounding nations. Even more so in a spiritual sense it was the physician of men’s souls, holding for others and for all time the saving truth of God. But the evils which came upon itself—social, political, spiritual—had now increased to such a degree that it might well be asked, were the sources of saving health exhausted, or were the possessors of spiritual wisdom wholly extinct? I. WHAT WAS THERE FOR THE OF ISRAEL TO BE THE SAVIOR or THE NATIONS? Its own internal condition was deplorable. Materially and spiritually it was more in need of healing than those it regarded as barbarians and heathen. So of the Church, which has become corrupt a similar question may be asked. If those who profess the faith of Christ do not exhibit its fruits or possess its peace, they belie their profession and discredit the cause of their Master. When professed believers are as troubled with earthly cares and as downcast amid earthly trials as others, men of the world will doubt the efficacy of their religion, belief, and life. This is the burning question of Christendom through all time. Has it any means of curing the evils of humanity, the miseries of life, the wickedness inherent in human nature? II. HAD THE UTMOST USE BEEN MADE OF THE AT COMMAND? Was there any one who knew the nature of the evil, and how to cure it? Why did they not seek Jehovah? Christians are frequently at a loss, not so much for lack of an orthodox creed as of a realizing faith. They have not been in the habit of going to Christ with their cares and sorrows. Earthly things have been allowed to divert their attention from truth and righteousness as the principles of life. But sometimes great mischief is done by wrong expectations of what Christ will do for his people. Men sow to the flesh and expect to reap a spiritual harvest, or their faith in Christ is but another avenue to an earthly end. Under such circumstances they cannot fail to be disappointed. We must look to religion for its proper functions; to Christ for what he has promised to give. Have we any grief which we do not, cannot take to Christ? Are we consciously resting on him for moral guidance and support and spiritual fellowship? They who always and in all things rest their souls upon a living Savior will know that there is "balm in Gilead," etc.—M. BY S. CONWAY Befooled indeed. This is what we say when We see men giving heed to the plausible statements of gross impostors, and, in consequence, lavishing their time, energy, and wealth in the hope of large recompense; but who, when the time comes that the hoped-for gain should be theirs, find themselves deceived, defrauded, helpless, and utterly ruined men. These are they who are the prey of bubble companies, lying advertisements, and the other ten thousand frauds into which unwary persons are beguiled. But is not this what we may say when we read of those told of in our text? Was there ever more flagrant, piteous, and awful instance of men being made fools of indeed? For— I. LOOK AT THESE UTTERLY ONES. 1. They were worshippers of the gods of the heathen. The sun, the moon, and all the host of heaven: these were the objects of their worship. Reference is continually made to them and to their worship (2 Kings 23:5; 2 Kings 21:3, etc.). 2. And they were most earnest worshippers. Note the piling up of expressions to indicate this. (1) They "have loved" them. Here is the root of all real worship. The object must be loved, and these people were drawn to and attracted by these false gods. (2) They "served" them. This follows as a sure consequence. It is not said they believed in them; but that matters not: it there be that in the object of our worship which makes us like it—love is almost too sacred a word as applied to false gods—we shall serve it readily enough. (3) And then they "walked after" them. That which lured them at the first drew them more and more, and so it became the habit of their lives. (4) And they "sought" them. When they found the worship of some of these gods was pleasant, they sought out more of them; or it may mean that they got at last to have a real faith in them, and hence "consulted them as oracles, appealed to them as judges, implored their favor, and prayed to them as benefactors." (5) And they "worshipped" them. See them at their worship on Mount Carmel, on the day when Elijah challenged their priests to put to the test his God and theirs. None could doubt the sincerity of their worship or the earnestness with which they cried all that morning long, "O Baal, hear us!" And those to whom Jeremiah wrote were such thorough worshippers of these gods. They withheld no proof of their devotedness. 3. But yet they were utterly deceived and disappointed. See in text and in immediate context how these gods dealt with them. Ardent votaries as they had been, those whom they worshipped let all the hideous woes come upon them which are told of here: death, desolation, degradation, and despair. That was what their gods did for them. They had spent their all on these pretended physicians, and were nothing bettered, but made worse indeed. II. TO EXPLAIN BOTH THEIR AND THEIR . 1. As to their infatuation. It can hardly be possible for any reader of the history of these people to avoid asking the question, "Wherefore was it that they were so given to idolatry?" Their whole national history showed that nothing but sorrow and shame had come from idolatry, and yet here they were forever, not merely falling into it, but deliberately and persistently going after it. What could be the reason? (1) Partly, no doubt, the example of the great and mighty nations around them. We must remember what an infinitesimally small kingdom that of Judah was—about the size of an ordinary English county, and how insignificant they were; how the influence, therefore, of the great empires which pressed them on either side could not but be felt. And this was all on the side of idolatry. Idolatry had done them no harm; the gods they worshipped had, so it would seem, lifted them up to greatness and power surpassed by none, All seemed to say to the poor, weak, little kingdom of Judah, "You had far better do as we do and trust our gods rather than your own." (2) The spirituality of the worship God required, and the absence of all such demand on the part of idolatry, was another argument for idolatry and against the worship of God. No graven image, no representation of God, nothing that would help the senses to conceive of God as like to themselves, was granted to the Jews; God was a Spirit, and he was to be worshipped in spirit and in truth. No statue, no image, no painting, no symbol even, was to represent him. It was not allowed that the Jew should be able to place in his house or carry about with him, as other nations did, any material emblem of his God (cf. Deuteronomy 4:15; Isaiah 40:18). But spiritual worship of this kind has ever been found far more difficult to maintain: it demands a condition of heart and mind so purified that to the gross and sensual such worship is impossible, and to the ordinary mind it is far from easy. The anthropomorphisms of the Old Testament, and the Incarnation itself, are condescensions of God to the confessed feebleness and incapacity of man for such pure worship. But, on the other hand, idolatry, abounding with "chambers of imagery," lending itself to all the clamor of the senses,—what wonder that it was preferred? (3) Add on to this the fact that strict obedience to the Levitical Law involved such isolation from all other people, such scrupulous care, such heavy sacrifices of time, wealth, ease, and the good will of men; in short, was altogether, as St. Peter afterwards said (Acts 15:10), "a yoke which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear;" whilst idolatry wooed them with its sensuous, brilliant, luxurious, and easy rites; and again we ask, what wonder that idolatry was preferred? (4) And present earthly good seemed to be associated with it, and absent from the worship of God (cf. Jeremiah 44:15-19, "For then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off,… we have wanted all things"). And (5) lastly, the license allowed by the lax moral code of idolatry, and its positive sanction of gross licentiousness; this, contrasted with the stern frown of the true Jewish faith upon all such sin, was more than sufficient to attract in crowds a people so debased as the Jews had now become. Then, as still, the most powerful and the most depraved passions of human nature were not only permitted free indulgence by idolatry, but actually patronized, protected, and prescribed. All ancient history attests this, and the result on the heathen world, not only history but God’s providence and his Word alike (Romans 1:1-32.) have plainly declared. 2. As to their disappointment. Idolatry, however for the moment it may seem to have brought good along with it (cf. supra), resulted at last in such unparalleled woe as the prophets, one and all, continually declared must come from it. But whilst no idolatrous nation has ever stood permanently in its greatness—let the decayed and perished empires of antiquity witness—there can be little question that sentence against the evil work was executed more speedily, more sternly, and more notoriously against the Jews than against any other idolatrous nation whatsoever. It cost them more than any other people, and they have not paid "the uttermost farthing" even yet. The rabbis say that in every one of the innumerable cups of affliction which Israel in the course of the long ages has had to drink, there has been mingled some of the dust of that golden idol-calf which Moses ground to powder beneath Mount Sinai. We are told how, when he had done this, he cast the powder into the stream from whence the camp drew its water, and made all the people drink of it. Now, wherefore was sorer Judgment meted out to Israel than to others because of their idolatry? (1) Because they were the beloved of the Lord. A man may see a strange child doing a disgraceful action and may take comparatively little notice; but if it be his own son, whom he loves, will he not feel and resent it then as otherwise he never would? (2) And "chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God." They were to be the channel along which the truth of revelation was to flow to mankind at large, and if that channel were not kept free from pollution, neither could the living waters which flowed along it. Hence the prompt and stern measures which were ever taken to preserve Israel in the faith of God, or to restore them if they had wandered. It could not be, therefore, that Israel should permanently and entirely lapse into idolatry. The well-being of the world hinged on their handing down pure and uncorrupt the oracles of God and the faith of their forefathers, and because "God so loved the world," the cup of idolatry was ever made bitter and nauseous to his people, so that they might hate to drink of it. III. THY TO TURN THIS WHOLE SUBJECT TO GOOD ACCOUNT. 1. The votaries of the world may in these verses behold their own portraiture and read their sure reward. For (1) they do after this manner give themselves to the world. They "love," "serve," "walk after," "seek," and "worship" it. (2) And their infatuation is explained by like reasons. (3) And their reward will be to be utterly deceived and disappointed. God will say to each one of them, "Thou fool!" (Luke 12:20). 2. The worshippers of God may profitably contemplate a model which too many of them too seldom follow, of earnest devotedness in their worship. "The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light." Would that the devotedness of the world to its god were equaled by the devotedness of the Church to theirs! 3. Every one may beheld, in the tremendous and deadly attraction of the world, fresh, urgent, and constant need of being "kept by the power of God" in the love of God. Well may each day begin with this prayer— "Lord, I my vows to thee renew: Scatter my sins like morning dew, Guard my first springs of thought and will, And with thyself my spirit fill." C. Jeremiah 8:4-11 Backsliding in its worst forms. All departures from God are evil, but some are only temporary, and are quickly followed by repentance, return, and restoration. There are others, however, of a far more serious kind, and we have in these verses a great deal told us concerning them. We are told of some of— I. THEIR . 1. So contrary to men’s wonted ways. For when men find that they have brought evil on themselves, they will at once seek to undo such evil (Jeremiah 8:4). If a man fall, he win not lie still in the mire or in the road, but will get up again as speedily as may be. If he have mistaken his path and got on a wrong track, wilt he not, as soon as he discovers his mistake, quickly retrace his steps that he may get into the right way? That is how men act in the common affairs of life. But, though Judah and Jerusalem knew well that they had fallen, yet they showed no desire to rise, and though they could not but know they were altogether out of the right way, they showed no willingness to return. 2. Resists the strivings of God’s Spirit and all his drawings of them to himself. Jeremiah 8:7 implies such God-implanted instincts in men’s souls, but declares that, unlike the ever-obedient birds, man resists and refuses the call of God. 3. Becomes shameless. (Jeremiah 6:12.) This feature we have had noticed before (cf. Jeremiah 6:15); it arrested the prophet’s attention as being evil exceedingly. 4. Determined and defiant. (Jeremiah 8:6.) 5. Is at last perpetual. (Jeremiah 8:5.) They have gone into an evil way, and they abide in that way, no power of Divine grace being able to draw them therefrom. So terrible is this worst form of backsliding, it is perpetual. II. THEIR . The evil fruit such sin bears is shown here. 1. Deep sorrow to the heart of God. How pathetic is this lament] How it echoes the anguish of those words, "How shall I give thee up!" "How often would I have gathered thee!" etc.! Such is the tone of these (Jeremiah 8:4-8). The Divine grief is audible through every part. 2. Shame to the backsliders themselves. (Jeremiah 8:9.) It is ever so. These chapters have been giving illustration upon illustration of this result. And our own observation and the experience of all who have turned from God to sin—all alike confirm what God’s Word has said. 3. Utter and absolute ruin. (Jeremiah 8:10.) The dreadful sorrows of the vanquished in beholding their most beloved ones torn from them to a fate worse than death, and their lands which they had inherited from their fathers taken possession of by their conquerors,—these common incidents of war are cited as illustrative of the utter ruin which would come upon these ungodly ones. And evermore will men find it an exceeding bitter thing to depart from the living God. We are also shown some of— III. THEIR CAUSES. 1. Deception. Jeremiah 8:5, "They hold fast deceit." How many are the falsities by which men are deceived, and to which they hold fast as if they were sure facts on which their souls might rest (cf. Jeremiah 8:8, Jeremiah 8:11; Jeremiah 7:4, Jeremiah 7:8) l 2. Dislike of God’s ways. "They refuse to return." They had no desire to detect the falsity of their trust; they were glad to have any excuse for refusal. 3. Strong preference for the world’s ways. Jeremiah 8:10, "Every one … given to covetousness." The ways of God suffered not such worldliness, but the ways they had chosen gave free permission. Here is ever the secret of departure from God. But can nothing be done? "Is there no balm in Gilead?" (Jeremiah 8:22). Note, then— IV. THEIR CURE. How shall this evil spirit be cast out and the right spirit be restored? In Jeremiah 8:6 the process is shown to us. There is: 1. Realization of the results of our sin. The backslider is represented as contemplating with dismay the awful consequences of his sin, and asking, "What have I done?" It is "the conviction of sin" which is the beginning work of God’s Spirit in the sinner’s heart. See the prodigal contemplating the ruin he had brought upon himself. This was the first step in his "coming to himself." 2. Repentance of our wickedness. (Jeremiah 8:6.) Not general repentance, but each man seeing his own wickedness and repenting of that. The man has come to look on it as God looks on it. Formerly he loved his sin, now he hates it. One element of our Savior’s atonement was this, that he in our nature and as our representative, looked upon our sin as God looked on it, and so offered to God for us a true repentance. We, however contrite in heart, could offer none such, for as it has been truly said, "Our very repentance needs to be repented of, and our tears washed in the blood of Christ." But this element of all true atonement—that he who makes such atonement looks on the wrong done as he who has been wronged looks on it—was present in Christ’s atonement, and is one reason wherefore "the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin." 3. Confession. This is the "speaking aright" which is told of in Jeremiah 8:6. They had been denying, excusing, maintaining their sin heretofore, anything but speaking aright about it; but now there is heard the right language of confession: "I have sinned." This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Jeremiah 9:1 The Hebrew more correctly attaches this verse to Jeremiah 8:1-22. Oh that my head were waters, etc.! A quaint conceit, it may be said. But "if we have been going on pace for pace with the passion before, this sudden conversion of a strong-felt metaphor into something to be actually realized in nature, is strictly and strikingly natural." So Bishop Dearie, quoting, by way of illustration, Shakespeare’s ’Richard II.,’ "meditating on his own utter annihilation as to royalty:" "Oh that I were a mockery king of snow, To melt before the sun of Bolingbroke!" The tone of complaint continues in the following verse, though the subject is different. Jeremiah 9:2-22 Complaint of the treachery and folly of the people; lamentation over their consequences. Jeremiah 9:2 A lodging place of wayfaring men; a "khan" or "caravanserai," to use the terms now so familiar from Eastern travel, where "wayfaring men" could at least find shelter, and the means of preparing their provisions. Comp; besides the parallel passage in Psalms 55:6, Psalms 55:7, our own Cowper’s fine reminiscence of Jeremiah: "Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness!" etc. Adulterers … treacherous men (see Jeremiah 2:20; Jeremiah 3:8, Jeremiah 3:9; Jeremiah 3:20; Jeremiah 5:11). Jeremiah 9:3 And they bend their tongues, etc.; rather, and they bend their tongue as their bow of falsehood, and they use not their valor in (literally, according to) good faith. There is a sad, stern irony in these words, which remind us of Isaiah’s (Isaiah 5:22) "valiant men—for drinking wine" and of our own prophet’s repetition of himself in Jeremiah 22:10, "Their valor is—untruth." A less pointed form of the same figurative statement is that of the psalmist in Psalms 64:3. Upon the earth; rather, in the land. The Authorized Version pays very little regard to the context in its rendering of the ambiguous word erec. Jeremiah 9:4 Take ye heed every one of his neighbor. Such was the result of clinging to an unprogressive religion—one which refused to be spiritualized by the prophets. Certainly, if the established religion was so inefficacious, it was self-condemned. Hero we find the prophet depicting a state of society in which the elementary bonds are already dissolved, and suspicion becomes the natural attitude even of a good man. We find a very similar picture in the last chapter of Micah—a chapter, it is true, which stands apart from the rest of the book, as it implies a greater development of wickedness than the rest of Micah and the contemporary prophecies of Isaiah would lead us to expect. Are these prophetic descriptions just and accurate? We may allow something, no doubt, for the warmth of feeling natural to every human preacher, even under the influence of inspiration; but we must not allow ourselves to explain away the obvious meaning of the prophets. The latter and their disciples were "the salt" of their country; and in proportion as their influence declined, the natural effects of a non-moral, purely ritualistic religion showed themselves on a larger scale. Every brother; i.e. every fellow-tribesman or fellow-citizen. Will utterly supplant. There is nothing in the context to suggest an allusion to Genesis 27:36 (Jacob). The verb has its common sense of deceiving. The tense should be the present, not the future, both here and in the next verse. Will walk; rather, goeth about (see Jeremiah 6:28). Jeremiah 9:5 They have taught their tongue, etc.; again an intimation of the unnaturalness (in the higher sense) of vice (comp. on Jeremiah 2:33). Jeremiah 9:6 Thine habitation, etc. According to St. Jerome, this is addressed to the prophet; but it is better to follow the Targum, which makes the clause refer to the Jewish people. The connection is (as Dr. Payne Smith points out)," Trust no one; for thou dwellest surrounded by deceit on every side." Jeremiah 9:7 I will melt them. It is the same word as that used in Malachi 3:3 of the "refiner and purifier of silver." Purification, not destruction, is the object of the judgment which is threatened! Strange that mercy should find place, after the offence of the criminal has been found so grievous l But, lest we should expect too favorable an issue, the prophet adds, in the name of Jehovah, For how shall I do? or rather, How should I act? How otherwise should I act? The continuation is a little doubtful. The Hebrew has," by reason of the daughter of my people;" but this can hardly be right. We naturally expect something to justify the preceding statement. The reading of the Septuagint answers to our anticipations by rendering ἀπὸπροσώπουπονηρίαςθυγατρὸςλαοῦμου, and this is confirmed by the parallel passage Jeremiah 7:12 (comp. Jeremiah 11:17; Jeremiah 32:32). Jeremiah 9:8 (Comp. Psalms 55:21.) As an arrow shot out; rather, as a sharpened arrow; but this is based on the marginal reading, and is itself a slightly forced rendering. The Hebrew text (i.e. the consonants), and also the Septuagint and Vulgate, have "as a murderous arrow." Jeremiah 9:10 This and the next six verses contain a description of the sad fate of the sinful land and people. At first the prophet speaks as if he saw it all spread out before him. Then, in the character of a surprised spectator, he inquires how this came to pass, and receives the Divine answer, that it is the doom of self-willed rebellion. The habitations should rather be pastures. The country, once covered with grazing flocks and herds, is now so utterly waste that even the birds cannot find subsistence. Jeremiah 9:11 I will make, etc. Notice how the utterances of the prophets stand side by side with those of Jehovah. A true prophet has no personal views; so that whether his revelations are expressed in the one form or the other makes no difference. Dragons; rather, jackals. Jeremiah 9:12 For what the land perisheth. A closer rendering would be more forcible: Wherefore hath the land perished, is it burned up like the wilderness with none that passeth through Jeremiah 9:13 There is no answer, for the wise men are ashamed (Jeremiah 8:9); so Jehovah himself takes up his speech. My law which I set before them; not in reference to the publication of the Law on Sinai, but, as Keil rightly points out, to the oral exhibition of the Torah by the prophets. Neither walked therein; viz. in the Law. (On the precise contents of the term here rendered "Law," see note on Jeremiah 8:8.) Jeremiah 9:14 Imagination; rather, stubbornness (see on Jeremiah 3:17). Baalim. The Hebrew has "the Baalim;" practically equivalent to "the idol-gods" (see on Jeremiah 2:8). Which their fathers taught them. "Which" refers to both clauses, i.e. to the obstinacy and the Baal-worship. Jeremiah 9:15 I will feed them … with wormwood. A figure for the bitter privations of captivity (comp. Lamentations 3:15, "He hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood"). Wormwood and gall—i.e; the poppy (Tristram)—are combined again in Deuteronomy 29:17. Jeremiah 9:16 I will scatter them also, etc. (comp. Deuteronomy 28:64; Leviticus 26:33). I will send a [the] sword after them. Even in the land of their captivity they shall have no rest. A special prophecy to the same effect was addressed to the Jewish fugitives in Egypt (Jeremiah 44:27). In both cases it is the unbelievers who are referred to; the nation as such was, through its Divine calling, indestructible. Jeremiah 9:17-22 A new scene is introduced. To give an idea of the greatness of the impending blow, all the skilled mourners are sent for to raise the cry of lamentation. But no, this is not enough. So large will be the number of the dead that all the women must take their part in the doleful office. The description of the mourning women is as true to modem as to ancient life in the East. "And, indeed," says Dr. Shaw, a thoughtful traveler and an ornament of Oxford in the dark eighteenth century, "they perform their parts with such proper sounds, gestures, and commotions, that they rarely fail to work up the assembly into some extraordinary pitch of thoughtfulness and sorrow". Jeremiah 9:18 That our eyes may run down, etc.; a justification of this artificial system-The piercing notes of the hired mourners are to relieve the sorrow of the afflicted by forcing for it a vent. Jeremiah 9:19 Forsaken; rather, left. Our dwellings have cast us out; rather, they hare cast down our dwellings. Jeremiah 9:20 Yet hear; rather, for hear. Jeremiah 9:21 Death is come up, etc. "Death," equivalent to "pestilence" (as Jeremiah 15:2), the most dreaded foe of a besieged population. (For the figure, comp. Joe 2:9.) The children from without. The ideal of Zechariah is that "the streets of the city should be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof" (Zechariah 8:5). But the pitiless reaper, Death, shall cut off even "the playful child from the street" (so we might render more literally). Streets, in the parallel clause, means the "broad places" where men congregate to toll the news. Jeremiah 9:22 Speak, Thus saith the Lord. These words are in three important respects contrary to the style of Jeremiah: (1) such a prefix as "speak" is unique; (2). such a phrase as כה נאם is also unique m Jeremiah; (3) when our prophet does use the formula נאם it is not at the beginning of a verse. They are omitted by the Septuagint translator, who presumably did not find them in his copy of the Hebrew, and the text gains greatly by their removal. The following words are mistranslated in the Authorized Version, and should run, not even, but and, the carcasses of men shall fall; etc. It is most improbable, however, that a fresh Divine revelation should begin with "and." With other points, the word rendered "speak" would mean "pestilence." Possibly the word fell out of verse 21, where it would find an excellent place in the second clause (as an explanatory parallel to "death," as in Psalms 78:50), which would thus obtain greater roundness and symmetry. As the handful; i.e. as thickly as one heap of corn succeeds another under the deft hand of the leaper. Jeremiah 9:23, Jeremiah 9:24 These two verses were hardly composed for their present position, though a connection may, of course, be thought out for them. Perhaps a comparison of Hab 3:17, Habakkuk 3:18, may help us. There the prophet looks forward to a complete desolation resulting from the Chaldean invasion, and yet declares that he can even exult in his God. So here. All subjects of boasting have been proved untrustworthy; but one remains—not wisdom, not valor, not riches, but the knowledge of the revealed God. Jeremiah 9:24 The knowledge of God relates to three leading attributes, the combination of which is very instructive. First, loving-kindness. This is not to be understood in a vague and general sense of the love of God to all mankind; the term has a special connotation with regard to the Israelitish people. God shows loving-kindness to those with whom he is in covenant; hence the combination "loving-kindness and faithfulness" (Psalms 85:10, corrected version), and as here (comp. Psalms 5:7, Psalms 5:8; Psalms 36:5, Psalms 36:6), "mercy and righteousness." Israel is weak and erring, and needs mercies of all sorts, which Jehovah, in his "loving-kindness," vouchsafes. Next, judgment, or justice. Jehovah is a King, helps the poor and weak to their right, and punishes the wrong-doer (comp. Jeremiah 21:12). Then, righteousness—a similar but wider term. This is the quality which leads its subject to adhere to a fixed rule of conduct. God’s rule is his covenant; hence "righteousness" shows itself in all such acts as tend to the full realizing of the covenant with Israel, including the "plan of salvation." It is by no means to be confined to exacting penalties and conferring rewards. Jeremiah 9:25, Jeremiah 9:26 A further enforcement of the doctrine that no outward privileges, if dissociated from inward moral vitality, will avail. Jeremiah 9:25 All them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised; rather, all the circumcised in uncircumcision, or, as Ewald turns it, "all the uncircumcised-circumcised." But what does this enigmatical expression signify? Hitzig, Graf, and apparently Dr. Payne Smith, think that it has a twofold meaning: that, as applied to the Jews, it means circumcised in the flesh, but not in heart, and, as applied to the heathen, simply uncircumcised (the one-half of the phrase neutralizing the other, like "a knife without the blade," "angels with horns and hoofs," etc.). The latter meaning, however, is surely very improbable, and it would only become necessary if it were proved that circumcision was practiced by none of the nations mentioned but the Jews. This is not the case. There is no doubt that the Egyptians were circumcised in very early times (see the drawing of a bas-relief in the Temple of Chunsu at Karnak, given by Dr. Ebers in his ’Egypten und die Bucher Meets’). The assertion that only the priests underwent the operation has no older evidence than that of Origen (edit. Lommatzsch, 4.138), "in whose time it is quite possible that the Egyptians, like the later Jews, sought to evade a peculiarity which exposed them to ridicule and contempt." As to the Ammonites and Moabites, we have, unfortunately, no information. With regard to the Edomites, it is true that, according to Josephus (’Antiq.,’ 13.9, 1), they were compelled to accept circumcision by John Hyrcanus. But it is still quite possible that, at an earlier period, the rite was practiced, just as it was among the ancient Arabs, the evidence for which is beyond question (see the writer’s article, "Circumcision," in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th edit.). (On the statement that "all these [the] nations are uncircumcised," see below.) Jeremiah 9:26 All that are in the utmost corners; rather, all that are corner-clipped; i.e. that have the hair cut off about the ears and temples. Herodotus tells us, speaking of the Arabs, "Their practice is to cut the hair in a ring, away from the temples" (3.8); and among the representatives of various nations, colored figures of whom are given in the tomb of Rameses III; we find some with a square place shaved just above the temples. The hair below this shaven place was allowed to grow long, and then plaited into a leek. It is to such customs that Jeremiah alludes here and in Jeremiah 25:23; Jeremiah 49:32. A prohibition is directed against them in the Levitical Law (Leviticus 19:27; Jeremiah 21:5). For all these nations are uncircumcised; rather, all the nations, etc. Another obscure expression. Does it mean (taken together with the following clause), "The Gentile peoples are uncircumcised in the flesh, and the people of Israel is equally so in heart?" But this does not agree with facts (see above, on Jeremiah 49:25). It is safer, therefore, to assume that "uncircumcised" is equivalent to "circumcised in uncircumcision" (Jeremiah 49:25). The next clause will then simply give the most conspicuous instance of this unspiritual obedience to a mere form. Grief for others. I. THE RIGHT SPIRIT IN WHICH TO REGARD THE OF OTHER MEN IS ONE OF GRIEF. A less worthy spirit is too common. 1. Self-congratulation. The evil condition of others is simply used as a dark background on which to throw out in relief our own superiority. 2. Indifference—the spirit of Cain, which cries, "Am I my brother’s keeper?" 3. Vindictiveness. Jeremiah denounced the sins of Israel, and threatened punishment. Yet he regarded these sins with no Pharisaical sternness, and he could not contemplate the punishment of them with indignant satisfaction. Even if men are deserving punishment, that punishment is still pitiable. Sin inclines a good man to sorrow as much as to anger. II. GRIEF FOR THE OF OTHERS WILL BE INDUCED BY A TRUE OF THOSE IN A SPIRIT OF . 1. A spirit of sympathy. Jeremiah felt the distresses of his nation as private sorrows. He was a true patriot. We must feel one with men before we can rightly regard their troubles. 2. A true appreciation of the miseries of men. Sympathy implies knowledge. We do not feel aright because we do not take the trouble to inquire into the condition of others. Much apparent hardheartedness arises simply from ignorance—but culpable ignorance. True sympathy will feel distress for the real evil of others, not only for their transient moods. It may need to weep over those who foolishly rejoice, and rejoice for those who weep wholesome tears of penitence. III. GRIEF FOR THE OF OTHERS MAY BE OUR BEST MEANS FOR HELPING THEM. Barren pity is a mockery when active aid is called for. 1. But genuine sympathy is the strongest motive to help. 2. We can intercede in prayer most effectually when we make the sorrows of others our own. Christ’s sorrow for men was an important element in his intercession. 3. Sorrow for others may move them to view their condition in a true light. Tears may avail where warnings are lost. We have no greater motive to repentance than can be furnished by a right feeling of what Christ has suffered through our sin. IV. GRIEF FOR THE OF OTHERS IS NOT ALONE FOR THEIR . Jeremiah wept over his nation, yet the threatened desolation was not averted. Christ wept over Jerusalem, but Jerusalem was destroyed. Though God is "grieved" at our sin, we may fall into ruin. His grief is a strong inducement to repentance, but every man must repent and seek deliverance for himself. Jeremiah 9:4-8 Falsehood. I. SIN IN . The intellectual aspect of sin is untruth. Every sin is a lie. The triumph of sin is the overthrow of all truth and trust. II. FALSE WITH GOD LEAN TO FALSE WITH MEN. Religion and morality mutually influence each other. The worship of a god known to be false develops a life of falseness. The hypocritical service of God is likely to be accompanied by dishonest dealings with men. III. HABITS OF ARE FATAL TO HUMAN WELFARE. Society reposes on trust. Commerce is impossible without good faith. Universal distrust must involve social disintegration. The state, the family, all mutual organization, must then fall to pieces. Falsehood only succeeds by abusing trust; but by so doing it tends to destroy trust; and when it has accomplished this end it will be ineffectual. Universal lying would be useless to everybody. IV. IS BY GOD AS A WICKED SIN. For this especially the people must be punished (Jeremiah 9:9). Deceit amongst men is a sin against God, who is the Truth eternal It is a spiritual sin, a sin most near to the diabolical (John 8:34). It is a sin which is peculiarly injurious to the spiritual nature of the sinner, tending to destroy conscience (Matthew 6:23). It involves both injustice and cruelty towards men. Jeremiah 9:9 A visitation of God. I. IS A OF GOD. The phrase "a visitation of God’ has been too much confined to calamitous events. God visits us every hour in gentleness and mercy. Still, it is important to recognize that he also comes in chastisement. He comes, does not simply order, but himself executes chastisement. 1. We should recognize the Divine visitation. Outwardly the trouble may have a human origin. The calamities of the Jews arose out of a Chaldean invasion, but the prophets saw above and behind that invasion a Divine purpose. God was in those armies from Babylon. God is in our troubles. 2. This fact should make us dread to incur chastisement. We cannot resist it, for if God is in it, all his might and majesty are there. 3. This fact should make us submit to the chastisement when it comes as just and good. Its origin is not Satanic, but Divine. If God is in it he must ever be true to his character; his fiercest anger can never break the bounds of what is just and fair; he must always be ready to show mercy when this is possible (Habakkuk 3:2). II. IS BY THE BETWEEN GOD AND MEN. It is God’s soul being avenged. God’s vengeance is quite unlike ours; it is never cruel or intemperate; it is always governed by justice and consistent with unchanging love. It is, however, more than judicial punishment. It is an action arising out of personal feeling and determined by our personal offences against God. Sin is more than transgression of Law,—it is ungrateful rebellion against God; and punishment is more than the cold vindication of Law, it is the result of the provoked anger of God. Such anger is right, for it is not kindness but weakness that allows a father to receive insult from a child unmoved. The greater the love, the greater will be the righteous anger when this is wronged. III. IS BY THE CONDUCT OF MEN. It is "for such things" and "on such a nation." God does not love vengeance. He does not send punishment as an arbitrary exercise of sovereignty. Therefore our chastisement is virtually in our own hands. Even after meriting it, we alone are to blame if the full force of the blow falls upon us. For God has provided a way of escape, and offers forgiveness to all who repent and submit. Therefore it is foolish for men to complain of their hard lot in falling under the storm of a visitation of God in wrath. IV. THE FOR MAY BE BY OUR COMMON . The text is an appeal to reason, a question which unbiased minds could answer only in one way. If chastisement is not seen to be reasonable, it must be either (1) because the depth of guilt is not felt, or (2) distorted views of chastisement have been entertained. This will be such as befits the offence. V. THE OF INVOLVE IN . Hence the necessity for a "propitiation." Thus Christ redeems us by becoming a Propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:2). Jeremiah 9:12-16 The causes of national disaster. I. IT IS TO INQUIRE INTO THE CAUSES OF . 1. Intellectually, this is a subject of profound interest, dealing with fundamental principles and the vast issues to which they lead when working on the largest scale. 2. Morally, it is of great practical importance for the warning it supplies to all nations. The sight of terrible ruin rushing down upon a people is appalling, but the awe with which it strikes us will not have much whole- some effect till we have an intelligent appreciation of the sources from which it comes, and are thus enabled to watch them and guard against them. II. WISDOM IS FOR THE OF THE CAUSES OF . They do not lie on the surface. No study is more difficult than that of the philosophy of history. Unless the mind is awake to spiritual facts, the inquiry will not go beyond secondary causes, or attempting more will commit injustice. The prophets needed inspiration for this as much as for the prediction of future events. No mere literary historian is fit for the work. Only a prophet can he fully equal to it, and other men can only pursue it with safety when they walk in his footsteps. Hence the immense value of the historical elements of the Old Testament to the statesman. III. THE CHIEF CAUSES OF ARE MORAL. Material causes are visible on the surface, such as famine, plague, invasion, revolution. Political causes lying deeper may be easily discerned, such as diplomatic complications, class divisions, violent changes in popular sentiment. But beneath all such influences there are great moral causes. 1. These act through providence. God takes note of the conduct of nations, judges, ministers. 2. They also act directly. Luxury is enervating; injustice destroys the confidence of a people in its government, etc. IV. ONCE , THE MORAL CAUSES OF ARE SIMPLE AND . The prophets make these clear to us in the case of their own nation. 1. Negatively, the causes were traced to disobedience to the will of God, culpable because this was well understood—" set before them." 2. Positively, they were found in willful stubbornness and demoralizing idolatry. God was the shield of his people. When he was forsaken they were defenseless. Nations are only secure while they are governed by the will of God, by justice and humanity. Godlessness, bearing fruit in falsehood, cruelty, and vicious lawlessness of passion, is a sure source of national ruin. The state of the public conscience is more important to a nation than that of its army. False boasting and true confidence. I. FALSE . 1. We are inclined to overvalue our own possessions. The wise man thinks wisdom the one source of security, the strong man strength, the rich man riches. That bulks most largely which lies most near to us. 2. The very good that is in a thing may deceive us by tempting us to overvalue it. Wisdom, strength, and riches are all good in their way. Trust in them is very different from trust in fraud and violence. Not regarding them as enemies, we are in danger of confiding in them as saviors instead of simply employing them as servants. 3. The number of earthly resources leads us to assume that security must be found in some of them at least; for when one fails we can fall back on another. But if the best do not protect in the extremity of danger, will inferior aids suffice? Wisdom is greater than strength, and strength than riches. If wisdom fails, what can the rest do for us? 4. The variety of advantages contained in earthly resources deceives us as to their value. Wisdom promises to outwit the enemy or devise some means of evading ruin. Yet the wisdom of the wisest Jews was defeated by those who came from the land of "the wise;" and how can it avail against the supreme wisdom? Strength as physical prowess and national power may be imposing and yet not almighty. Samson was weak under a woman’s wiles. Goliath fell before the sling of the stripling David. Riches may buy much. They could not prevent the Chaldean invasion. They cannot buy off sickness, disappointment, death, the punishment of sin. Nebuchadnezzar found the possession of the world no security against the most humiliating affliction (Daniel 4:28-33). The rich fool was mocked by his own prudence (Luke 12:16-21). II. TRUE . 1. This is to be sought in the knowledge of God. Wisdom, the best of earthly resources, is not sufficient for protection, but it is the type of a higher wisdom, wherein is the secret of safety. This is a wisdom which concerns itself, not with petty devices, subtle schemes, cunning, and cleverness, but with the highest knowledge, bearing fruit in "the fear of God" (Psalms 111:10). We must know God to trust him. 2. The knowledge of God will reveal to us the special grounds for confidence in him, viz. (1) loving-kindness, disposing him to help the needy; (2) justice, making it apparent that he will concern himself in human affairs as the King ruling all into order; and (3) righteousness, showing that in the broadest way he will maintain the right. Hence it will be apparent that God can and will help us only in accordance with these principles of his character; and we must know them, not only to learn thereby to confide in him, but also to bring ourselves into that spirit which will justify us in expecting his mercy, e. reconciliation to his love, submission to his government, and obedience to his righteous will. Impartial justice. I. SPECIAL DO NOT INTENSE WITH THE OF DIVINE JUSTICE. Judah is specially privileged, and prizes circumcision as a seal of the peculiar favor of Heaven (Genesis 17:9-14). Yet Judah must take its place in the indiscriminate catalogue of corrupt nations. If privileges are noted in God’s exercise of justice, this can only be as an aggravation of guilt. The citizens of favored nations, the heirs of rank and wealth, persons whose lives have been peculiarly successful and unvisited with the usual amount of trouble, all stand in this position. Their present happy condition is no guarantee for favor in the day of Divine judgment, but, on the contrary, a reason for regarding the ingratitude of sin as, in their case, the more culpable. II. THE OF HAS NO ON THE OF DIVINE JUSTICE. Their utility is solely as regards their effect on men. They are profitable only in so far as they assist the corresponding spiritual acts, which are all that God takes note of (Colossians 2:11). The circumcised in body who are not circumcised in heart will suffer just as if they had never been circumcised at all. The ordinance without the spirituality is an offence rather than a pleasing thing. It shows knowledge; it is a mockery to God. This must be so, (1) because God is spirit, and can only be served spiritually; and (2) because the highest justice is concerned with thoughts, motives, deeds of the soul, rather than with the ambiguous actions of the outer life. III. NO WILL BE MADE TO THE OF DIVINE JUSTICE. All kinds of nations are classed together. Cultivated Egyptians and wild Arabs, scrupulous Jews and idolatrous Ammonites, all come before the same judgment-bar, all have the same fair trial-and righteous sentence. 1. The heathen are not excluded from God’s judgment; for (1) he is the God of all the earth, and of those who ignore him as well as of those who recognize him; (2) the heathen have a light of nature and a conscience by which to guide their conduct; (3) God’s judgment is reasonable, and can adapt requirement to opportunity, so that the heathen will have as just treatment as those who are more privileged. 2. The Jews and professedly religious are not excluded. Many people make an utterly unwarrantable assumption that their respectability, position in the Church, etc; are such that the stern ordeal of the judgment is not for them. In his vision of judgment Christ made no such exceptions (Matthew 25:31-46). BY A.F. MUIR Vicarious grief. It is a common occurrence in the history of God’s Church that when general indifference to religious truth, to impending judgments, or depraved spiritual condition, etc; is exhibited by the multitude, one or at most a few are sensible of the nature and extent of the evil. Knowledge in such a case is nearly always sorrow. This is intensified when remonstrances are unheeded, and efforts of reform are defeated. It is the righteous man, the reformer, who is most affected by the situation, and who feels most keenly the disgrace and danger. I. IN THE HIGHEST THINGS IT IS THE FEW THAT MUST FEEL FOE THE MANY. This has been the law from the beginning. It is a necessity of nature. It is a Divine appointment. Pure feeling, even when painful, appears as a stewardship in one or two hearts, perhaps in one alone. Joseph is moved to tears at the heartlessness of his brethren. Jonathan is ashamed for his father Saul. Elijah laments in loneliness and despair the apostasy of Israel. Jesus weeps over Jerusalem; painfully wonders at the slowness of heart to believe exhibited by his own disciples; is "sore amazed "at the cup of iniquity he has to drink. Jeremiah is here evidently in the same succession of vicarious suffering. We see the same principle working in our own circle of acquaintance. Men, women, sorrowing and suffering for others, who are themselves unconscious or are partially so. II. WHAT ARE THE WHICH LIGHT UP THIS MYSTERY? It cannot be wholly to the detriment of those in whom it is illustrated. The justice of God is involved in the question. 1. The keenest joys spring from or coincide with the deepest, purest sorrows. 2. By-and-by the sorrow will transfer itself to its objects, in the grace of repentance. 3. In at least one illustrious instance, it exerts an atoning, mediatorial influence for sinners with God.—M. Jeremiah 9:2, Jeremiah 9:3 The man of God’s longing for seclusion. I. IT IS THE NATURAL RECOIL OF A PURE HEART FROM . When the knowledge and love of God are in the heart, sin appears more loathsome. The love of goodness will show itself in a hatred of evil, and a desire to be separated from its workers. In some this love of God and goodness overpowers even the natural attachments and ties of life. And it may be carried to such an excess as to become a spiritual disease, in its way as sinful as the causes that give rise to it. Monasticism has its root in a good and proper feeling carried to excess, and without the restraining and modifying considerations that ought to accompany it. In the instance before us (and like instances)— II. IT SPRINGS FROM NO SELFISH MOTIVE. Jeremiah did not seek for the "luxury" of grief; sufficient the wanderer’s tent, or the comfortless caravanserai of the desert. Nor has he any desire to attitudinize. It is a loneliness that shall not be conspicuous; a losing of himself amongst strangers who care not for him and notice him not. Nor did he seek to evade the duties of life. If he separated himself, it was not to escape from the impending dangers he had announced; nor to intermit his spiritual activities. "He wished there to weep for them" (Zinzendorf); to study the problem in fresh and more hopeful aspects; to recover his mental and spiritual calm; to recruit his spiritual energies for a new and more successful effort. So in our own day, the underlying motive must ever determine the lawfulness, the character, and the continuance of our spiritual retirements. III. GOD DID NOT REBUKE IT, BUT HE DID NOT SEE FIT TO GRATIFY IT. Here the longing, if it ever grew into a prayer, was not answered, at least at once, or in the way conceived of. Whilst the day of grace lasted, and God’s people were open to repent and to be influenced by his words, he is detained amongst them. When all possibilities were exhausted, then the dungeon of the king’s prison or the shame of the Egyptian exile might serve the purpose. But even then the essential craving was satisfied. There is a longing that is its own answer. To some it is given to experience solitude and spiritual detachment in the midst of the busy throng of transgressors for whom they yet ceaselessly work. This centrifugal tendency may be productive of greater concentration, real compassion, and capacity for usefulness, when it is controlled and overcome by a sense of overmastering responsibility, and a "heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel, that they may be saved."—M. Jeremiah 9:2-6 The self-opposition and futility of the sinner’s life. A strong argument against the practice of a thing may often be found in the supposition that it should become universal. This is valid in the case of the practices and desires of wicked men. The idea of Hobbes concerning the original state of human society is ingenious and conceivable from this very reason, were it not contradicted by the world’s history. I. ONE SIN ENTAILS ANOTHER, AND CRIME LEADS TO CRIME. (Jeremiah 9:3.) II. AND MISERY. (Jeremiah 9:5.) III. EVIL-DOING IS A WEARY AND TOIL. IV. ITS WHEN IT ROBS A MAN OF THE AND OF CLOD, AND EVEN OF THE DESIRE FOR THEM. (Jeremiah 9:6.)—M. The affliction of God’s professed people an enigma to be explained. I. THE MYSTERY. This consists partly in the particular subjects of it, and partly in the degree to which it has gone. It is spoken of here prophetically as a future thing that has already taken place; and the problem is stated accordingly as a realization, and not a thing only conceived of. From time to time the history of Israel and Judah presents such scenes. It is by no means one of uninterrupted progress. There are backboard movements, standings still, interruptions, sharp and humiliating national disasters, and long epochs of civil warp political nonentity, or foreign captivity. I. Yet have there not been many gracious promises to the contrary! 2. On the whole, the past reverses of Israel have been retrieved, and a measure of continuous progress attained. 3. The special affliction referred to is unprecedented, and its result would almost appear to be final. The history of the Christian Church and of individual believers presents features analogous to this. The slow progress of the world’s evangelization. The comparative absence of spiritual blessing in the midst of God’s children. Their divisions, scientific skepticism, or unscientific superstition, like parasites, strangling the tree of the Church and draining away its life. Or the mystery appears in the individual Christian. His creed is orthodox, his behavior outwardly presenting little that is blameworthy; and yet worldly business is a constant series of reverses and dishonorable compromises; his influence is lost; afflictions come upon him, and he cannot bear up under them; the peace of Christ is not his; etc. II. THE POINT OF VIEW FROM WHICH IT IS TO BE . This very important to be determined. The apostate people of God fail to realize the extent to which they have fallen, and confound the formal rites of religion with its spirit and reality. They at first attribute it to natural causes, or treat it as a temporary thing that will right itself, etc. The heathen, looking on ab extra, imagine that the Jehovah of Israel is no longer able to deliver, or that he has ceased to care for her. Here it is declared to be a judgment upon apostasy—utter departure from truth and righteousness, and the sterner because of that fact. And when we look at all the circumstances of the case, this interpretation seems more probable—to carry, as it were, its evidence with it. The key, therefore, is for the most part an inward one; at first, at any rate, wholly so. This it is which constitutes the main element of difficulty in the troubles of God’s people. Hence the room there must be for mistakes, and the ease with which a wholly erroneous view may be taken with superficial probability. And this suggests how large a part of the Church’s function is fulfilled in merely being a problem and a mystery to the carnal mind. When judgment begins at the house of God, it is time for all attentively to look on and inquire why it is so. Greater perils lie on the side of unfaithfulness than of mere unbelief. And in the last resort conscience must be appealed to in explanation of mysteries of reverse and trouble. Thereby God is knocking at the door of the heart both of the world and the Church. It is of the utmost importance that we settle the question between us and him. III. AN WANTED. (Jeremiah 9:12.) When men are at a loss, or there is radical difference of opinion, it is evident that some authority is required to decide the question. The world and its canons are by the nature of the problem ruled out of court. And the apostate is too blinded with his own sin and too callous through repeated acts and prolonged habits of wrong-doing to be trusted in the matter. At this juncture the advantage of revelation and of the prophetic office appears. So far as God is concerned, the seer speaks with the authority of direct inspiration; so far as the culprit is concerned, he occupies a representative position, and as one of those implicated, yet himself innocent, acts as general conscience. This is God’s way—to raise a testimony and extract a confession from the heart of the transgressor himself, or from the midst of those upon whom his judgments fall. And the same end is accomplished now through the Spirit and the Word. The saint becomes the mouthpiece of the Savior, and the world is convinced of "sin, of righteousness, and of judgment."—M. The death of the wicked contrary to nature. Various respects in which this is so: it is sudden; it defies all the resources of comfort and protection; it is untimely, and cuts off the young in their bloom—the children for the fathers’ sin, the hope of the nation and the family. "Death will not, as an enemy lurking without, attack those only who venture out to him, but will assault the people, penetrating into all their houses, to fetch his sacrifices" (Naegelsbach, in Lunge). Why so? I. IT IS BECAUSE THE LAWS OF GOD AND OF NATURE HAVE BEEN . II. THE TRIAL AND OF THE SINNER ARE SWIFTLY REMOVED TO ANOTHER -SEAT. III. IT IS AS A AGAINST EVIL AND A TERROR TO .—M. Jeremiah 9:22-24 The knowledge of God the only real glory of man. Comparison of the earthly acquisitions and properties of the natural man with those which are spiritual and Divine frequent in Scripture. In history and in life they are seen in competition. It is not that the one class of gifts is to be wholly despised and the other alone sought. A correct perspective must be established. It is the "glory" of a man that requires in the first place to be determined. After that is settled, all other things will take their due place and precedency. I. THE "GLORY" OF MAN MUST DEPEND UPON THE END FOR WHICH HE HAS BEEN BROUGHT INTO . This is written in his nature, confirmed by providence, and made clear by revelation. In the words of the Westminster Catechism," The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever." Everything else must be subordinated to this; but if pursued in its place, will show itself to be a perversion of his nature, and will end in calamity and misery. How very few care to satisfy themselves upon this momentous question! Hence the necessity for the teachings and warnings of experience. 1. The "glory ’ of man will be declared by the manner in which the circumstances of his earthly lot affect it in the working out of that end. Each of the qualities and properties upon which men usually pride themselves has been tried in this way and found deficient. The wisdom of the world has a thousand times been shown to be foolishness before God. There are a myriad problems for which it has no key. "Might" has been reduced to nothingness by the least of the duties and experiences of the spiritual life. Disease and death can bring down the mighty from their seats, and stay the greatest worker at his task. Many a time has the cherished object after which one has labored with apparent success been snatched away just when about to be attained. And "wealth" is similarly discredited. The moth and the rust can corrupt the treasures of earth, and the thief breaks through and steals them from their most guarded security. The accident of fortune may give or take away the greatest fortune. And when death comes, all these earthly possessions have to be left behind. They cannot avail for what lies beyond. How seldom are these gifts used for the highest end! And how unavailing of themselves would they be to secure it! 2. The "glory" of man must depend upon the success with which it contributes to secure that end. II. THE OF GOD IS BY THESE TESTS AS THE ONLY TRUE "GLORY" OF MAN. God is identified with the ultimate aim of our being. He made us, and it is for him we live. Consequently, the better we know him, the better shall we be able to serve him. 1. Imitation of God will spring from the knowledge of him. The more we know of him the more we must love him, and admiration will lead to resemblance in spirit and in life. "We love him, because he first loved us." 2. Knowledge depends on and leads to obedience. (John 7:17.) The knowledge of God sheds light upon the universe and life, and directs the soul and body into the channels of health, happiness, and usefulness. 3. It is connected with and culminates in Divine fellowship. In this way the character and presence of God are brought into closest contact with the spirit of man, his character is molded into the image of the Divine original, and the joys of communion deepen and enlarge into the blessedness of heaven. "This is life eternal, [even now] to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."—M. BY S. CONWAY The testimony of tears. Tears are an unusual, a strange sad sight in a strong man. But here Jeremiah appears utterly broken down. He abandons himself to a very agony of sorrow. His tears remind us of those of our Lord and of St. Paul. But they are also a relief to the overburdened heart. Like the cry of the sufferer in sore pain. We are glad when we behold one enduring some crushing sorrow enabled to pour forth his grief in tears. The heart-broken prophet has evidently felt them to be such a relief. His thoughts of his country’s sorrows, when they lie too deep for tears, are greater than he can bear. He would, therefore, that he might be able continually to weep. But tears are admonitory. They bear a very powerful testimony, which we shall do well to give heed to. For they bear witness— I. To HIS . 1. In regard to the truth of the message he has delivered. When we behold God’s servants, such as Jeremiah and St. Paul and others, laboring with all energy of soul, with infinite self-sacrifice, exposed to every form of ill, and "with many tears," we are constrained to inquire the motive of such a life. But only one of three suppositions is possible. (1) Either he who labors is a deceiver. He is consciously acting a part. But this supposition in regard to prophets and apostles of God’s Word has long been given up. "The world has renounced almost to a man this hypothesis. It refuses to believe in the possibility of a hypocrite whose writings inculcate and whose conduct exemplifies the highest order of moral excellence; it refuses to believe in a benevolent, modest, self-denying, high-minded, humble, magnanimous liar, in whom falsehood speaks with the very tongue, looks through the very eyes, and personates the very gestures and tones of truth; it refuses to believe that a man with no earthly motive for it, and every earthly motive against it, should spend the best part of a lifetime in cheating men into truth and virtue which he had himself utterly renounced" (H. Rogers). But if this hypothesis be rejected, then there is another. (2) He has deceived himself. He is the victim of enthusiasm, the unconscious agent of a bewildered and disordered brain. But this hypothesis also will not bear investigation. For such enthusiasms are generally short-lived, they are soon detected, and the common sense of mankind refuses to participate in them. No instance can be found of a mere enthusiast persuading whole nations and convincing the purest, the most sober, and the most thoughtful of whole communities, and in such manner that the falsehood thus originated shall live on and acquire power over men’s minds increasingly. And there are other tests whereby enthusiasm may be discriminated from the deliberate convictions of the sober mind, and every one of such tests, when applied to the history of faithful witnesses for God’s truth, fail to show that these witnesses were, though not dishonest, yet merely mistaken enthusiasts. There remains, therefore, (3) only the other alternative, that the message which they delivered with so much earnestness was true. And the tears of the prophet and apostle do alike bear this testimony, and its force men have everywhere felt. And would we convince an unbelieving world of the truths we profess to hold, we must manifest more of a like conviction. If some wan, worn, emaciated preacher, bearing on him evidently the marks of the Lord Jesus, whose whole life had been, like that of Jeremiah or St. Paul, one long sacrifice for the truth,—if such a one could appear amongst us, then would the world believe, as it now altogether refuses to whilst those who profess belief show such few tokens of the reality of their belief. 2. In regard to the dread peril of those who disobey God. We know with what impassioned earnestness Jeremiah had pleaded with his infatuated countrymen; how he had exhorted, implored, and wept in his endeavor to win them from their wicked ways. And now, when it seemed all in vain, we behold him sunk in sorrow, dissolved in tears. Wherefore this? Were the theory of the universalist true, that there is no "fearful looking for of judgment," that all will be made blessed in the coming hereafter, irrespective of what they have been or what their conduct in this life,—then such tears as we are contemplating now would be unmeaning. Had the prophet held such views, had our Lord, had St. Paul, their deep distress would have been inexplicable, because altogether uncalled for. Or even if the theory of those who hold that "death ends all" been that of God’s servants, still such distress would be far more than could be accounted for. Or even if it were that only the blessedness of the righteous were missed, and all others would simply perish, then too the future of the ungodly would call for no such sorrow. Or that by such devices as those of the Romish Church—Masses, indulgences, and the like—the guilty soul, though indeed its doom were terrible, yet it might by these devices be rescued from such doom,—then too there could have been no tears such as these. But contemplating the overwhelming sorrow of men like Jeremiah when beholding the judgment of the ungodly, we are shut up to the conviction, which evidently possessed him so profoundly, that it is a fearful thing for an unforgiven man to fall into the hands of the living God. 3. In regard to the exhaustion of all present resources of help. Could Jeremiah have done anything to turn aside that judgment which he so vividly and with such distress anticipated, he would not have given himself up to tears. They are the evidence that all resources are exhausted, that nothing more can be done, that as he says (Jeremiah 6:29), "The bellows are burned." The language of such tears is the voice of God saying, concerning the hardened and impenitent, "He is joined to his idols: let him alone." God save us all from having to shed, and still more from causing, such tears as these. But they bear witness also— II. To . He who has known the compassion of God for his own soul will, in proportion to the depth of that knowledge, feel compassion for the souls of others. Indifference and unconcern are no longer possible to him who knows the love of God when he sees men perishing in sin. "The love of Christ constraineth" him. And the same compassion, thus begotten, leads him to mourn when the offer of God’s mercy is refused. Such tears, being interpreted, tell of his passionate but useless desire that the sinner’s doom had been averted. Cf. David’s exceeding hitter cry, "O Absalom, my son, my son!" etc. And they are made to flow the more freely by the remembrance that that lost condition might have been so altogether different. There was no necessity for it. That which could not have been avoided, which we feel to have been inevitable, we bear with more calmness. But when there is the consciousness, such as David had concerning Absalom, that he might have come to an end so different, to an end as honorable and blessed as this was disgraceful and miserable, that reflection made his tears flow faster than before. And when it is not mere folly but grievous sin which has brought God’s judgment upon men, then the compassionate heart grieves yet more; a further drop of bitterness is infused into the cup, and such tears as we are contemplating have this sorrow in them as well as the others we have spoken of. And that now there is no hope, no remedy,—this is the last and worst reflection which wrings the compassionate heart with uttermost grief. Jeremiah beholds the house of Judah "left unto them desolate;" the daughter of his people not merely "hurt," but slain. How is it that, with like reasons for such compassion as that of Jeremiah, we know so little of it? "Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy Law"—spoke God’s servant in the hundred and nineteenth psalm, But who can say that now? Compassionate Savior, give us of thy mind. III. TO THE OF SUCH GRIEF. 1. Are you workers for God? Then remember that disappointment and present failure have been the lot of many of the noblest of the servants of God. There is a goodly fellowship of such. 2. Are you believers in God? Then remember his sure promise as to what shall follow this "sowing in tears," this "going forth weeping, bearing precious seed." We are not to think that we have seen the last result of our toil because that which we do see is so distressing. 3. Are you rejecters of God? Then remember that God puts such tears "in his bottle," and they are treasured by him; and their testimony, whilst it will be for the salvation of those who have shed them, will be far more terrible judgment against those who have caused them. "Weep not for me," said our Lord on his way to the cross, "but weep for yourselves, and for your children If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" Yes, these tears tell of the sorrows of God’s people, but they predict a worse sorrow still for his hardened foes. Look, then, O thou who hardenest thyself against God, and ask thyself, "If this be the sorrow I have caused, what shall that be which I shall have to bear?" Remember that it is not only here that there are tears, but in the future abode of the impenitent it is distinctly declared, "There shall be weeping." Then cease to cause such tears here, that you may never have to shed tears far more bitter thereto. The moral degradation of women. The expression, "the slain of the daughter of my people," suggests this subject. Therefore we may thus apply the prophet’s Words. Note— I. THE MORAL OF THE OF A PEOPLE IS A JUST CAUSE FOR THE DEEPEST SORROW. For think of what and how much is slain in these slain ones. The ruin of health, and the early and often dreadful death, are the least that is slain. Happiness is slain—that of the victim, and of those to whom she was once precious. The joyous hopes once cherished. The influence which might have been so pure and purifying, now corrupt and corrupting. The character once honored, now dragged in the mire. The son, in all its moral worth and spiritual energies and desires, that too is slain. Therefore, when contemplating Such cruelly slain ones, the prophet’s piteous cry of anguish is no more than such utter woe constrains. II. BUT SUCH SORROW SHOULD TURN INTO SCORN AND WRATH FOR THE SLAYERS OF THESE SLAIN. Beware of the hideous complacency with which the world regards such "murderers. Pray to be kept from the paths of such" bloody men. III. BUT SUCH SORROW SHOULD NOT FORGET THAT THERE IS A DIVINE SPIRIT THAT CAN "BREATHE UPON THESE SLAIN, THAT THEY MAY LIVE." The Spirit of Christ did so breathe upon one such, and she lived. He said to her, "Thy sins are forgiven ….Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace" (Luke 7:36-50).—C. Sighings after the wilderness. The text reminds us of Psa 55:5, "Oh that I bad wings," etc.! of Elijah’s longing that he might die; of the similar dejection of Moses. Even our Lord said, "O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you?" But such desire as that of the text is in itself— I. . We are formed to mingle with our fellow-men, to live with them, not away from them. 1. It is in intercourse with them life becomes interesting to us. We are taken out of ourselves, fresh sources of pleasure and advantage are continually opened up to us. 2. Sympathy also is in fellowship. Our joys are more than doubled and our sorrows more than halved by the power of that sympathy which solitude can never know. 3. Opportunities of doing good are not to be had "in the wilderness," and when we "leave" our people. 4. Nor are the benefits they can confer on us to be found there. Heart and mind and soul are blessed by companionship and injured by solitude and isolation. Hence such wish as that of the text is, apart from the motive given, unnatural. II. AND IT MAY BE WRONG. 1. It is so when it is the child of impatience. Doubtless there is much often to try our patience, and to make us wish that we could have done with it all. But we should not think much of the laborer who, because the toil was arduous, threw up his work ere the day was done; or of the soldier who left in the midst of the campaign. 2. Yet more culpable is it when it springs from indolence. There are many who dislike real work in any form. Exertion and effort are shrunk from everywhere. And in their religious life it is the same. And from such poor motive such wish as that of the text sometimes springs. 3. Still worse is it when it comes of unbelief. When all faith is gone, and the dark, dread falsehood begins to get hold of a man, that rest is only to be gained by breaking out of this life altogether. III. BUT IT MAY PROCEED FROM CAUSES WHICH . Sympathy he could neither give nor find. Ever so desirous of doing them good, they spurned and despised all his efforts. And as to gaining good from them, it was but a continual contact with pollution. What wonder, then; that Jeremiah longed to be away from such a scene? "The hermits of the East, the anchorites of the desert, are more closely linked with ourselves in feeling than some at first may think. Our impulses are often identical with theirs; and if our actions vary it is because our standard of right, not our nature, is changed. In the life of each man there are hours when he sighs for the desert; hours when, bowed down by the sense of sin in himself and the sight of it in others, wearied out by striving to teach a stiffnecked generation, disheartened at seeing the ’good cause’ advance so slowly, he cart scarcely refrain from following, in his small way, the example of that emperor who exchanged the palace for the cloister, and the crown for the cowl." These are moments such as came to Jeremiah now. "The Emperor Charles uttered in deeds what we have all breathed in sighs. We do and we must long to flee away and be at rest; but then it must remain a longing, and nothing more" (G. Dawson). IV. AND GOD HAS MADE FOR ITS . Not by giving us permission to retire to desert solitudes, except, as with Elijah and Paul, it may be for a while to prepare for future and higher service. But in the manner that the psalmist suggests where he says, "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then," etc. Yes, wings like a dove will bear us into the present rest of God. The dove is the emblem of meekness. Like the lamb amongst the beasts, so the dove amongst the birds is the symbol of lowly meekness and gentleness. But lowly meekness is the way to rest, the rest God gives, the peace of God. Listen to our Savior: "Come unto me, all ye that labor … Take my yoke for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls" (Matthew 11:1-30.). The dove is the emblem of purity. It was not only amongst those birds that were counted clean, but was especially selected for presentation to God in sacrifice, as that which was pure alone could be. The doves were allowed to fly about the temple and to rest on its roofs and pillars (see H. Hunt’s picture of the ’Finding in the Temple’). But purity opens the door of heaven, and enraptures the beholder with the beatific vision there. "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God." Wings are these, therefore, well likened to those of a dove, "covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." Yes," keep thyself unspotted from the world," and God shall so manifest himself to thee that thy soul shall be at rest, let the wicked rage around thee as they may. And the dove was the selected symbol of the Holy Spirit. "I saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove," said John the Baptist. But his wings will bear thee where thou mayest see the fatherly love of God, his wisdom guiding all, and his gracious purpose being more and more accomplished. "He will take of the things of Christ and show them unto thee." And in them thou shalt have peace. The psalmist’s passionate longing may then be fulfilled for us, We may have "wings like a dove." These, of meekness, purity, and the blessed Spirit of God. And so, without quitting the station assigned us or departing to any wilderness, we may have even now the rest of God.—C. The doings and doom of deceit. The verses from Jeremiah 9:2 to the text set forth its doings, and the text and remainder of the chapter foretell its doom. Note— I. DECEIT. It is a terrible indictment that the prophet brings. He affirms that deceit is: 1. Universal. Jeremiah 9:2, "They be all," etc. Jeremiah 9:6, "Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit;" i.e. it is everywhere, all around you. That: 2. It has broken up the most sacred relationships: "They be all adulterers" (Jeremiah 9:2). 3. It has turned their solemn assemblies into a conclave of liars (Jeremiah 9:2). 4. It is practiced deliberately. Jeremiah 9:3: as a man deliberately bends and takes aim with his bow. 5. It has mounted the judge’s seat (Jeremiah 9:3; cf. true translation of phrase, "They are not valiant for the truth"). 6. It has smoothed the way for all evil. "They proceed from evil to evil" (Jeremiah 9:3). 7. It has destroyed all confidence (1) between neighbors, (2) between brethren (Jeremiah 9:4). 8. It is diligently studied. Jeremiah 9:5, "They have taught," etc. "They take the utmost pains to go crookedly." 9. It is cruel and deadly in its aims (Jeremiah 9:8). In view of a condition of things so horrible, how unanswerable is the demand of Jer 9:9, "Shall I not visit them for these things?" etc.! It will be found in all the judgments of God upon nations that those judgments have never come until there was no other way of dealing with such nations, if the moral life of the world was to be maintained. II. ITS DOINGS. 1. It had made dwelling amongst them intolerable to the righteous. (Cf. Jeremiah 9:2.) Jeremiah longs to get away from them. The most desolate solitude would be preferable to living amid such a people as this. It is an ominous sign for a community when the godly, however compassionate, however long-suffering, can no longer endure to dwell in their midst. 2. It had made the thought of God intolerable to themselves. Verses 3, 6, "They know not me, saith the Lord." Just as a man may meet one whom he desires to have nothing to do with, but when he meets him will pass him as if he did not know him; so deceit had made these people, as it makes all such, desirous of having nothing to do with God. Therefore they will not recognize or acknowledge him in any way. 3. And at last it had made them intolerable to God. Verse 7: God asks, "What else can I do for the daughter of my people?" (cf. Exposition). There was nothing now but for the judgment of God to go forth against them. Therefore note— III. ITS DOOM. Verse 7, "Therefore thus saith" etc. And down to Verse 22 these awful judgments of God are set forth. Inquire, therefore, what there is about deceit which renders it so hateful in the sight of God. 1. There can be no doubt that it is so. "Lying tips are an abomination unto the Lord" (cf. Psalms 15:1-5.; Acts 5:1-42.). "All liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth," etc. 2. And some of the reasons are: (1) Deceit cometh from Satan, who was "a liar from the beginning," and "the father of lies." It was by his lies that our first parents were deceived and sin was brought into the world. (2) It is the source of infinite misery and distress. It is" the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil" which still work well-nigh all our sorrow and our shame. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Whoever wrote the prophecy in Jeremiah 10:1-16 of this chapter, it was not Jeremiah; but of course, as the passage forms part of a canonical book, its claims to the character of a Scripture remain the same as if it were the work of our prophet. It is obvious at the very outset that it interrupts the connection; verses 17-25 stand in no relation to verses 1-16, but attach themselves most naturally (see below) to the concluding verses of Jer 9:1-26. The author tolls us himself, as clearly as he can, that the people whom he addresses are free as yet (or at any rate have freed themselves) from the guilt of idolatry, and consequently cannot be the same as those who are so severely chastised for their polytheism in Jeremiah 7:17, Jeremiah 7:18, Jeremiah 7:30, Jeremiah 7:31. The style too is, on the whole, very different from that of the writer of the preceding chapters (see the details in the introduction to this passage in the Commentary of Naegelsbaeh). But how can we account for such an insertion? Only by the view already mentioned (supported by a large number of facts throughout the prophetic literature), that the prophecies were edited, and here and there supplemented by the "sons of the prophets", i.e. by persons providentially raised up for this purpose, and endowed with at least a younger son’s portion of the prophetic Spirit. In the times of the editor of Jeremiah, to whom we owe the first sixteen verses of this chapter, the Jews must have been in danger of falling into idolatry, and our prophet, guided by the Divine Spirit, took up the pen to counteract this danger. His name has not come down to us; indeed, self-abnegation is the characteristic of inspired writers. How uncertain is the authorship of at any rate not a few of the psalms, and of all the historical books? And have we a right to be surprised that the prophets too, absorbed in their glorious mission, have sometimes forgotten to hand on their names to posterity? It is of course possible, in the abstract, that some fragments of the passage are really due to Jeremiah; but how are we to distinguish them from the rest? Hitzig thinks that verses 6-8 and verse 10 are the great prophet’s work; but these are the very verses the origin of which is the most doubtful, since they are entirely omitted in the Septuagint. One thing is certain—that the passage verses 1-16 stands in close relation to the latter part of the Book of Isaiah. The prophetic writer, whoever he was, had his mind saturated with the ideas and phraseology of that magnificent work. The similarity, however, is hardly so close as to justify the view that Isaiah 40-56; and Jeremiah 10:1-16 are productions of the same inspired writer. [It is no objection to the theory here advocated that the passage is found in the Septuagint; for no one has ever supposed that the process of editing the Scriptures was not already long since finished when the Alexandrine Version, or rather collection of versions, was made.] It is a singular fact that Jeremiah 10:11 is written in Chaldee (see note below). Jeremiah 10:2 The way of the heathen. "Way" equivalent to "religion" (comp. ὁδὸς, Acts 9:2, etc.). Be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; alluding to the astrological calculations based upon extraordinary appearances in the sky. Diodorus Siculus remarks 2.30)—and his statement is fully confirmed by the Babylonian cuneiform tablets—that "the appearance of comets, eclipses of the sun and moon, earthquakes, and in fact every kind of change occasioned by the atmosphere, whether good or bad, both to nations and to kings and private individuals [were omens of future events]." A catalogue of the seventy standard astrological tablets is to be found in the third volume of the British Museum collection of inscriptions. Among the items we read, "A collection of twenty-five tablets of the signs of heaven and earth, according to their good presage and their bad;" and again, "Tablets [regarding] the signs of the heaven, along with the star (comet) which has a corona in front and a tail behind; the appearance of the sky," etc. There can hardly be a doubt that the prophetic writer had such pseudo-science as this in his eye (see Professor Sayce, ’The Astronomy and Astrology of the Baby. Ionians, with translations of the tablets,’ ere, in the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 3.145-339). Jeremiah 10:3 The customs of the people. "People" should, as usual, be corrected into peoples—the heathen nations are referred to. The Hebrew has "the statutes;" but the Authorized Version is substantially right, customs having a force as of iron in Eastern countries. It seems to be implied that the "customs" are of religious origin in a field of cucumbers. This is the interpretation given to our passage in Verse 70 of the apocryphal Epistle o! Jeremiah (written in the Maccabean period, evidently with reference to our prophecy), and is much more striking than the rival translation, "like a palm tree of turned work," i.e. stiff, immovable. They must needs be borne … they cannot do evil; a reminiscence, apparently, of Isaiah 46:7; Isaiah 41:23. Jeremiah 10:6 Forasmuch as there is none; rather, so that, etc. But practically it is merely a strengthened negative. There is none like unto thee; none, that is, among those who claim to have Divine power (comp. the phrase, "God of gods," Deuteronomy 10:17; Psalms 136:2). It would appear from some passages, however, as if the heathen did not worship mere nonentities (though idols are sometimes called "things of naught," e.g. ten times by Isaiah) by comparison with Jehovah, but that there was a dark background of awful personal or quasi-personal reality (e.g. Deuteronomy 4:7; 2 Chronicles 28:23). Jeremiah 10:7 O King of nations. As time went on, the sacred writers became more and more distinct in their assertions of the truth that Jehovah, the Self-revealing God, is not Israel’s King only, but also of the world (comp. Psalms 22:28; Psalms 47:7, Psalms 47:8; Psalms 96:10). To thee doth it appertain; viz. that men should fear thee. Forasmuch as, etc. (see above, on Jeremiah 10:6). Among all the wise men. "Men" is supplied, but doubtless rightly. It is a contest—how unequal a one!—between Jehovah and the sages of the heathen (comp. "Yet he also is wise," Isaiah 31:2). Jeremiah 10:8 Brutish and foolish. In fact, the original meaning of the idolatrous religions had begun, probably, to fade, and the worship of Bel and Nebo had become (as the worship of the Egyptian gods became at a later period) increasingly formal and ritualistic. The stock is a doctrine of vanities; rather, an instruction of vanities; i.e. all that the idols can teach is vanities. Against this is the plural ("vanities," not vanity); it is more natural (and also more in accordance with usage; comp. Genesis 41:26, Hebrew) to render, the instruction of the vanities is wooden ("vanities" has the constant technical sense of "idols;" see Jeremiah 8:19; Jeremiah 14:22; Deuteronomy 32:21; Psalms 31:6). The clause then furnishes a reason for the folly of the heathen; how should they attain to more than a "wooden" knowledge, when the idols themselves are but wood? A bitter truth in an ironical form. Jeremiah 10:9 This verse apparently once followed Jeremiah 10:5. Like Jeremiah 10:7 and Jeremiah 10:8, it is omitted in the Septuagint. Silver spread into plates, etc. The silver and gold were meant for the coating of the wooden image (comp. Isaiah 30:22; Isaiah 40:19). Tarshish; i.e. Tartessus, in south-west Spain, between the two mouths of the Baetis, or Guadal-quivir. Gold from Uphaz. A place bearing this name, or anything like it, is not known from other sources than the Old Testament writings; and hence a corruption of the text has naturally been suspected (Ophir into Uphaz). As, however, r and z are not easily confounded, either in the earlier or the later Hebrew characters, this view must be abandoned, though it has the authority of several ancient versions of this passage (including the Peshite and the Targum). The name occurs again in Daniel 10:5. The Peshite, moreover, curiously enough, translates zahab mufaz in 1 Kings 10:18 (Authorized Version, "the best gold") by "gold from Ophir." Blue and purple. The Hebrew has no word, strictly speaking, for either "blue" or "purple." Both these words here used probably express coloring matter rather than colors (this is certain of the latter word, which properly designates a kind of mussel, the shell of which yielded dye). The first produced a violet purple, the second a reddish purple. Jeremiah 10:10 The true God; literally, a God in truth, the accusative of apposition being chosen instead of the usual genitive construction, to emphasize the idea of "truth." Jeremiah 10:11 Thus shall ye say, etc. This verse is, unlike the rest of the chapter, written in Chaldee, and greatly interrupts the connection. Whether it is a fragment of a Targum (or Chaldee paraphrase) representing a Hebrew verse really written by Jeremiah, or whether it is a marginal note by some scribe or reader which has found its way by accident into the text, cannot be positively determined. What is certain is that it is not in its right place, though it already stood here when the Septuagint Version of Jeremiah was made. To argue, with the ’Speaker’s Commentary,’ that the latter circumstance is decisive of the correctness of the passage in its present position, implies a view of the unchangeableness of the text in the early centuries which few leading scholars will admit. Jeremiah 10:12-16 Repeated with a slight variation in Jeremiah 51:15-19. Jeremiah 10:12 He hath made the earth, etc. (comp. the frequent references to the Divine creatorship in the latter part of Isaiah (Isaiah 40:22; Isaiah 42:5; Isaiah 44:24; Isaiah 45:12, Isaiah 45:18; Isaiah 51:13). By his discretion; rather, by his understanding. Jeremiah 10:13 When he uttereth his voice, etc. The phrase is difficult, but the Authorized Version probably gives the right sense. God’s "voice" is the thunder (Psalms 29:3), which is accompanied by the gathering of heavy clouds ("His pavilion round about him," Psalms 18:11). He causeth the vapors to ascend, etc.; the storm-clouds coming up more and more thickly from the horizon. From this point the verse agrees with Psalms 135:7 (the psalm is full of such reminiscences, and is obviously very late). Lightning’s with rain; rather, for the rain. The lightning’s are, as it were, the heralds or attendants of the rain. The wind out of his treasures; a noble figure, used elsewhere of the snow and hail (Job 38:22), and of the waters of the sea (Psalms 33:7). Jeremiah 10:14 Before these natural miracles, all men, except those who have been enlightened by revelation, are without knowledge (so, and not in his knowledge, we ought to render); i.e. without insight into their origin and meaning (compare the overwhelming series of questions in the sublime theophany in Job, Jeremiah 28:1-17:39.). Every founder is confounded by, etc.; rather, every goldsmith is brought to shame by the graven image; for how can the work which has needed all the resources of his skill deliver him? Jeremiah 10:15 The very essence of idols is vanity; they are unreal as "a breath;" they are, not so much the work of errors as a work of mockery, i.e. not opus rise dignum, but a work which rewards the efforts bestowed upon its production by disappointment. Jeremiah 10:16 The portion of Jacob; i.e. Jehovah. The phrase appears to have been coined at a lower level of religion, when every nation was supposed to have its own patron deity; just as the prophet says, ironically, to the fetish-worshippers of Israel, "Among the smooth stones of the stream is thy portion" (Isaiah 57:5), and Moses, in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 4:19), speaks of the host of heaven as having been "divided [i.e. assigned] unto all nations under the whole heaven." But, of course, the phrase is susceptible of a high, spiritual application (comp. Psalms 16:5; Psalms 142:5). God’s people are, by their very conception, an ἐκλογὴ, chosen out by God, and choosing him, and not the world, for their portion. "Making the best of both worlds" is an object implicitly condemned by this consecrated phrase. The former of all things. How much more forcible is the original phrase: " … of the whole," i.e. the universe! "To form" is a phrase constantly used of God in the second part of Isaiah. The rod of his inheritance. "Rod" should rather be tribe. The twelve tribes had an inner unity, as contrasted with other peoples; comp. Psalms 74:2 and Isaiah 63:17 ("tribes"). Jeremiah 10:17-22 This passage connects itself immediately with Jeremiah 9:1-26; where the invasion of Judah and the dispersion of its inhabitants have been foretold. Here, after describing dramatically the departure of the latter into exile, the prophet reports a distinct revelation of the same fact, so that this can no longer be assumed to be mere imaginative rhetoric. The Jewish people is then introduced, lamenting her sad fate, but expressing resignation. Jeremiah 10:17 Gather up thy wares. "Wares" should rather be bundle. There is no allusion to trafficking. O inhabitant of the fortress; rather, thou that dwellest besieged. Jeremiah 10:18 I will sling out; a forcible image, to express the violence of the expulsion; comp. Isaiah 22:17, Isaiah 22:18 (Isaiah 22:17 needs correcting). At this once; rather, at this time (comp. Jeremiah 16:21). Invasion was no novelty to the Jews, but had hitherto merely produced loss of goods rather than of personal liberty. That they may find it so; better, that they may feel it. Others supply as. the subject "Jehovah," comparing Psalms 32:6, "In a time of finding. Jeremiah himself says, "Ye shall seek me, and shall find, when ye shall search for me with all your heart" (Jeremiah 29:13 and Deuteronomy 4:29). Still, these passages are hardly quite parallel, as the object of the verb can be easily supplied from the connection. The Vulgate apparently reads the text with different vowels, for it renders ut inveniantur; the Septuagint has "that thy stroke may be found." Jeremiah 10:19 It is rather doubtful (as in the parallel passage, Jeremiah 4:19-21) whether the speaker here is the prophet, or "the daughter of my people," who, in Jeremiah 6:26, is called upon to "make most bitter lamentation." Of course, the prophet cannot dissociate himself from his people; and we rosy therefore, perhaps, consider both references united. Hurt; literally, breach; a term so used for political calamities. A grief; rather, my grief; but "grief" is meant to include both physical and mental sufferings (literally, my sickness). Jeremiah 10:20 My tabernacle; rather, my tent. It is very striking how present to the minds of the Israelites was the consciousness of their pastoral origin. Hence the cry, "To your tents, O Israel" (1 Kings 12:16); comp. also, "And the children of Israel dwelt in their tents, as aforetime" (2 Kings 13:5). My cords … my curtains. The "cords ’ are those which, by being fastened to poles and stakes, keep the tent steady; the "curtains," of course, are the covering of the tent (comp. Isaiah 54:2). Jeremiah 10:21 The pastors; i.e. the civil authorities (see on Jeremiah 2:8). They shall not prosper; rather, they have not prospered; or, better still, they have not acted wisely, the notion of prospering being rather suggested than expressed (the same word is used in Isaiah lit. 13). Jeremiah 10:22 Behold … is come; rather; Hark! Tidings! Behold, it cometh! The tidings are that the foe is at hand, advancing with a great commotion, with clashing spears, prancing horses, and all the hubbub of a great army. A den of dragons; rather, of jackals (as Jeremiah 9:11). Jeremiah 10:23-25 These verses confirm the view taken above, of the speaker of this whole section. Jeremiah and the people, each is, in a sense, the speaker; but hero the prophetic faith seems to run rather in advance of that of his fellow-countrymen. They form, however, a fitting sequel to the charges brought against the people in Jeremiah 9:1-26. The speaker admits that he (either the People of Judah personified, or Jeremiah as a representative of its best portion) fully deserves chastisement for having attempted to go his own way (comp. Isaiah 57:17). He has now attained an insight into the truth that man’s duty is simply to walk in the path which God has marked out for him. He only asks that Jehovah would chastise him with judgment, or,, more clearly, according to what is just. The contrast is between punishment inflicted in anger, the object of which is to cause pain to the criminal, and that inflicted as a duty of justice, and of which the object is the criminal’s reformation" (Payne Smith). The fear expressed, however, is not exactly lest thou bring me to nothing, which is too strong for the Hebrew, but lest thou make me small. Israel was secured against annihilation by the promise of Jehovah, but feared he might possibly survive only as the shadow of his former self. Jeremiah 10:25 This verse is repeated, with slight differences, in Psalms 79:6, Psalms 79:7. The fault of the heathen is that they exceeded their commission (Isaiah 10:6, Isaiah 10:7; Isaiah 47:6; Zechariah 1:15), and aimed at destroying, instead of merely punishing, Jehovah’s erring people. His habitation; rather, his pasture (comp. Jeremiah 12:10) Jeremiah 10:1-5 The folly of paganism. I. THE FOLLY OF PROVES THE OF FEARS. The Jews were tempted to fear astrological portents (Jeremiah 10:2) and idol-powers (Jeremiah 10:5). Yet a little reflection was enough to show that these things were impotent for harm. The lowest religion is a product of fear. Superstition finds converts where rational faith fails. The trouble thus resulting from the weakness of men can only be dissipated by boldly confronting the source of terror and thoroughly examining it. II. THE FOLLY OF REVEALS THE MISTAKE OF TO ITS . For this miserable inanity the Jews were abandoning the God of heaven and earth! Religion should be accepted, not for its attractiveness, but for its truth. It must be a reality or it will be a snare. Yet how many are led to adopt systems of religion without any regard to the truth of the ideas they contain, but simply out of liking for their ritual, emotional sympathy for their poetry, or even mere love of the musical accompaniments of the worship connected with them! III. THE FOLLY OF IS AN IN FAVOR OF THE TRUTH OF THE OF THE BIBLE. The reason and imagination of men in all ages, in all climes, in all degrees of civilization, have been set to the task of inventing religions (consciously sometimes, but for the most part unconsciously and therefore the more genuinely), and the result in all cases is far inferior to Christianity. A mere comparison of religions should lead us to prefer this, and a simple conclusion from such a comparison is that this must be of Divine origin. Jeremiah 10:6, Jeremiah 10:7 The incomparable greatness of God. I. GOD IS GREAT. This simple item of the Mohammedan’s creed must be accepted with equal reverence by the Christian, though it forms but one part of his conception of the Divine nature. There is danger lest we should regard the goodness of God in such a way as to detract from his majesty. Truly considered, it enhances the supreme glory of God’s greatness. God is great in power, in wisdom, in resources, in essential being. God is also great in character, in purpose, in the just and good principles of his actions. The worship of a God of mere power is the cringing of a slave, and has no spiritual value, but rather degrades the devotee by destroying independence of conscience and moral courage. It would be our duty to resist a being of infinite power if that power were not used righteously, for such a being would not be God, but an infinite demon; and though resistance were hopeless, it would be better to be a martyr to conscience than the degraded minion of an unrighteous despotism. But God is worthy of all worship because his greatness of power reposes on greatness of character. II. THE OF GOD IS . The Jews were led to see that their God was not one among many deities, not even the supreme God, the Zeus of a pantheon of lesser divinities, but the only God, and out of all comparison with all other beings. God is infinite. You cannot compare the infinite with anything finite. The greatest existence which has any limit is as far from the infinite as the smallest. This is as much larger than a world as it is larger than a grain of sand. The being of God is entirely distinct from all other orders of being—vastly greater than the universe of them—in its fullness incomparable to any. Yet: 1. God, being infinite, contains in himself all possibilities of being, and therefore all may see their ideal perfection in him though he transcends all (Hebrews 2:10). 2. God has made man in his own image, and in his power of thought, freedom of will, and moral conscience, man has characteristics like the Divine in kind, though incomparable with that in degree (Genesis 1:26). Christ is the "express Image of his substance" (Hebrews 1:3), "but only so because in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9). III. THE OF GOD SHOULD MOVE ALL MEN TO FEAR BEFORE HIM. All should fear because: 1. He is too great to be concerned with a few; all nations, all mankind, are equally under his sway. 2. He is infinitely above the greatest, so that kings and wise men, persons of the highest rank and of the most profound genius, are as much below him as if they were beggars and fools. 3. He is so vast in being, power, and character, that it is no mark of noble independence to resist him, but only a sign of foolish pride which will certainly be humiliated. The fear of God thus engendered is an awe, a reverence, not mere terror. The gospel tempers this with the confident love of children, but does not destroy it, since perfect love, while casting out terror, infuses feelings of reverence. Jeremiah 10:10, Jeremiah 10:12, Jeremiah 10:13 The nature of God. The true nature of God is seen in contrast with the objects of heathen worship. Error is sometimes serviceable in furnishing an occasion for a clearer definition of truth. Christian theology has grown up through controversies with heresy and unbelief. I. THE NATURE OF GOD. 1. God is real. Jehovah is the true God. He is not only superior to heathen deities. They are non-existent. He alone is, Religion is based on facts. Its first affirmation is this—"God is." It is not a growth of the poetic imagination, a fabric of baseless speculation, nor merely "morality touched with emotion," without any object for that emotion to rest upon. It is the worship of a God who exists. Otherwise no poetic charm nor practical expediency can make it anything but a delusion, which all who venerate truth should abjure. 2. God is living. The word "God" is not a name for the totality of being, for the unconscious forces of the universe, for a blind "Not ourselves that makes for righteousness." All faith affirms more. No worship is justified without the belief that God is spirit, thinking, willing, living. God is, indeed, the one self-existent life, the life in which all other life is contained (Acts 17:28). 3. God is an everlasting King. He is eternal and changeless—not a God of the past alone, but equally active in the present. He is not only the Creator who formed the world ages ago, but the King who now rules it. Our worship is not merely veneration for what he has done, but a constant appreciation of what he is doing, and prayer touching his future action—a real and effectual communion with a living and acting God. 4. These thoughts of the nature of God should induce submission and reverence. None can compare with him. All are in his power. His eternal presence demands constant attention, and his ceaseless activity requires a correspondence in all our activity. II. THE OF THE NATURE OF GOD. 1. It is seen in creation. Power is revealed in the original formation of all things, wisdom in their orderly establishment (Jeremiah 10:12). A real world can only come from a real God. A living world must derive its vitality from an original source of life. The less cannot produce the greater. All that we see in the universe must have been originally in the thought and power of God. 2. It is seen in the present activities of the world. The tumult of waters flows in obedience to God’s voice. Clouds, and wind, and lightning, and rain, follow his directions (Jeremiah 10:13). The great energy of the physical world testifies to an energizing power behind it. The universe is not a beautiful crystal, nor a fossil relic of past life. It is replete with force, undergoing perpetual change, and constantly developing fresh forms of vitality. Such a condition of things implies that the real and living Creator must be also an ever-present Ruler, "an everlasting King." God the Portion of Israel. I. GOD IS RELATED TO HIS OWN PEOPLE. The previous verses describe the universal supremacy of God and the claims he has over all his creatures. He is not one among many gods, but the only God; he is the Creator of all things, in him all things consist, all men live only through him. He is gracious to all his human family, he is willing to give his richest blessings to all mankind. Still, there are other and special relations which God holds only with those who trust and love and obey him. They who seek God will find him as the negligent will never do. They who choose God for their Portion will be chosen by him for peculiar favors. This is quite consistent with the universality of the being and activity of God. II. GOD’S WITH HIS PEOPLE ADMITS OF NO RIVALRY. God must be the Portion of his people or in no sense peculiarly theirs. Israel cannot retain the special privileges of the covenant with Jehovah while breaking the conditions of that covenant which require unwavering fidelity (Deuteronomy 28:14). He who would find his portion in God must not also seek it in the world. He may have many worldly advantages while pursuing higher aims, because these may be "added unto him;" but he must "seek first the kingdom of God" (Matthew 6:33). III. GOD’S WITH HIS PEOPLE IS AN TO THEM. 1. He makes them his inheritance, i.e. prizes them as property, values them "as the apple of his eye" (Deuteronomy 32:10), as his "peculiar treasure" (Malachi 3:17). If God showers down upon all his creatures mercies countless as the stars of heaven, what must be the wonder and the glory of their state whom God thus prizes and marks for special favor! 2. They find in him their Portion. (1) The Portion is God, not the gifts of God, for the Giver is better than his gifts. God is more to his people than all he bestows upon them. (2) This portion is independent of all earthly circumstances; it may be enjoyed in sickness, in poverty, in human contempt. (3) It is the highest blessedness of the soul—enjoying God, living in the light of his love, receiving the essential blessedness of Heaven. IV. THE OF THIS WITH GOD IS OPEN TO ALL MEN. The Jews too often rested their claim on inherent national rights—their birthrights. But the New Testament declares the spiritual Israel to be the true Israel (Galatians 6:15, Galatians 6:16), and this Israel is composed of all who walk "according to the rule" of faith in Christ. Therefore the broad invitation for all to follow Christ opens the door for all to the closest relationship with God. If all are invited to Christ who is the Way, all may become God’s peculiar inheritance, and find their Portion in him (1 Peter 2:9). Jeremiah 10:23, Jeremiah 10:24 Confession and correction. I. GENUINE A CLEAR OF DUTY AND A TO RECEIVE . 1. There must be a recognition of duty. We cannot confess the wrong till we know the right. Conscience awakes only when a standard of right outside ourselves is perceived. 2. There must be a willingness to receive necessary correction. If we make honest confession of sin, we imply that we desire to be free from it. But a right understanding of our own condition in the light of God’s requirements makes the necessity of correction apparent. II. A CLEAR OF DUTY WILL SHOW THAT THIS IN SELF- TO A HIGHER WILL. The essence of sin is self-will. The first sin was an act of disobedience. All wickedness is a rebellion against a supreme authority. Man is not free to live to himself, swayed only by his own lawless caprice. He has a vocation to fulfill: 1. He has no right to go his own way. He is a servant. He is lawfully subject to a righteous Lord, before whom duty requires him to say, "Not my will, but thine, be done." 2. He has not light enough to direct his own steps. Future accidents cannot be anticipated. The ultimate effects of the simplest action are not to be traced beforehand. Hence the need of a higher direction. 3. He has not power to succeed in his own way. If he starts by himself, making the awful experiment of a self-sustained pilgrimage through the toils and storms of life, he will assuredly make shipwreck. Our duty is not to live for self, nor even for God in our own way or by our own unaided strength, but to do his will, in his way, by his aid. Thus the Christian, looking for authority, guidance, and strength in Christ, is taught to say, "To me to live is Christ." III. A TO RECEIVE ARISES FROM A OF ITS JUSTICE AND UTILITY WHEN VIEWED IN THE LIGHT OF THE OF DUTY. 1. It must be recognized as just, not only merited, but coming in a fair degree. We could not willingly accept a correcting chastisement which was disproportionate to guilt. 2. It must be recognized as given on principles of righteousness, not out of vindictive wrath. 3. It must be recognized as sent for a merciful purpose. It is correction, not simply retribution. This is wholesome, and given, not in anger, which would be fatal (Psalms 2:12), but in love (Proverbs 3:12). Such correction we should not murmur under, but welcome, accept as a blessing, and even pray for. But we shall only do this when we are impressed with a right sense of duty, which makes us acknowledge that we are not to live for ourselves, and must be subdued and trained by all necessary means to submission and obedience and a true feeling of our own helplessness, requiring the help of Divine discipline, Because man’s way is not in himself he may naturally ask for wholesome correction. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 10:2-5 The helplessness of heathen gods a conclusive argument against them. How is the superstitious worship of nature and inanimate objects to be corrected? It is obvious that the attributes attached by the worshippers to the idols they worship are wholly foreign to them. It is ignorance, association, and the tendency to transfer subjective ideas to objects of sense, that have largely to do with this. The correction, therefore, must be furnished by a real analysis of the idol—a taking of it to pieces, and examining how it came into existence. But— I. LET US INQUIRE WHAT WORSHIP . It is evident that an impression must exist of the power of the object worshipped to help or to hurt. In some way men have associated it with the production of evil or good in human destiny. A sense of dependence is generated. Fear arises, to degenerate into vulgar terror or to refine itself into the sentiments of reverence and respect. A being greater than ourselves is needed to constitute a veritable God to the human heart. II. TESTED BY THIS, IDOLS AND SIGNS CANNOT BE GODS. 1. Careful observation will show that, whilst there may be agreement between certain changes of the heavenly bodies and the changes of weather, physical condition, etc; these are not producible as by a responsible will but according to the fixed laws of nature. 2. The stars of heaven and the idols of earth are alike constituted of inanimate matter. 3. In addition to this, the latter are wholly the creatures of man. 4. Neither the heavenly bodies nor the idols can help themselves.—M. The uniqueness of Jehovah. When other gods have been proved to be false, it is very important that this unlikeness of God to anything else should be established. His claim to attention and reverence is thereby held in judgment. I. IN WHAT JEHOVAH IN UNIQUE. 1. In idea. It is a wondrous conception—a being so great, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. As a conception it stands alone, commands respect, and invites reverent investigation. Such goodness with such power and wisdom! 2. In pretensions. (1) He claims our sole worship; (2) our highest and holiest service is his by right, and is unworthy of him; (3) our welfare and destiny are in his hands. 3. In works. There is nothing he has claimed to be which he has not made good in his works—creation, providence, grace. II. THIS OF GOD AS UNIQUE WITH THE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT, AND THE OF HISTORY AND NATURE. It has cast its spell over the mightiest intellects, and commanded the homage of the purest and best of men. In the worship of him whom it represents the highest longings are satisfied, and the most characteristically human sympathies and principles encouraged. The unity of nature; the mental principle that traces everything to a great First Cause; the manner in which the system of religion of which he is center and dominating principle explains this, and harmonizes the life of man with his surroundings;—are all indications that point to the same conclusion.—M. Grief borne that cannot be cured. I. AN OF THE POWER OF TRUE . His sorrow was intense. No one could understand or sympathize with it. Yet he is able to put it under and, although not removing it wholly, to bear it. This is alike removed from self-indulgence and stoicism. II. THE THAT HIM IN THIS WAY. He had to finish his task. It was practical, and could admit of no interruption. The sense of duty is, therefore, supreme—patience, submission. His grief is recognized as a personal stewardship. He is responsible for its expression and repression. It has a special relation to his own character and life. He regards it, therefore as sent from God, and not, therefore, to be hastily dismissed. How it enriched his nature, increased his personal usefulness, and enhanced the value of his writings to generations then unborn III. IS TESTED BY THE MANNER IN WHICH IT ENABLES MEN TO BEAR . The relation of our sorrows to our personal and spiritual salvation. The ministry of sorrow. The hopes of the future alleviating and directing into profitable reflection and effort. "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh," etc,—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 10:1-17 Idolatry. This section of Jeremiah’s prophecy is one of the notable passages in the. Scriptures concerning idolatry. It is like that in Psalms 115:1-18; and in Isaiah 40:1-31; Isaiah 44:1-28. It states or suggests much of great interest on this subject, and which deserves to be well considered by us. There is— I. THE FACT OF . See: 1. The multitudes of mankind who have avowed such worship. 2. The wide extent of the world’s inhabited countries over which it prevails. 3. Its permanence. It has lasted on from age to age, and has been handed down unchanged from generation to generation, so that the prophet could challenge his countrymen to tell of any nation which had ever changed their gods (cf. Jeremiah 2:11). And though vast portions of mankind have professedly thrown aside their idols, yet there are still more who have not even at the present day. Idolatry is the dominant religion of the world today, if numbers are considered, even as it was in the days of Jeremiah, and this notwithstanding— II. ITS . How scathing is the ridicule which the prophet pours out upon such monstrous worship! With what sarcasm he dwells upon the fact of their being mere wooden dolls, hideous as a scarecrow in a garden of cucumbers (cf. Exposition, Verse 5), chipped into such shape as they have by the hands of the men who worship them, decked with tawdry finery, must be nailed up lest they should tumble down, and "must needs be borne because they cannot go" (Verse 5), and are, of course, powerless either for evil or for good. And the prophet points out (Verse 8) that the absurdity is none lessened when the idols are of a more costly sort. They may be plated with silver and adorned with gold (Verse 9), and the workmanship may be of a much more elaborate and artistic kind. But it is all the same; the idol is nothing but a piece of wood, and that which is taught about them is "a doctrine of vanities," i.e. utterly false and absurd. But though idolatry be thus manifestly absurd, yet we are forced to admit the fact of— III. ITS STRANGE BUT STRONG . How else can not only the multitude of its votaries be accounted for, and their fidelity to it, but also the high rank and leading position of those nations who adhered to it? They were not mere barbarous savages who worshipped idols, but the foremost peoples of the world. The empires of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Greece, Rome, were all sworn upholders of idolatry (cf. Acts 17:1-34.). And today it is not the mere fetish-worshippers of the South Seas and Africa who are idolaters, but people such as the Chinese and Hindus—to say nothing of those who in Christian Churches bow down before tinsel-decked images or pictures of virgins, apostles, and saints, and, if they do not worship them, render them homage which can hardly be distinguished from worship. And a yet further proof of this attraction is that the well-instructed people of God, the seed of Israel, the possessors of the oracles of God, were forever falling into this sin. This entire chapter is one appeal and protest against their so doing. And we know how often in the past they had bowed down to idols. The command which stands at the head of the Decalogue, by its position there, by its fullness of expression, and by the severity of its sanctions, shows that the attraction of the idolatry which it denounced was indeed terrible, and therefore needed to be thus solemnly forbidden. And age after age the same command had to be repeated, and its violation sternly punished, notwithstanding that (Verse 16)" the Portion of Jacob" was "not like" these wretched idols—no indeed, but was the alone true God, the living God, the everlasting King (Verse 10). And yet there were needed this command and appeal; yes, and the consuming fire of God’s wrath which fell upon Israel in their captivity, before the taint of idolatry could be burnt out of them. Now, how was this? Note, therefore— IV. ITS REASON AND CAUSE. We cannot observe the tremendous fact of idolatry without being led to inquire into its origin. It is not sufficient to refer to the license it gave to the sensual nature of man; if such license were all that was desired, why couple it with some form of worship? The explanation must lie deeper than this. And that missionary would get on very poorly with any tolerably educated heathen if he were to assume that the idolater worshipped the hideous idol before which he bows ’himself down. He would tell you that he did nothing of the kind, but that which he worshipped was the unseen powers of which that idol was the symbol. No doubt idolatry degenerates into actual idol-worship. That with which something Divine has been so long associated comes to be regarded as itself Divine, and worshipped accordingly. And then idolatry has sunk down into fetishism. And it may be often seen where you would least expect it. But originally idolatry was not the worship of images. That worship may probably be thus explained. 1. Man cannot do without a deity of whom, in some form or other, he must be conscious, and whose presence he can realize so as to be able to look to him in time of need. Man cannot be a thorough atheist. His instinctive religiousness and tendency to worship cannot be ever kept under. For a while it may, but let heavy sorrow come, or let fear and dread fill his mind, and he will, he must, then call upon God. 2. But God will not reveal himself to us except to our spirits. He can be only spiritually discerned. Not through any of our senses, or through our intellect, but through the Spirit alone. "They that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." 3. But such coming to God involves purity of heart and life. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." And not only purity, but great spiritual effort. How difficult we find it to realize the presence of God, to hold down our minds, and to summon the energies of the will when we pray! "We know not how to pray as we ought." And permitted sin, defiling the conscience and destroying our confidence, will ever hinder spiritual worship. 4. But these imperative conditions of worship that it should be in spirit, and that it should be pure—men like not. Still, they must worship. What, then, is to be done? The idol is the solution. To avoid the strain and effort of the spirit, men have taken as a symbol some material thing—as the Israelites at Sinai took the golden calf—and so have sought to represent God to their minds. The idolater persuades himself he cannot know the Deity directly, and therefore will avail himself of the aid some sensuous object will afford. And such symbol he can carry about with him, and there is no need of purity of heart for such worship-it can be done without. What wonder, then, that man, averse to spiritual exercises and sensual-hearted, should have everywhere fled to idolatry, as in fact he has done? It is an endeavor to have the favor of God on cheaper terms than he demands; on conditions easier and more agreeable to our fallen nature. But in regard to the idolatries into which Judah and Jerusalem so often fell, there must be remembered not only the force of those universal causes of idolatry now considered, but the further force of powerful example all around them. Who were the mighty nations with whom they had most to do? Egypt, Assyria, Babylon. Tyre also, in her wealth and might, stood on their northern border, and yet others, whose fame reached them from afar, flourished and grew strong. But all these worshipped idols. Happiness, success, strength, and power seemed to be with these nations and not with the worshippers of Jehovah. And all this Judah saw and deeply observed, and at length came to believe that it was better for them to serve idols than to serve God (of. for proof of this, Jeremiah 44:17-19). For Israel to keep from idolatry was to swim against wind and tide, and to do so when wind and tide promised to bear them or to a condition of prosperity greater than they had ever known. And Jeremiah knew that in Babylon, where they were going, they would be exposed to the full force of this temptation. The devil of idolatry would come to them, and, pointing to the glory of Babylon, would say, "All these things will I give thee, if," etc. And to fortify them against this temptation was the object of the prophet’s earnest appeal. The tempter would suggest to them, "You have lost everything by worshipping God. Your conquerors, who hold you now in their power, and have destroyed your city, your temple, your land, have gained all their glory by worshipping their gods. Do you the same; learn their ways." V. ITS . These have been very terrible. With Israel God dealt very sternly. His direct vengeance came upon them again and again. It was hanging over them at this time as a dark thunder-cloud. But besides this, there were the natural results of such worship—results which were conspicuous in Judah and Jerusalem, and have ever been so in all idolatrous nations (cf. Verse 8). They became "brutish," "given over to vile affections" (cf. Romans 1:20-32). VI. ITS SURE BUT ONLY . Living faith in the living God—this alone, but this surely, would enable them to resist, not only the clamor and cravings of their lower nature, but also the seductive force of the seeming success which idolatry had won and they had lost. Only such faith would serve them, and hence, in Verses 6, 7, 10-13, 16, the prophet bids them remember the incomparable glory, majesty, and power of the Lord, the true God, the living God (Verse 10), and the terribleness of his wrath. He reminds them that God is Creator (Verse 12) and Preserver (Verse 13). He who formed the earth governs it still, and he is their God, and they are his people. He is their "Portion," and "Israel is the rod of his inheritance" (Verse 16). And this which would be Israel’s safeguard must be ours still. Let that living faith in the living God be lost, and at once resort will be bad to symbols and substitutes for God, which, though in form they may be far different from the idols of the heathen, yet in substance and effect are the same. VII. ITS PRESENT-DAY LESSONS. There are such, for the peril of Israel is our own. 1. For we also may—and many do—substitute reverence for those things which are associated with the worship of God for that worship in spirit and in truth which he alone cares for. Symbols, sacraments, creeds, Churches, religious observances,—any one of these may become an idol, that is, a substitute for God. They demand no strain and energy of our spiritual nature; the senses or the intellect can grasp them; and they make no such strenuous demand upon the surrender of the will, the yielding of the heart to God; they will let us do as we like, if not entirely yet far more than true spiritual worship ever will. And thus, though we be called Christians, we may be idolaters after all. 2. And let us guard against being deceived by the sanction which worldly success and present good so often lend to ways which God forbids. There was very much around Israel whose desirableness said to them, "Come with us, and we will do you good." Idolatry did seem to answer, whilst their religion did not. And the way of the wicked will often seem to prosper, whilst "waters of a full cup" of sorrow "are wrung out" to the people of God. The mighty bribe which Satan pressed upon our blessed Lord, if he would but renounce the way of the cross appointed for him by his Father, and take "all the kingdoms of this world and the glory of them "—that same bribe is pressed upon myriad souls still. 3. By constant and earnest worship of God let us cherish and keep alive in our hearts that living faith in the living God made known to us in the Lord Jesus Christ, which alone can, but surely will, meet and overcome all those temptations to idolatry, which now, as of old, beset every human soul.—C. The Portion of Jacob. By this expression, "the Portion of Jacob," is meant the Lord God. Once again it is met with in Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jeremiah 51:1-64.), where several of the verses of this chapter, our text amongst the rest, are repeated word for word. It is interesting to inquire the probable reason for this beautiful but unusual name being given to God. That God is the Portion of his people is a precious truth often declared. But this form of that precious truth is unusual, and may well lead us to ask why God is so called. And there can be little doubt, I think, that the motive of the prophet was to touch the hearts of those whom he addressed, and, if so it might be, to waken up again a longing after this "Portion of Jacob," which they were so fast letting go. There was an appealing power in this name, and for that reason it was probably chosen. The devout Jew loved to think and tell of God as the God of Jacob. You meet with the two names thus linked together perpetually in the psalms and often elsewhere. "The God of Jacob is our Refuge," "The Name of the God of Jacob defend thee," etc. Sometimes we read of God as the God of Abraham, and as the God of Isaac, but more commonly as the God of Jacob. Now, why is this? Is it not because that Jacob was more thoroughly the representative and father of the Jewish people than any other patriarch? Abraham was a great hero of the faith; Isaac’s career was too still and serene to be at all a pattern of their own; but Jacob, he was the typical Jew, both in the mingled good and evil of his character, and in the manifold trials and vicissitudes of his life. A sorrowful, struggling, and often sinful man was be, sore chastened of the Lord again and again, but never given over unto death; like the bush burning in the fire but never burnt, and coming out of God’s disciplines the better for having passed through them. In him the Jews saw their own character and career vividly portrayed, and they loved to feel that God was the God of Jacob; the God, therefore, whom they needed, and in whom he who was the truest representative of all their race found strength and solace and salvation. Thus this appellation here given to God, "the Portion of Jacob," was calculated to waken up many very tender and holy memories, and might lead, as was sorely needed, to a better mind towards God amongst those to whom the prophet spoke, and to a turning away from those idolatries by which now and for so long they had been sinning against God and destroying themselves. And the Portion of Jacob waits to be ours as well as his. Jacob was not only a representative Jew, but also a representative man. For men are but rarely cast in the heroic mould of Abraham, nor is their career quiet and uncheckered like that of Isaac. But in the sins and sorrows, the struggles and falls, the temptations and trials of Jacob they behold themselves. God by this name declares himself to be the God of, the Portion of, all sinful, sorrowing, struggling, and much-tried men everywhere and at all times; the God, therefore, that we need, the Helper we want. He is the God who is revealed to us in our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom there is neither Greek nor Jew, no distinction of any kind, but who is "the Savior of all men, specially of them that believe." If, then, this Portion of Jacob may be our Portion too, we shall consider with more interest what that Portion consists of, what it was that Jacob possessed in God. And to see this let us recall to our minds the records that are given of the patriarch’s career. As we study them we shall readily see what portion Jacob had in God, and how precious a possession it was. And— I. IN GOD HE FOUND GRACE. Was there ever a more wretched, guilty sinner than Jacob, when he fled away from his home in just fear of his outraged brother’s wrath? He had entrapped him once and again, inflicting on him grievous wrong; he had deceived his aged father; he had lied again and again in the basest and most hypocritical way. Altogether the man was odious in the sight of all; all our sympathies go over in a rush towards the frank if foolish Esau. Jacob’s character was at this time nothing less than repulsive. His mother was probably the only living soul who had either faith in or affection for him. He had deserved the reprobation of all And we cannot but believe that he must have felt very much of this, and that it was with a sense of deepest sin and shame he fled away to Padanaram, from his father’s and mother’s home. Man had cast him off; would not God do the like? For his sin had not been that of one who had never known God. God had been about him all his days; he had learnt to know, to fear, and desire God. He had been, as all knew, an avowedly religious man. His sin was therefore all the more unpardonable, as his guilt was all the greater. He is shown to us out on the wide stony track over the mountains which form the backbone of Palestine. The day has ended, the sun gone down; he is all alone, the night is gathering round him.. The ground is strewn with huge fragments of the bare, barren rock of which the mass of those mountains is composed. On the cold hard ground he lays himself down to rest, helpless, hopeless, forsaken, he might well think, both of God and man. But it was not so, for God came to him there. "In the visions of the night the rough stones formed themselves into a vast staircase reaching into the depth of the wide and open sky, which without any interruption of tent or tree was stretched ever the sleeper’s head. On the steps of that staircase were seen ascending and descending the messengers of God; and from above there came the Divine voice, which told the houseless wanderer that, little as he thought it, he had a Protector there and everywhere; that even in this bare and open thoroughfare, in no consecrated grove or cave, ’the Lord was in this place, though he knew it not.’ This was Bethel, the house of God, the gate of heaven." What the effect of this glorious vision must have been upon him we can hardly ever estimate. The nearest Scripture parallel probably would be the effect of the father’s gracious reception upon the returning prodigal. Somewhat akin to his feelings must have been those of Jacob at this time. For what he had seen and heard had shown him beyond doubt that God had not cast him off, had not dealt with him after his sins nor rewarded him according to his iniquities. It was like the kiss of the Divine forgiveness, the joy of conscious realization of God’s redeeming love. Yes; Jacob found this Portion in God, the fullness of forgiving love. But is not this the Portion we want, the God we need to know? Not one who will cast us away from his presence and throw us over when we have done wrong. If God were strict to mark iniquities, who of us could stand? But the God, the Portion of Jacob, meets our need; for as Jacob was sinful and often falling into sin, so are we. II. Another element of this portion which Jacob possessed in God was the AND MOST OF GOD which he was privileged to enjoy. How continually in his career are we met with instances of God’s appearing to him! And besides the distinctly recorded instances, the impression is left upon the mind that it was the constant privilege of Jacob to hold intercourse with God, to talk with him as a man talketh with his friend. Yes; the God of Jacob was One who was graciously willing to come near to his servant, and to be known by him as his God—a God near at hand, and not afar off. But who can estimate what these Divine communications did for Jacob?—how unspeakably valuable an element in his portion this was? What courage, what confidence, what bright hope, what strength of faith, it must have imparted to the patriarch’s mind! And such blessedness is assured to all believers. "I will come unto them, and will manifest myself unto them," said our Savior. "I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved." "God is our Refuge and Strength, a very present Help in trouble." It is because we cannot realize God’s presence, can in no way feel him near to us, that therefore our hearts fail us for fear and our souls are cast down within us. But he to whom God reveals himself as he did to Jacob has in that fact a safeguard and protection from fear such as naught else can afford. III. But another element in the portion which Jacob had in God was that of . Assuredly he was not left without chastisement; yea, it was a very scourging that was dealt out to him on account of his sins. Men are apt, both in reading the Bible and in observing the too frequent failures of godly men now, to look steadily at the sins of men like Jacob and David and others, and to wonder how such men can be regarded as God’s people at all; but they do not look on and observe how sorely they are punished for their faults, and how they in-this world find, beyond well-nigh all others, that "the way of transgressors is hard." Whoever else may seem to sin with impunity, the children of God may not and do not. No doubt Rebekah and Jacob thought they had done a very wise and clever thing when, by deceiving Isaac, they fraudulently obtained the blessing which belonged to Esau as the firstborn. But Rebekah, in the long years of melancholy bereavement of her favorite son—for she never saw him again after that day he fled from his home—had abundant leisure to see and repent of her folly and her sin. And Jacob, as he ate the bread of servitude and dwelt a stranger in a strange land, haunted with dread of Esau, was made to know that his trickery and fraud had borne him but a wretched harvest. The consuming fire of God’s holy love burnt fiercely on until this dross which was so mingled with the pure ore of Jacob’s faith was purged out of him. And this is ever an indispensable and a never-absent part of the portion of Jacob. The purging, purifying disciplines of God’s holy love we shall all have to submit to according to our need of them. And this should render the Portion of Jacob not less but more precious in our esteem. If we willingly submit to much pain and distress in order that the health of the body, which at best can last only for a few short years, may be secured, may we not much rather submit ourselves to whatever of painful discipline God may appoint in order to secure the health of our souls, which shall live forever? How dreadful would it be if God were not thus to purge and cleanse us; if he were to allow the cancerous growth of our sins to spread and grow until it had obtained such hold on us that death, eternal death, must follow! But this, out of fatherly love to us, he will never allow; and therefore Jacob was, and so we must be, held down to the suffering which his disciplines cause until their perfect work is done, and we are presented faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Oh, let us be more anxious that God’s will should be done in us than that his hand should be taken off from us. Never, never may he say concerning any one of us as he did concerning Ephraim, "He is joined to his idols: let him alone." IV. GOD’S AND CARE was a further element in the portion of Jacob. How God watched over him! how truly Jacob could say, "He knoweth the way that I take!" Never was there any man to whom these words were more appropriate than they were to him. With what constant interest did God appear to mark all the way by which Jacob had to go! His eye was never off him, his hand never withdrawn, his help never wanting when needed. Even when Jacob did not dream that God was near him, he was so in fact. So that he had to confess as at Bethel, "Surely God is in this place, though I knew it not." Hearken how he speaks of God when blessing the sons of Joseph. He tells of him as "the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil." Such was his confession of that never-failing care, that incessant interest with which the Lord God had watched over every stage of his life’s journey. How all his very steps had been ordered by the Lord! This is another characteristic of the portion which Jacob had in God. And must not that man be blessed who consciously realizes that he has this God for his Help? To have our lives made God’s care, our interests his concern, to have his angels evermore keeping watch and ward over us, encamping round about us to deliver us,—this is another blessed element in the portion of Jacob and of all like him. V. FOR "THE OF THE SAINTS IN LIGHT." Gradually, step by step, sometimes with seeming retrogression, but ever advancing on the whole, Jacob was lifted up from the low level of his former spiritual life, and ceased to be any longer Jacob, and became Israel. Such elevation, such meetness for "the inheritance of the saints," was and ever is part of the portion of Jacob, and a most blessed part it is. And now, IN , let us ask, Is there such a Portion anywhere else. Our text affirms, "The Portion of Jacob is not like them." The prophet is speaking of the wretched idols before whom his countrymen were so prone to bow down. It seems wonderful that any should have ever thought that the God of Jacob was like them. Like them! when even to think of them was to despise them with utter contempt. What a contrast to him, whom mind, and heart, and will, body, soul, and spirit could never sufficiently adore! It seemed monstrous that any should substitute for him those wretched idols, upon whom the prophet, in the preceding part of this chapter, pours forth his bitter scorn. But he means by the assertion we have been considering to declare that the Portion of Jacob is an incomparable Portion. None can be put beside, still less put in the place of him. And this is a truth for today. We ask again the question, "Is there such a Portion anywhere else?" Oh that they whom the psalmist calls "men of the world," and of whom he says, "they have their portion in this life," would compare the two—Jacob’s and their own! Ah! you who have not the Portion of Jacob, we allow that you may have very much that is bright and fair. God may fill your veins with health, your coffers with gold, your houses with all luxury, your gardens with flowers, your fields with fruits, and your life with comfort and outward peace; but you are like those trees which in the winter-time are called Christmas-trees. "One feels a kind of pang at the first sight of such trees. No doubt it is beautiful in its way, with the little lights twinkling among the branches, and the sweet gifts of affection hanging from every twig. But the tree itself, are you not sorry for it?—rooted no longer, growing no more, no more circulation of the living sap, no sweet discoursing by its means between air and soil, between soil and air. The last waves of its life are sinking, and the more you hang upon it and the more you gather round it the faster it will die" (Dr. Raleigh). And if we have not the Portion of Jacob, we are like one of these trees. Loaded it may be with all manner of pleasant things, and surrounded with affection, but dying all the while. But "the Portion of Jacob is not like them "—one that will abandon you at the close of your life, or maybe long before, and leave you helpless and forlorn. Oh no; but then, when "heart and flesh fail," God will be "the Strength of your heart," and your "Portion forevermore." That is the portion of Jacob, and oh may God grant that it may be yours and mine, and that of all we love! Amen.—C. Jeremiah 10:17, Jeremiah 10:18 Wherefore God doth judge the world. It is not of the world at large, but of Judah and Jerusalem, that the prophet is here speaking. But nevertheless the judgments of God and the design wherewith they were sent, though having reference only to one people, are true examples of all like judgments, whenever, wherever, and however they come. Therefore note— I. THE . The people are to be driven forth into exile and captivity. The whole book tells of their sorrows. Jeremiah’s prophecy is one long denunciation of the wrath of God about to come on the guilty land. He was sent to declare this in the hope that those to whom he spoke might yet turn to the Lord and live; like Noah, that "preacher of righteousness" who warned the godless of his day of the judgment that was coming upon them. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ The superscription in Jeremiah 11:1 evidently belongs to the three chapters 11-13, though Jeremiah 11:1-23 and Jeremiah 12:1-17 are more closely connected with each other than with Jeremiah 13:1-27. To which period the group of prophecies belongs—whether to the reign of Josiah, or of Jehoiakim, or of Jehoiachin, or to various periods, is a matter of dispute. It contains at any rate one passage (Jeremiah 12:7-17) which was almost certainly put in by a later editor. It is doubtless Jeremiah’s work, but seems out of place here (see below, on this passage). Naegelsbach’s analysis of Jer 11:1-23; Jeremiah 12:1-17, is striking. The fundamental idea of the entire discourse he assumes to be the antithesis of covenant and conspiracy, and proceeds thus: 1. A reminder of the renewal of the covenant between Jehovah and the people lately made under Josiah (Jeremiah 11:1-8). 2. First stage of the conspiracy; all Israel, instead of keeping the covenant with Jehovah, conspires against him (Jeremiah 11:9-13). 3. The punishment of the conspiracy is an irreversible, severe judgment (Jeremiah 11:14 17). 4. Second stage of the conspiracy; the plot of the men of Anathoth (Jeremiah 11:18-23). 5. Third stage; the plot in the prophet’s own family (Jeremiah 11:1-6). Naegelsbaeh, however, with violence to exegesis, continues thus (assuming the homogeneousness of Jer 12:1-6 and Jeremiah 12:7-17): 6. Israel’s conspiracy punished by a conspiracy of the neighboring peoples against Israel (Jeremiah 12:7-13). 7. Removal of all antitheses by the final union of all in the Lord (Jeremiah 12:14-17). The opening verses of this chapter give us (as we have seen already in the general Introduction) a most vivid idea of the activity of Jeremiah in propagating a knowledge of the Deuteronomic Torah (i.e. the Divine "directions" with regard to the regulation of life). It may even be inferred from verse 6 that he made a missionary circuit in Judah, with the view of influencing the masses. It was, in fact, only the "elders" of the different towns who had taken part in the solemn ceremony described in 2 Kings 23:1-37. "The words of this covenant" had been ratified by the national representatives; but it required a prophetic enthusiasm to carry them home to the hearts of the people. Hence it was that "the word came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah," etc. Jeremiah 11:2 Hear ye … and speak. To whom is this addressed? To Jeremiah and his disciples. The Septuagint, indeed, followed by Hitzig and Graf, read (instead of "speak ye"), "Thou shalt speak unto them," adopting one different vowel-point. But this involves an inconsistency with the first verb, and is not at all necessary, for why should we suppose Jeremiah to have been completely isolated? If the prophet had well-wishers even among the princes, it stands to reason that he must have had more pronounced adherents in the classes less influenced by the prejudices of society. Jeremiah 11:3 Here begins a series of direct references to Deuteronomy, determining the date of the discourse. Cursed be the man, etc.; alluding to Deuteronomy 27:26. Nothing, perhaps, is so injurious to a correct understanding of the Scriptures as persistently rendering a Hebrew or Greek word by the same supposed equivalent. "Covenant" is no doubt appropriate in some passages (e.g. Joshua 9:6; 1 Samuel 18:3), because an "appointment" between men, if equals, involves "giving and taking;" but is inadequate when the parties are not equals, and most of all when the superior party is the Divine Being. In these cases we must clearly recur to the original meaning of" appointment" or "ordinance;" and we have one such case here (see also Hosea 6:7; 2 Kings 11:4; Job 31:1.; Psalms 105:10; but not Genesis 17:9). Διαθήκη (1, an arrangement; 2, a will or testament; 3, a covenant) is to some extent parallel (see Cremer’s ’Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament Greek,’ s.v.). Jeremiah 11:4 From the iron furnace; rather, out of the iron furnace. It is Egypt which is thus described (comp. Deuteronomy 4:20; 1 Kings 8:51). The oppression in Egypt was like the furnace in which iron is rendered malleable by heat (so Isaiah 48:10, "I have tested thee in the furnace of affliction"). Jeremiah 11:5 The oath which I have sworn (so Deuteronomy 7:8; comp. Deuteronomy 8:18). As it is this day; a Deuteronomic formula (see e.g. Deuteronomy 2:30; Deuteronomy 4:20), appealing to the test of experience. So be it, O Lord. The-Hebrew has "Amen, Jehovah." "Amen" equivalent to "true, faithful, trustworthy;" or used in this way as a formula of asseveration, "may it be verified by facts"; comp. Jeremiah 28:6. Jeremiah 11:6 Proclaim all these words, etc. This command probably points to a missionary circuit of Jeremiah, as suggested above. Others render, "read aloud"; but Jeremiah receives the direction to "proclaim" or "cry" elsewhere (Jeremiah 2:2; Jeremiah 3:12, etc.). So Gabriel, in the Koran, directs Mohammed to "cry," i.e. to proclaim or preach. Jeremiah 11:7, Jeremiah 11:8 A condensation of Jer 7:23-26. Imagination; rather, stubbornness (see on Jeremiah 3:17). I will bring; rather, I brought. All the words. "Word" sometimes means "thing spoken of;" here, for instance, the curses specified in Deuteronomy 28:1-68. Jeremiah 11:9 A conspiracy. The language is figurative. Jehovah is the King of Israel; to commit sin is "to rebel against" him (Authorized Version sometimes weakens this into "transgress’); and to encourage one another in wickedness is "to conspire against" God. We need not suppose any open combination against spiritual religion; it is enough if" the spirit of the time" was directly contrary to it. Jeremiah 11:10 Their forefathers. The Hebrew has "their fathers, the former ones." The allusion is to the sins of the Israelites in the wilderness, and in Canaan under the judges. The prophets are constantly pointing their hearers back to those early times, either for warning (as here) or for encouragement (Jeremiah 2:1; Hosea 2:15; Isaiah 1:26; Isaiah 63:11, Isaiah 63:13). And they went after; rather and they (themselves) have gone after. The pronoun is expressed in the Hebrew, to indicate that the prophet’s contemporaries are now the subject. Jeremiah 11:11-13 A summary of Jeremiah’s usual prophecies (comp. Jeremiah 4:6; Jeremiah 6:19; Jeremiah 19:3; and especially Jeremiah 2:28; Jeremiah 7:17). Jeremiah 11:13 That shameful thing; rather, the shame. The name Baal is changed, to mark the abhorrence of the speaker, into Bosheth (see Jeremiah 3:24). Manasseh, we are told, "raised up altars for Baal" (2 Kings 21:3). Jeremiah 11:14 Therefore pray not thou, etc. First Jehovah declares that even the intercession of the prophet will be of no avail (see on Jeremiah 7:16), and then that the belated supplications of the people themselves will be ineffectual to avert the calamity. For their trouble. The four most ancient versions, and some of the extant Hebrew manuscripts, read "in the time of their trouble" (as in Jeremiah 11:12). The confusion between the two readings is easy, and the reading of the versions is to be preferred. Jeremiah 11:15 What hath my beloved to do in mine house? "My beloved" is evidently the Jewish people, who in Jeremiah 12:7 is called "the dearly beloved of my soul." The Divine Speaker expresses surprise that one who has now so poor a claim to the title of "my beloved" should appear in his holy house. It is spoken in the spirit of that earlier revelation of Isaiah, "When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample my courts?" (Isaiah 1:12). The Jews, it would seem, came to the temple to pray, but their prayer is not accepted, because it is associated with unholy practices. They thought by formal prayers and sacrifices to pay off their debt to the Deity, and so be free to go on with their old devices (as in Jeremiah 7:15). This seems the best view of the difficult words which follow, but it implies a correction of the certainly ungrammatical rendering of the Authorized Version—seeing she hath wrought lewdness—into to work the wicked device. But here begins the most obscure part of the verse. With many cannot be right; for "with" has nothing corresponding to it in the Hebrew; the word in the original simply means "the many," and as it is immediately followed by a noun in the singular with "and," and a verb in the plural, it is plain that it must (if correctly read) be part of the subject of the latter. The Septuagint, however, has a different reading, which may very well be correct, and out of which the received Hebrew reading may easily have grown—"Can vows and holy [i.e. hallowed] flesh remove from thee thy wickedness [or perhaps, ’thy calamity’]?" The connection thus becomes easy. "Vows and holy flesh" (i.e. the flesh of sacrifices, Haggai 2:12), naturally go together; the only other possible way of taking the passage (assuming the correctness of the ’received text)—" the great ones and the holy flesh shall pass away from thee"—is obviously inadmissible. "Vows and sacrifices," however, precisely express the true association of ideas. A man made a vow, and he generally paid it in the form of a sacrifice. But, inquires Jehovah, "Can such vows and such Victims please God, and expiate thy wickedness [or, ’avert thy calamity’]? Then thou mightest rejoice." The latter words are not, indeed, more exact than those of the Authorized Version, but are in accordance with grammar, and suit the preceding question. It is not certain, however, that the text is right here; the Septuagint has ἢτούτοιςδιαφεύξῃ. (Notice that Keil, conservative to a fault in matters affecting the received text, agrees with the above correction, which is also adopted by Ewald, Hitzig, and Graf.) Jeremiah 11:16 A green olive tree. The olive tree is "one of the most thriving, hardy, and productive trees in the East" (it was the first tree elected king in the parable, Judges 9:8), and with its "foliage of a deep, perennial green," furnishes a striking symbol of healthful beauty. A psalmist, speaking in the character of the typical righteous man, compares himself to a "green olive tree in the house of God’ (Psalms 52:8). The word rendered "green "is one of those which are the despair of translators (see on Jeremiah 2:20). It gives a picture in itself. We seem to see a flourishing, sappy tree, with abundance of pliant, gracefully moving, perennially green branches. With the noise of a great tumult. Either the tumult of the melee of battle is meant (the same uncommon word is used with such a reference in Ezekiel 1:24) or the crashing of thunder. "With a rushing mighty sound" would be a more forcible rendering. (For the concluding figure, comp. Ezekiel 31:12.) He hath kindled fire, etc. There is no occasion to explain this as merely the perfect of prophetic certitude. It was literally true that the fire of war had already devastated the fairest portion of the Holy Land. Israel (expressly referred to in Jeremiah 11:17) had already been carried into captivity, and Judah was, to the prophetic eye, as good as destroyed. Here, no doubt, that wonderful perfect of faith does come in. Jeremiah 11:17 The Lord of hosts, that planted thee; He who "planted" Israel (comp. Jeremiah 2:21) could also uproot it; and though, for the sake of his covenant with Abraham, he would not destroy it utterly, yet he could not but interpose as Judge to punish its manifold transgressions. Israel and Judah are mentioned together; for the prophets, so far as we know them from their works, did not recognize the separation of the two kingdoms. Against themselves; rather, for themselves; i.e. to please themselves. Jeremiah 11:18 Here, as Naegelsbaeh puts it, begins the second stage of the "conspiracy." Hath given me knowledge, etc.; rather, gave me knowledge, and I knew it. Then; i.e. when I was in utter unconsciousness. Jeremiah had no presentiment of the murderous purpose of his townsmen, till by some "special providence" it came to his knowledge. Jeremiah 11:19 Like a lamb or an ox; rather, as a mild lamb (as one of the old translations has it), equivalent to quasi agaus mansuetus (Vulgate). Jeremiah says that he was as unsuspicious as a tame lamb which has grown up with its master’s family (2 Samuel 12:3). The Arabs use the very same adjective in a slightly different form as an epithet of such tame lambs. It is impossible to help thinking of that "Servant of Jehovah," of whom Jeremiah was a type, who is said, in prophetic vision, to have been "brought as a lamb to the slaughter," and "not to have opened his mouth "(Isaiah 53:7). The tree with the fruit thereof; apparently a proverbial expression. Giving the words their ordinary meaning, the rendering would be, the tree with its bread (b’lakhmo). Our translators appear to have thought that the transition from "bread" to "fruit" was as justifiable in Hebrew as it is in Arabic (in which ’uklu means properly "food" in general, but also "date fruit"). Fruit, however, was not such an important article of food with the Israelites as with the Arabs; and we must either, with Hitzig, suppose a letter to have intruded into the text, and render (from a corrected reading b’lekho), with its sap (comp. Deuteronomy 34:7, Hebrew), or else appeal to the etymology of lekhem (commonly "bread"), which is "firm, consistent," and render, the tree with its pith (Hence lahmu in Arabic means "flesh," and luhmatu, "a woof"). It is no credit to St. Jerome that he followed the absurd version of the Septuagint, "Let us put wood into his bread." Jeremiah 11:20 (Parallel passage, Jeremiah 20:12.) Unto thee have I revealed my cause. This is the literal rendering, but a comparison of Psa 22:8 and Proverbs 16:3, suggests that the In meaning is Upon thee have I rolled my cause." This expression is certainly not only more forcible, but more appropriate than the other. Jeremiah’s cause was not a secret which needed to be "revealed" to Jehovah, but a burden too heavy for so finely strung a nature to bear alone. Grammatically, the preferred meaning is quite justifiable, though less obvious, as there are other instances of an interchange of meanings between two classes of verbs (see on Jeremiah 33:6). Jeremiah 11:21 Prophesy not, etc. The men of Anathoth tried first of all to effect their object by threatening. In the name of the Lord should be rather, by the name, etc. The phrase is exactly parallel to Psalms 55:1, "Save me, O God, by thy Name, and judge me by thy strength." The Name of God is equivalent to his revealed presence or personality. Baal’s prophets prophesied "by Baal" (Jeremiah 2:8), i.e. by an impulse thought to proceed from Baal; Jehovah’s by the consciousness of his revealed presence. Jeremiah 11:22 Their sons and their daughters, etc. The lot of the weaker sex and of the male children under the military age is contrasted with that of the young warriors. Jeremiah 11:23 Even the year, etc.; better, in the year of their visitation (or, punishment), taking the accusative as that of time. Jeremiah 11:1-8 The ancient covenant. I. THE OBJECT OF THE . This was to secure obedience. No covenant was required on God’s side, since he is ever willing to bless and changeless in his beneficence. But for the sake of men’s faith and to secure their allegiance God graciously condescended to enter into covenant bonds. It is therefore foolish to claim the fulfillment of God’s promises irrespective of our conduct. They are covenant promises—i.e. conditional and assured on certain terms. If we break the terms we can no longer expect the fulfillment of the promises. II. THE OF THE . 1. The obligations of gratitude. The past mercies of God are recited; e.g. deliverance from Egypt. 2. Promises of future good. If faithful, Israel was to take possession of the "land flowing with milk and honey." 3. Threats in ease of disobedience. If they proved unfaithful, the people were to find the land of premise full of troubles, and ultimately to be expelled from it (Deuteronomy 28:15). 4. Constant Divine pleading. The covenant could not lapse through forgetfulness. Prophets were sent again and again to urge its claims on the people (Jeremiah 11:7). III. THE OF THE . This was an ancient covenant; yet it was still binding. God was still fulfilling his part in blessing his people. The obligation was not such as time could affect. What is inherently right once is right eternally. Truth does not lose force with age. The Bible contains covenants which age has made venerable, but not feeble. Its commands and promises are eternally fresh and living, and when the merely local and personal exterior is laid aside, the essence of them applies as much to us as to the Jews. The appetite for mere novelty which characterizes much intellectual inquiry in the present day, as it did that of the Athenians of St. Paul’s age (Acts 17:21), ignores the fact that the most important question is "What is true?" not "What is new?" Old familiar truths must be noticed that they may be remembered and practiced, though of course not to the exclusion of new truths. The New Testament does not abolish but perfects the spiritual truth of the old. It contains that and more. IV. THE BREACH OF THE . The people are accused of disobeying the precepts of the covenant (Jeremiah 11:8). Disobedience involved both the loss of the promised blessings and the execution of the threatened curses. They who accept special privileges incur special obligations. They who enter into a Divine covenant will be judged by the terms of that covenant. Christians will be judged, not simply by the common law of righteousness in conscience and nature, but by the special requirements of the New Testament, i.e. of the covenant of Christianity. Idolatry confounded. I. TROUBLE IS A FOR TRUTH. The idolatry that is played with in prosperity is found to be useless in adversity. The Jews had regarded mere stocks and stones as their gods. But in the season of real distress they turn from these and cry to the true God to arise and save them. 1. The ground of confidence which gives way in the hour of need is worse than useless; it is treacherous and ruinous, and the discovery of its true character confounds those who have relied on it. A religion which will not stand the test of trouble is a mockery. 2. Trouble reveals the vanity of an insincere faith. In trouble we need the true, the real; all false religiousness, all playing at devotion, breaks down then. If our religion has been vain and ill founded, we are then discovered and made to be ashamed, "like a thief when he is found" (Jeremiah 2:26). 3. There is a deep instinct which cries out for the true God in the hour of distress. Old memories then revive, scouted faiths reassert themselves, the first cry of the child to his Parent breaks out again involuntarily, and the godless man in his agony groans, "O my God!" II. IF WE HAVE GOD IN WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO EXPECT HIM TO SAVE US IN . The religion which we accept in our general life is that to which we should justly look in our hours of need. Here is the natural irony of religion. A man is punished by being left to the protection of the creed of his own choice. It must always be remembered, indeed, that whenever we truly repent and seek God spiritually he will receive and save us (Hosea 6:1). But the mere cry for God’s help in distress is not repentance, nor is it a spiritual return to God. It is a selfish utterance, and may be made while the heart is still far from God, and the sins which drove us from him still unrepented of. It would be neither just nor good for us that God should respond to so degraded and unspiritual a prayer. III. ALL GROUNDS OF EXCEPT FAITH IN THE TRUE GOD PROVE FALSE AT THE TEST OF TROUBLE. This is the result of applying the touchstone of trouble; this is the lesson of bitter experience when men are left to cry to their false gods in the hour of need. 1. If there were any worth in these grounds of confidence it would be seen then. (1) They should answer to men’s requirements, for men have made them to suit their own wishes. (2) They should be sufficient in number for help. "According to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah." How many religious refuges have men made for themselves! Shall all these human inventions fail? (3) They should be sufficiently various to afford the required help. Every city had its peculiar cult. The human notions of religion are infinitely various. Cannot a man find one to meet his need out of the whole catalogue of creeds? 2. Experience famishes the answer to these questions, and shows the certain failure of all the creeds of human invention. They must fail: (1) Because they are human. How can the god whom a man has made save him? (2) Because they are commonly materialistic—the stock and stone of the Hebrew idolatry find their counterparts in the materialistic philosophy and schemes of merely physical amelioration of modern men. (3) Because they are numerous, and therefore none of infinite value, but all limited in range. (4) Because they are reflections of our own thought, not higher influences to lead that thought. Every city had its god embodying the ideas of the city. Men have their separate creeds corresponding to their inclinations and prejudices. Such creeds afford no refuge when deeper questions open up in the dark nights of distress. Jeremiah 11:16, Jeremiah 11:17 The olive struck by lightning. Under the image of an olive tree consumed by lightning fires the prophet portrays the devastation which will come upon Israel in spite of former prosperity. This is a type of the similar doom which may overtake the happy and prosperous. I. THE HAPPY . 1. The olive tree was green—perennially green. Prosperity may be constant and unbroken before the descent of judgment. 2. It was fair. Prosperity may come with much honor and gladness. 3. It was fruitful. The life may abound in good to others. 4. It was planted by God. (Jeremiah 11:17.) All good comes from him, and it is a great good to be established in our way of life by God’s will and help. Yet none of these good things sufficed to avert a terrible doom. Present prosperity is no security against future adversity. The goodness of the past will be no safeguard against the punishment of sins of later years. The long-tried, honored, useful man who falls into sin at the end of his life must not delude himself into supposing that his earlier career will shield him from all troublesome consequences. II. THE FEARFUL . The green and fair and fruitful tree was struck in the thunderstorm, and its branches consumed with fire. 1. The devastation was from above—by fire from heaven. God who planted also destroyed. Punishment is sent by God. 2. It was sudden. The lightning flash is instantaneous. The terrible ruin of sin may fall in a moment. 3. It was irresistible. The tree is passive and helpless in the storm. Its very magnitude only invites the blow which will destroy it. 4. It was destructive. Fire consumed the branches. The fires of judgment are consuming fires—they burn to destroy (Matthew 3:12). Jeremiah 11:18-23 The conspiracy of Anathoth. This incident may afford us some lessens on the subject of persecution, in its occasion and character, the behavior of the persecuted and the righteous action of God in dealing with it. I. THE OF THE A COMMON CAUSE OF . Jeremiah had been proclaiming unwelcome truths. He had exposed sin and threatened judgment. Such preaching was unpopular, and the men of Anathoth sought to stay it by force (Verse 21). 1. The faithful preacher must expect to meet with opposition. Unpopularity is no proof of incompetence (i.e. if it arises from the subject-matter of the teaching, not from the style of the teacher). Christ, who began his mission with public favor, ended it amidst universal contumely. 2. The most needful truth is the most unwelcome. The smooth words of false prophets of "peace" are acceptable. But they are narcotics given to men who should be roused to flee for their lives. The only hope for those who are spending wicked lives is in their being awakened to a sense of guilt and danger. The effort to awaken them, however, stirs their resentment. II. THE CONDUCT OF THE REVEALS THE TRUE OF . 1. It is foolish. Truth cannot be destroyed by suppressing the voice that utters it. Some day it will declare itself in spite of all hindrance. 2. It is unfair. Words are met by force. To silence a voice is not to reply to it. Violent opposition to the spread of ideas is a tacit confession of inability to meet them on their own ground of reason, a virtual confession of their force of truth. 3. It is destructive of social order. Jeremiah’s fellow-townsmen conspire against him. The persecuting spirit divides nearest neighbors. It is the greatest enemy to brotherly charity (Matthew 10:36). 4. It is treacherous. While Jeremiah was ignorant of their enmity—led like a lamb to the slaughter—the men of Anathoth were plotting against his life. 5. It is murderous. The tree is to be destroyed with its fruit. Professing a good purpose, persecution is invariably possessed by a cruel spirit. 6. It covers enmity to God in opposition to his servants. Jeremiah was bidden no longer to prophesy in the Name of Jehovah. It could not be denied that he spoke with Divine authority. Therefore to silence him was to refuse to receive the message of God. III. THE OF THE VICTIM THE RIGHT COURSE TO BE PURSUED UNDER . I. Not to desist from the duty which provoked the persecution. Jeremiah met with little but opposition throughout his long life; yet he remained faithful to the last. 2. Not to rashly embrace danger. Jeremiah sought deliverance. It is childish to court persecution. 3. To seek help from God. Jeremiah at once committed his cause to God. God alone (1) can help; (2) has the authority to execute vengeance (Romans 12:19); (3) judges righteously, impartially, without the bias of passion; and (4) discerns the motive of men and the degrees of guilt trying "the reins and the heart." IV. THE ACTION OF GOD THE OF DIVINE . 1. Punishment must follow such wickedness. Though it is delayed, the vengeance must come. 2. This punishment will be severe. "The young men shall die by the sword," the children by famine. Fearful sin must bring fearful penalties. 3. This punishment will be without exception. No remnant of the men of Anathoth will be spared. All are guilty; all must suffer. There is a popular impression to the effect that the number of sinful persons lessens the blame attaching to each individual. It is a mistake. If all sin, each will be punished individually as much as if one only were guilty. No conspiracy of men, however widespread, however subtle in schemes, however violent in action, can defeat the ends of Divine justice (Proverbs 11:21). BY A.F. MUIR The response of the spiritual conscience to the words of God. "And I said, Amen, Jehovah." This expression, uttered by Jeremiah with apparent originality, is really an echo of Deu 27:15. There it expresses the agreement of the whole congregation of Israel: here it is the word of one mouth. The adoption by the prophet, at this juncture, of words so solemnly significant is very impressive. One stands sponsor for many; a righteous and earnest man for a nation of callous transgressors. And is it not often so. What, indeed, would our poor, erring, depraved humanity do with itself were it not for these individual, mediatorial spirits, whom God raises up from time to time through the ages to interpret his will and to keep it in reverent obedience and spiritual trust for them who as yet are ignorant and alienated from his life? The service such men render is of vast importance and but imperfectly understood. I. ONLY THOSE WHO ARE IN WITH GOD CAN TRULY AND APPROVE HIS . The commandment is intelligently alluded to, and its penalty stated. The correspondence of Judah’s condition with that anticipated in the original passage is pregnantly suggested. All the more so that the transgressors did not feel or admit the correspondence. The prophet alone could say, "Amen;" but he said it emphatically and representatively. How many of God’s people find a similar difficulty in acquiescing in his dispensations? They do not examine themselves, or their conscience is not sufficiently awakened, and consequently they fail to recognize his judgments and to profit by them as was intended. II. GOD RAISES UP THOSE WHO SHALL RESPOND TO HIS VOICE AND HIS WITH THE WORLD. The prophets were not only mouthpieces of Divine truth; they were saints whose consecration was essential to their spiritual discernment and the due exercise of their functions. The people were for the most part spiritually asleep or dead. In their spiritual and moral constitution a medium was provided sensitive enough for the perception and transmission of Divine communications. It was no exaggeration to speak of these messengers as "prepared, ordained, and sent." They were specially raised up for this duty of sustaining the conscious relations of God with his people. This was a dim foreshadowing of the Messiah-consciousness. In a certain sense the prophet repented, believed, obeyed, for the whole people, even as the high priest made solemn offering once a year for the sins of the whole people. Not that this spiritual condition of the inspired seer and saint could be effectual for individual salvation of others; but that it exercised a certain representative and general influence. The prophet held the truth as it were in trust for others, continually and energetically sought to mediate between Jehovah and Israel, and urged the people to acts of repentance and obedience. With each prophet it might be said that a new opportunity was given, a new day of grace afforded, for the return of the apostate nation to its primitive covenant relations with God. And in the succession of the prophets a guarantee was given of the enduring character of those relations, even when the covenant itself was flagrantly broken and practically set aside by those whom it chiefly concerned. The essential point was that there should be no age without some person or persons who should sustain a conscious spiritual connection with Jehovah for themselves and their race. II. THAT WHICH THE FEW HAVE AND SHALL BECOME THE COMMON OF ALL. The prophet was for the most part a solitary and a lonely man. This isolation of his lot was his grief, but the persistence of the succession of the prophets proved the unswerving purpose of God ultimately to save, not only Israel, but the world. There might be from time to time but one or two who could say "Amen" to his judgments, but some day the people as a whole would themselves endorse and approve them. And soon in the "fullness of the time" Christ would come, who is the faithful and true Witness, the "Amen" of all the Divine Law and promise. In his world-wide reign as our Representative, Prophet, Priest, and King, through faith in him, the race will be constituted into a new Israel, to keep the word of God. In this transfer of influence the law is that the communication shall proceed from the higher consciousness and consecration to the lower; the travail for souls, etc; being but a detailed sponsorship, one day to be done away with, when "all should know him, from the least even to the greatest."—M. Spiritual atavism; or, the sins of the fathers. There are punishments and consequences of ancestral sin which reach even to descendants of remote generations. This seems to imply a descent of responsibility—a subject full of difficulty and mystery. The unity of the race in its sin and misery is, with St. Paul, an argument for the probability and even certainty of its unity in the grace of salvation. The doctrine of original sin is treated in Scripture as antecedent to the doctrine of salvation by faith in Christ. In connection with this subject, notice— I. THE OF . In modem times the laws of heredity have been scientifically investigated, and startling results brought to light. Tendency can be traced from parent to child in gradually deepening lines and more confirmed manifestations. Spirit as well as body acknowledges this law, and, whether in health or disease, its operation is now placed beyond all dispute. But another law or modification of this law is perceived working alongside of it, namely, the law of atavism, in which not the general tendency towards improvement or degeneration is observed, but an apparently arbitrary and capricious recurrence of ancestral peculiarities that had long disappeared from the race. Of this nature seems to have been the present sin of Israel. It was not in the line of continuous succession, but a recurrent phase after intervals of normal and religious life. Thus it showed that the power of evil had only been "scotched," not killed; and that it was ready on the slightest provocation to assert itself in the rankest forms. How much that is mysterious in the conduct of individuals can be traced to the influence of such a principle! The two selves of every man represent influences that have been at work in his progenitors from remotest time. II. HOW SOLEMN THE OF PARENTS. No care can be too great in relation to those we bring into the world. Our own nature and character should be diligently cultivated, and the utmost attention paid to parental example, family influence, and educative circumstance in their upbringing. It will not do to ignore the fact that, from generation to generation, there are transmitted both physical and spiritual tendencies which have largely to do with the formation of character and the determining of destiny. For good or for evil, the parent exercises a despotic influence upon all whom he brings into the world. III. YET THE OF THE REMAINS. In the sad entail of evil there are many bright instances of bold and pronounced departure from ancestral sin. The individual is not wholly subject to predetermining influences. If so, moral freedom would be but an illusion. A power is required to break the tyranny of inherited sin, and this is provided in the grace of God. The gospel is the development of this grace as an effectual and adequate means of salvation.—M. The staying of intercession. The desperate condition of Israel is shown in this prohibition. How great must have been the sin of God’s people, ere prayer on their behalf could have been forbidden! What could have been the reason of this? I. WHILST SIN IS IS THERE CAN BE NO REMOVAL OF DIVINE . The righteousness of God has, after long-suffering mercy, brought these upon his people. The wisdom of their imposition is infallible; and they spring from the depths of an inscrutable, infinite love. Whilst, therefore, the condition which involved their imposition is unchanged, it would be presumption to suggest their removal. It is rather for the righteous conscience of saints sorrowfully to approve the action of the Supreme Magistrate, as he draws his cordon round the transgressor and compels him to capitulate. The real calamity in connection with these judgments is the spiritual wrongness which necessitates them, and not the physical conditions through which they are executed. Most men suppose that if the pain or inconvenience is removed the evil is at an end, and the question between them and God settled. They still go on to sin. Impunity confirms and hardens them in their transgression. We have not learned the real lesson of calamity until we have detected its moral sources or occasions, and sought to rectify them before God. II. DIVINE MAY IN CERTAIN BE GREATER MERCIES THAN THE REMOVAL OF THEM WOULD BE. When judgment continues to rest upon the transgressor, it is not mere vengeance which is represented, but mercy working on the lines of severity. It is God’s emphasis upon his commandment which must be heeded. The blessing that is latent in it waits the appearance of a repentance not to be repented of. Like pent-up waters, it will flow in an overwhelming stream when once the barriers of law have been removed by the sinner’s return to God.—M. Perils of prophesying. The conspiracy of which these verses speak seems to have been sudden as it was secret. It affected the mind of the prophet in a peculiarly painful way, as it was the men of his own district who were concerned in it—his friends, probably even kinsfolk, who locked upon him as their worst enemy. The crime was all the more heinous that the means taken to execute it were underhand. It is possible that they greeted him with expressions of kindness and hospitality, and that everything was done to prevent his suspecting his real danger. Upon his discovering the plot, it is possible that they ceased to conceal their intentions, and, thinking him in their power, urged him "prophesy not in the Name of the Lord." I. THE PERILS OF THE PROPHET arose from: 1. A hatred of the truth in his hearers. There was something unpalatable in the continual denunciations of their wickedness. Their spiritual and patriotic pride was wounded. The demands made upon them by the righteousness of Jehovah they did not care to yield to; and the dislike of the prophet arose from his association with his message. No vengeance, therefore, could be too great. It is not imprisonment they seek to inflict, but death itself, and death in such an obscure and ignominious way that "his name may be no more remembered." 2. Their fear of the consequences of his prophecies. The future which he described as inevitable was not pleasant to contemplate. The words he spoke threatened to overturn their most cherished designs and to rob them of their precious things. 3. Ignorance as to how thee might be averted. By an easy process of association they came to look upon Jeremiah as not simply declaring, but in a sense causing, the evils of which he prophesied. They reasoned, therefore, to the foolish conclusion that if they could destroy him they would free themselves from the dangers which he threatened. The preacher has often to incur dislike of this sort from his hearers. It is of the nature of the carnal mind so to misapprehend the things of God and the things that make for peace. At certain times stern denunciation and declaring of the true consequences of evil action are not to be regarded as enmity, but friendship. The word spoken by an inspired mind is to be distinguished from the expression of mere bitterness and dislike. Paul had to entreat his converts not to count him their enemy when he sharply reproved them. II. THESE PERILS ARE WARDED OFF by: 1. Direct revelation. This is an advantage which the ordinary servants of God may not count upon. It was vouchsafed occasionally to prophets and apostles, but there is something in the spiritual mind which enables it to detect more quickly than others the symptoms of hatred to the truth. Promptings and suggestions to certain action in the midst of circumstances to ordinarily human eyes unsuspicious, have been too frequent in the history of the Church to be doubted. And even where no direct information may be given as to the mason of certain courses of action, which God’s saints may be moved to observe, the results clearly prove the presence of a careful and ever-watchful Providence. 2. Faith in God. Jeremiah said, "Unto thee have I revealed my cause" (better, "Upon thee have I devolved my cause"). He evidently felt that his duty was to commit the whole matter into the hands of God. And this is ever the safest way. The judgment, the prevision of man, are to be distrusted. The soul should cast itself by faith upon God, who is able to save. 3. Greater boldness in the course of action assumed. This was a distinct moral advantage. The men whose action was inspired by fear were certain to be influenced by it. Superstitions dread of the effects of his words would produce a reaction from their cowardly plans. And they would feel themselves more and more helpless as they saw how they aggravated their own punishment. So the preachers of the gospel and the servants of Christ generally must not consult with flesh and blood, but be bold in proclaiming the whole will of God, in preaching the Word, being "instant in season and out of season." There are allies and reinforcements latent in the constitution even of the worst enemies of the cross of Christ.—M. BY S. CONWAY The doom of disobedience. This new discourse, which begins with Jeremiah 11:1-23. is a continuation of the same sad monotone of denunciation and doom which goes on throughout well-nigh the whole of Jeremiah’s prophecies. The curse pronounced here on the disobedient— I. Is VERY . The words, "Cursed," etc; are fearful words to come from the lips of the God of grace and mercy. And that which they threatened was terrible also. What a catalogue of woes, which were denounced against the guilty people, might be compiled from these chapters! And how exactly the event answered to the prediction! Read the history of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the sufferings of the people, which is given in the records of the times, for proof of this. It is a dismal story, heart-sickening, and one from which we should at once turn away were it possible for us to do so. But all this, which was written aforetime, was written for our learning, and therefore we cannot but give heed. For not only is the curse terrible— II. IT IS JUST. What makes a sentence, such as is pronounced here, just? Is it not such considerations as these?— 1. That the Law which has been violated should have been altogether righteous. None can read over the moral Law given by God to his people without confessing its righteousness. "The Law was holy, just and good." Those who disobeyed it and were punished by it could not dispute its righteousness. 2. That it should have been fully known. If ignorance could have been pleaded the equity of the sentence might have been questioned. But amid all possible publicity and solemnity the Law was given at the first; and at a time (Verse 4) when their hearts, by reason of God’s exceeding goodness to them, were peculiarly susceptible to impression. And ever since then, by repeated, prolonged, and earnest appeal (Verse 7) that obedience should be rendered. 3. When conscience consents to the Law that it is good. (Verse 5.) They said "Amen" to it. The prophet is not giving his personal account only, but referring to the fact that all the people said "Amen" when the curse upon disobedience was pronounced from Mount Ebal; cf. also a more recent "standing to the covenant" to which probably Jeremiah alludes (2 Kings 23:3). 4. When the transgression has been notorious. (Verse 8.) It was not simply that they would not obey, but they would not even listen, and they went on in their own way, utterly disregarding the covenant to which they had promised obedience (cf. also Verses 9, 10). 5. When ingratitude has been added to disobedience. (Verse 4.) What had not God done for them? How deep was the obligation to obey! 6. When forbearance has been exercised. For a thousand years and more they had been suffered to occupy the land of promise (Verse 5, "As it is this day"). Wherever, then, was there or could there be a righteous doom if this were not? III. AND AS AS . Remember the purpose for which God had chosen Israel—that they might be the channels of his truth and righteousness to all other people. God was merciful to them and blessed them, "that his way," etc. (Psalms 67:1-7.). "In thee and in thy seed," said God to Abraham, "shall all the nations," etc. But if the men of the nation had rendered themselves incapable of this service, it was essential for the well-being of the world that they should make room for more faithful men. And this they had to do. IV. AND CERTAIN OF IF THE BE NOT . The judgment that came upon Judah and Jerusalem was not at all a solitary isolated fact. The like of it had happened before, has since, happens now, and will again whenever like provocation is given, as it all too often is. God’s way of dealing with Israel is God’s way of dealing with man everywhere and in all ages; therefore his way of dealing with us. God’s Law, his demand for obedience, man’s disobedience, and the consequent doom, are all facts with which we are familiar. The history of Israel is but an example of what is ever taking place. Even the gospel of the Lord Jesus, however much it may avert the eternal results of our transgressions, will not save us from the present temporal consequences in this world. "These all died in faith," so we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, of those "whose carcasses,’ nevertheless, "fell in the wilderness." "The way of transgressors is," has been, must, and ever will be, "hard."—C. The precious recompenses of obedience. "Obey my voice … according to all which I command you: so shall ye be," etc. The earlier verses of this chapter form part of that earnest reminder which Jeremiah was commanded by God to address to the men of Judah and Jerusalem concerning a transaction with which they had all had very much to do. That transaction was their solemnly pledging themselves, as they had done during King Josiah’s recent reign, to observe the ancient covenant which the Lord God had made with their fathers. The sixty or seventy years before King Josiah’s time had been years dreary and degraded in the national life of the people. Even Hezekiah, the last pious King of Judah before Josiah, had secured only a very partial reformation, and in the days of his godless son Manasseh, and in those of his even worse grandson Amon, who "sinned more and more," the religious life of the people all but died out. The sacred Scriptures in which this covenant was contained had, during these miserable years, been neglected and put out of sight as writings for which they had no longer love nor use; as a book which we do not want is either got rid of or put away on some high shelf, to make room for others which we mere highly prize. "The nation did not want to hear the Law which testified against their multiplied transgressions, nor to listen to a condemnation of the idols they had chosen." But in King Josiah’s reign, in some out-of-the-way corner, buried beneath no one knows what worthless rubbish, a copy of the despised Word of God was discovered. It produced on the pious monarch a profound impression. He was overwhelmed with shame and dismay when he compared the commands of the covenant of God with the actual conduct of the people. He shuddered to think of the judgments which must come upon them—and which had already come upon the neighboring nation of Israel—unless they repented and turned to God. But he did not waste time in unavailing regrets. He at once took practical measures to bring about that religious reformation which he saw to be so much needed. He therefore summoned all the people of Judah to Jerusalem, and caused the book of the Law to be publicly read to them; then he made all the people renew the covenant which they had so long forgotten. For a time it seemed as if the reformation and repentance were real; but the old idolatries began to make their appearance again after a while, and when Jeremiah was sent from God to remind them of their violated vows they had fallen back into a condition as evil as, if not worse than, that of former days. Therefore the prophet opens his commission by the awful denunciation of Jehovah’s curse upon the disobedient. He would startle and arouse them, if it might but be possible, so that they might awake to righteousness and to God ere wrath arose against them and there should be no remedy. And here he tells of the precious recompenses of obedience, "So shall ye … God." Consider, then— I. THESE . 1. "Ye shall be my people." Now, by this is meant, amongst other blessings, that they shall be the object of his care. How many are the proofs that this is a constituent part of the heritage of his people I Were not Israel so? Did he not watch over them continuously? "He suffered no man to do them harm; yea, he reproved kings for their sakes." "He gave his angels charge over them to keep them in all their ways." The race of Pharaoh, the cruel thirst of the hot, waterless sands, the threatened famine of the breadless desert, the marauding Amalekite, the pestilence that walked in darkness, and the destruction that wasted at noonday,—not one of these was suffered to harm them. How full are the Law, the prophets, and the psalms with sweet assurances of the tender care of God over his people! Nor does the New Testament come behind the Old in like gracious declarations. And the experience of all God’s people swells the volume of testimony to his loving solicitude and watchfulness over us. "And such honor have all his saints." And to be of his people means also to be the abode of his Spirit. That Spirit should dwell in them, rule and mould them after the Divine will. True, God’s ancient people do once and again seem to have been utterly abandoned of that Holy Spirit. But there was ever a faithful remnant, ever a godly few, of whom the Lord was wont to say, "They shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels." And we must remember that there were long periods in Israel’s history when, as a nation, they lived under the blessed guidance of that Spirit. These more happy periods are passed over in silence, as all such in the records of nations are, so that the saying has passed into a proverb, "Happy the nation that has no history." It is of the sad, troubled times that history tells, not of the long, eventless, peaceful times. When at rest, they walk in the fear of the Lord, and possess the comfort of the Holy Ghost, and are multiplied." Oh the joy of this possession of his Spirit! The thought of losing it made the contrite psalmist cry out m his agony, Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me." "I will put my Spirit within you" was ever one of the choicest promises of God to his people, and one of the surest tokens that they were his people. And it is so still. To be his is to be guided and governed of that good Spirit, to have our understandings purified, our affections wisely controlled, our hearts, our wills, under his direction always, so that we turn away from what is evil and cleave to that which is good. And it includes, furthermore, the being made the channels of his grace. Others shall be blessed through us, as it was said to Abraham, "In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." God’s people are the salt of the earth, the light of the world. How unspeakably great and blessed is the influence of the true people of God! In their presence impurity, profanity, selfishness, sin in all its forms, hide their shameful heads and slink away, whilst all things lovely and of good report flock around them and attend upon them continually. And finally they become the inmates of the home of God. The heavenly inheritance, of which the earthly Canaan, the land promised to the fathers of Israel, was the type and symbol, becomes theirs. They enter it through the gates of death, and these gates once passed, they are in his presence, where "there is fullness of joy, and at his right hand there is," etc. Such are some of the elements of this great joy of God taking us for his people, a joy which, of his infinite mercy, may he make us all to know. 2. "I will be your God." This cannot mean less than that he will be known to them as their God. They shall be able to realize his existence, Ms presence, his constant nearness to them. True, the God of Israel, whose promise this is, was not known by any organ of sense; he was no material God that their hands could handle; he spake with no human voice that their ears could hear; he appeared to them in no visible form that their eyes could see; he was manifested then, as now, only to their spirits. But when they worshipped him in spirit they felt that he was at their right hand, so that they could not be moved. Hence they went about their daily work and engaged in all the occupations of their lives, consciously realizing the presence of God; so that they constantly spoke of him "as their God, our God," my God,—so near, so real, so present was he to them. They could not if they would, and they would not if they could, escape from his presence or withdraw from the observation of his eye, or from the guidance and guardianship of his hand. In such manifestation of himself to them did he fulfill his word, "I will be your God." Nor was this all. Not only was he realized by them but rejoiced in. "I will go unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy," was the delighted declaration of the saints of old and is so of the saints today. Such joy had they in him that, when all earthly affairs were disastrous for them, when the fig tree did not blossom, and when there was no fruit in the vine, and the labor of the olive failed, and the fields yielded no meat, when the flock was cut off from the fold and there were no herds in the stall,—when, that is, ruin stared them in the face and met them on every side, nevertheless they could rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of their salvation. "My soul shall make her boast in the Lord," was their perpetual song; and it is the song still of all those to whom God has said, "I will be your God." And his word came true yet further by their coming to resemble him. It is ever the result of worship to conform the worshipper to the deity he worships. Hence it was said of the worshippers of idols, "They that make them are like unto them, so is every one that trusteth in them." Accordingly it has ever Been found that they who bowed down to gods impure, cruel, and treacherous, became them selves impure, cruel, and treacherous. But, on the other hand, they who have worshipped the God of Israel have become like him, righteous, just, and true, merciful, and pure, and good. "I will be your God" meant, therefore, "I will make you like myself," and this promise God ever fulfils. And it means also, "I will be your rest." The soul whose God the Lord is, reposes on him. The storms of life may rage, its tempests beat, but "firm and unmoved are they who rest their souls on God." Everything may appear to be slipping away from a man, and he may seem to be like one gliding down a steep, smooth slope, ever faster and faster to the precipice over which he will be hurled into destruction, unable to grasp any friendly rock or branch, or to find foothold anywhere—and men’s circumstances are like that sometimes; but they to whom this word, "I will be your God," is fulfilled, do find foothold in God and can stay themselves upon him. Hence, when heart and flesh fail, God is the Strength of their heart and their Portion forevermore. II. THE OF THEIR . They were faithfully to do the commandments which he had made known to them: "Obey my voice, so," etc. And this condition is not abrogated; it is in as full force today as it was in the days of old. But when it is complied with, then, not merely by the gracious appointment of God, but also in the way of natural result, there follows the enjoyment of the promised blessings. For: 1. Obedience tends to such enjoyment of God, inasmuch as it prevents the rising of those mists whereby the sight of God is shut out from the soul. Travelers along the Rhine or over the mountains of Switzerland know to their cost how often the most glorious scenery the world contains is completely hidden from their view by the uprising of some wretched mist, wrapping in cold, dark, impenetrable fog all that upon which their eyes would have so delightedly rested. They want to gaze upon all that loveliness; they have come for that very purpose; but they cannot for those thick clouds. And oh, what a beautiful vision is the face of God! How good it is to gaze upon him, and to behold the shining of his countenance! And this we should do were it not for those mists with which disobedience to God’s will ever blots out all that otherwise we should so delightedly see. "If our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God;" but when they do condemn us, confidence vanishes, and, as by a veil of impenetrable cloud, the face of God is hidden from our view. We have lost him; we cannot realize him; he is as if he were not, and the soul is forlorn and wretched and exposed to all manner of ill. Now, this sad experience, which is as common as it is sad, shows how the obeying of the voice of God must tend to the enjoyment of him, inasmuch as it prevents all that which hides God from our souls. 2. And before obedience that wall of the rebellious will, which more than aught else displeases and dishonors God and keeps him out from the soul, "falls down flat," as did the walls of Jericho before the obedient tribes of Israel. That will must be subdued, that stronghold of evil must be pulled down, and obedience is the strong hand that accomplishes this much-needed work. That strong fortress cast down, the soul becomes the possession of God, and the hitherto rebellious forces of the soul own him as their God. Or, to take another similitude, obedience unbars that fastened door before which the Lord Jesus has stood so long and knocked, but in vain, for admission. He desires to enter and to make us the glad partakers of his grace. But till that door be unbarred all this cannot be. 3. Obedience, furthermore, keeps us in those paths along which alone God is to be met. Full well we know that there are paths innumerable along which men go, along which we have gone ourselves; but God is never to be met with in them. But along the path by which obedience leads us, there we do meet with him, and are blessed by him. 4. And without this obedience God cannot carry out his purposes of grace. This is what we are told in the verse that follows our text. God asks for obedience, "that I may perform the oath which I have sworn unto," etc. Therefore without this he is held back from what he earnestly desires, and he cannot do the things that he would, God cannot admit the ungodly and the disobedient into the blessed land of promise. To do that would be to perpetuate forever the sins and sorrows of time. Therefore— "Those holy gates forever bar Pollution, sin, and shame." But "blessed are they that do his commandments, that they," etc. (Revelation 22:14). Now, the first step of this obedience—that which introduces to all these recompenses—is to surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ (John 6:28, John 6:29).—C. The first last. Many, indeed, are the instances in which those who were placed first in opportunity have been found last in attainment. Privilege, favor, education, help of all kinds, have been at their disposal, and yet the results which had been designed for them, and which so surely should have been theirs, they have missed (cf. Matthew 11:1-30; "Woe unto thee, Bethsaida!" etc.). And in ordinary life, as well as in the records of the Bible, may we learn how frequently, not the strong and mighty, but "the lame take the prey." The first are last and the last first. Now, of such sad and shameful failures these verses supply a notable instance. Under the imagery of a green olive tree, fair and of goodly fruit, the prophet pictures the condition and prospects of the people of God when he first planted them. No similitude could more strikingly convey to the mind of the inhabitant of Judah and Jerusalem the idea of happy and sure prosperity. But, next, the prophet portrays a far different scene—that same tree, but black and charred, its trunk riven, its fruit and foliage all gone, and its branches broken down; for the thunderbolt and the scathing lightning, the wild tempest and the fierce wind, have all done their deadly work upon it, and now it stands a mere blackened stump, instead of the beauteous and fruitful tree it once was. From that height of favor to that depth of disaster were Judah and Jerusalem to fall. They who had been first should be last. I. THEY WERE FIRST. The imagery employed by the prophet tells in what respects. 1. In the favor of God. The olive was a favorite tree, held in highest esteem by the people of the lands where it grew; hence it is used here and elsewhere as an emblem of those whom God favors and has pleasure in (cf. "I am like a green olive tree in the house of my God," Psalms 52:8). The Bible seems to love the tree. It is the first named of any known tree (Genesis 8:11), and is the subject of the first parable (Judges 9:8). It is everywhere spoken of as precious; hence, when Judah and Jerusalem are thus named, we regard it as a name of endearment, telling how precious they were in God’s sight. This is borne out by direct statements and by the recorded deeds of God, which show the esteem in which he held them. 2. In beauty. No doubt the beauty of the olive tree exists partly in the eyes of the beholder, who looks upon it with affection for all the service it renders him. But to others also there is unquestionable beauty in the olive which, with its "noble groves, covered with foliage the whole year round, spreading like a silver sea along the base of the hills and climbing their ascending terraces, speaks loudly of peace and plenty, food and gladness". And without doubt it was beautiful in the eyes of those to whom the prophet wrote. But there is a moral beauty as well as that which is material, and of which the material is a fit symbol. And, compared with the disorder, the violence, the foulness, the wickedness of all kinds, in which the rest of the world was sunk, Israel was as a garden of the Lord—a green olive tree, "fair" and comely to look upon. In them that which was lovely and of good report, that which had virtue and praise, were found as nowhere else. Love to God and love to man, justice, truth, and piety were held in esteem amongst them as amongst none others. 3. In usefulness. The olive tree was not merely fair, but "of goodly fruit." From that fruit came one of the commonest and most essential articles of the Eastern’s food. Its oil was employed in connection with almost everything that they ate. Its berries gave flavor to the peasant’s bread. The evening lamp was kindled with the oil pressed from it. And that same oil was used to anoint their priests and kings, for the lamp in the holy place, and to mingle with many of their sacrifices. To "anoint the head with oil" was deemed most delightful and refreshing (Psalms 42:1-11). Wounds were dressed with it (Luke 10:34), and the sick were anointed with it (Mark 6:13; James 5:4). The wood of the tree was employed in the sacred furniture of the temple, and there seemed to be no part of the tree which did not in some way render service to man. Now, such was the purpose of God in regard to his people, that in them "should all the nations of the earth be blest." They were to be the channel of blessing to all people. Through them God’s "saving health" should be known "amongst all nations." 4. And in permanence. Their blessedness was to abide. The "greenness" of the tree spoken of here refers to its perpetuity and strength. The olive is known to live to a great age. It is not improbable (see Kitto) that some of the olive trees now on the Mount of Olives are contemporaneous with our Lord. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Jeremiah 12:1 Painfully exercised by the mysteries of the Divine government, the prophet opens his grief to Jehovah. Righteous art thou, etc.; rather, Righteous wouldest thou be, O Jehovah, if I should plead with thee; i.e. if I were to bring a charge against thee, I should be unable to convict thee of injustice (comp. Psalms 51:4; Job 9:2). The prophet, however, cannot refrain from laying before Jehovah a point which seems to him irreconcilable with the Divine righteousness. The rendering, indeed, must be modified. Let me talk with thee of thy judgments should rather be, yet will I debate questions of right with thee. The questions remind us of those of Job in Job 21:1-34; Job 24:1-25. Thus to have been the recipient of special Divine revelations, and to be in close communion with God, gives no security against the occasional ingress of doubting thoughts and spiritual distress. Wherefore are all they happy, etc.? rather, secure. The statement must be qualified by what follows. In the general calamity the wicked still fare the best. Jeremiah 12:2 Far from their reins; i.e. from their heart (the seat of strong impulses and desires); comp. Psalms 16:7; Psalms 26:2. Jeremiah 12:3 Hast seen me, and tried; rather, seest me, and triest. Pull them out. Perhaps this is correct, and there is an allusion to the figure of the plant in Jeremiah 12:2. But the verb need mean no more than "separate" (comp. Jeremiah 6:29). Prepare them; literally, consecrate them, as victims for the sacrifice. Jeremiah 12:4 How long, etc.? The verse is decided rather differently by the Hebrew accents. The question should end at wither, and the following words run on. Every field should be the whole field (i.e. open country). The connection has caused some difficulty. But drought is constantly described as a judgment (Jeremiah 3:3; Jeremiah 5:24, Jeremiah 5:25; Jeremiah 14:2-7; Jeremiah 23:10), and it is a prophetic doctrine that the lower animals suffer for the fault of man. Because they said; rather, because they say. The speakers are the ungodly. The subject of the following verb is uncertain. Some think it is God; but when God is said to "see" (i.e. take notice of) anything, it is always something actually existing. The subject must, therefore, be the prophet, of whom the ungodly scoffingly declare, He shall not see our last end, because his predictions are mere delusions. Jeremiah 12:5 Jeremiah’s impatience corrected. The expressions are evidently proverbial. The opposition to the prophet will reach a still higher pitch; and if he is so soon discouraged, how will he bear his impending trials? And if in the land of peace, etc.? a second figure, the translation of which needs amending. If (only) in a land of peace thou art confident, how wilt thou do in the pride of Jordan? The "pride of Jordan" means the thickets on its banks, which were notorious as the haunts of lions (Jeremiah 49:19; Jeremiah 50:44; Zechariah 11:3). " Lions’ bones have been found by Dr. Roth in the gravel of the Jordan. Lions are seldom or never found now west of the Euphrates, although they occasionally cross the river" (Revelation W. Houghton, ’Bible Educator,’ 1.22). Jeremiah 12:6 An example of the "treachery" referred to in Jeremiah 12:1; a conspiracy against Jeremiah in his own family. Have called a multitude after thee; rather, have called aloud after thee, as one raises a hue and cry after a thief. Jeremiah 12:7-17 A separate prophecy. The key to it is in 2 Kings 24:1, 2 Kings 24:2, where it is related that, after Jehoiakim’s rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, "Jehovah sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it." The prophecy falls into two strophes or sections, 2 Kings 24:7-13 and 2 Kings 24:14-17. In the first we have a complaint of the desolation produced by the guerilla warfare; in the second, a prediction of the captivity of the hostile peoples, not, however, without a prospect of their return home and conversion to Jehovah. It is evident enough that this passage stands in no connection with what precedes. The whole tone is that of a description of present scenes and not of the future. Sometimes, no doubt, a prophet, in the confidence of faith, represents the future as though it were already past; but there is always something in the context to determine the reference and prevent ambiguity. Here, however, there is nothing to indicate that the description relates to the future; and it is followed by a prediction which presupposes that the preceding passage refers to the literal past. Jeremiah 12:7 I have forsaken mine house. The "house" is here not the temple, but the people of Israel, as the parallel clause shows (see Hosea 8:1, and setup. Hebrews 3:6; 1 Timothy 3:15). Jehovah, not the prophet, is evidently the speaker. I have left; rather, I have east away. Into the hand of her enemies. The Hebrew is more expressive: "Into the palm of the hand." Bonomi has an engraving from the monuments of guests at a banquet, holding their drinking-vessels in the deeply hollowed palm of their hand. So here the people of Israel, in her weak, fainting state, needs only to be held in the quiet pressure of the palm of the hand. The remark and the illustration are due to Dr. Payne Smith. Jeremiah 12:8 The reason why Jehovah has given up his people. Israel (or, more strictly, Judah) has proceeded to open hostility against his God. He is unto me—or rather, has become unto me—as a lion in the forest; a familiar circumstance (comp. on Jeremiah 12:5 and Jeremiah 4:7). Therefore have I hated it. "To hate" is a strong expression for the withdrawal of love, shown by the giving up of Israel into the power of his enemies, as Malachi 1:3 (Keil). Jeremiah 12:9 The first part of this verse is mistranslated. Instead of Mine heritage is unto me, etc; it should be, Is mine heritage unto me (i.e. to my sorrow, a dativus ethics) a colored bird of prey? Are birds of prey round about her? The passage is difficult, but the following seems the most plausible explanation:—Jehovah is represented as surprised to see his chosen people a prey to the heathen (a strongly anthropomorphic description, as if Jehovah had not anticipated that his "giving up" his people would have such sad results). It seems to him (adopting human modes of speech) as if Israel were "a colored bird of prey," the bright plumage of which excites the animosity of its less brilliant comrades, who gather round it and pull it to pieces. It is an allusion to the phenomenon, well-known to the ancients (Tacit; ’Ann.’ 6.28; Suet; ’Caes.,’ 81; Plin.,’ Hist. Nat.,’ 10.19), of birds gathering round and attacking a strange-looking bird appearing in their midst. The prophet might have simply said "a bird;" why does he say "a bird of prey (‛ayit)"? Probably because he has just described the hostile attitude of Israel towards Jehovah under the figure of a lion. Some particular, rare kind of vulture seems to be intended. Sennacherib apparently uses a cognate word (’it) for the vulture (’Taylor Cylinder,’ 3. 68). Bochart and Gesenius, following the Septuagint, think "hyena," and not "bird of prey," is the right rendering in the first clause; but Gesenius does not offer any other passage for the meaning bestia rapax. Come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field. There is a parallel passage in Isaiah 56:9, where, as here, the "beasts of the field (i.e. the wild beasts of the open country) are the heathen powers employed as God’s instruments for chastising Israel (comp. also Ezekiel 34:5, where the same figure occurs). "The prophet adopts the strongest way of expressing that Israel, utterly bereft of his natural defenders, lies at the mercy of the great heathen empire" (note on Isaiah 56:9). Come to devour; rather, bring them to devour. Jeremiah 12:10 Another simpler and more natural image, expressing the same idea, as these in Jeremiah 12:9. The favorite way of representing Jehovah’s relation to his people is that of a vine-proprietor to his vineyard (see on Jeremiah 2:21). How would a vineyard be ruined if a band of shepherds were to drive their flocks among the tender vine-shoots! The many pastors (or, shepherds) are clearly Nebuchadnezzar and his generals (comp. Jeremiah 6:3). My pleasant portion. Jehovah is the "portion" of his people; his people and its land are the "portion" of Jehovah (see on Jeremiah 10:16). The epithet "pleasant" expresses the emotion of the surprised speaker. Jeremiah 12:11 Layeth it to heart; rather, laid it to heart. Inconsiderateness is repeatedly spoken of as an aggravation of the moral sickness of Israel (Isaiah 42:25; Isaiah 57:1, Isaiah 57:11). Jeremiah 12:12 Upon an high places thresh the wilderness; rather, upon all bare heights in the wilderness (see on Jeremiah 3:2). Hardly with a reference to their pollution by idolatry; the mention of "the wilderness" (or pasture-country) suggests that it is merely a feature in the impoverishment of the country (a contrast to Isaiah 49:9). The sword of the Lord shall devour; rather, the Lord hath a sword which devoureth. It is the heavenly sword (Isaiah 34:5), the symbol of Divine vengeance (see below on Jeremiah 46:5). Jeremiah 12:13 A description in proverbial language of the absence of "peace" (literally, soundness, i.e. prosperity, security), from which "all flesh" in Judah at this time shall suffer. The trouble of sowing has been in vain, for they have reaped thorns (so we must render grammatically, and not shall reap, and in the next clause shall not profit ought to be have not profited). And they shall be ashamed of your revenues; rather, be ashamed then of your produce; but it is more natural to emend the pronominal suffix, and render, and are ashamed of their produce (the Authorized Version seems to have very nearly taken this easy step). It is, of course, the produce of husbandry which is referred to. Jeremiah 12:14 Here occurs a transition. The prophet comes forward with a denunciation in the name of Jehovah. All mine evil neighbors; the hostile, peoples, mentioned, in 2 Kings 24:1-20. My neighbors, because Jehovah "dwelleth in Zion." Pluck them out of their land; viz. by deportation into a foreign land. Judah and the neighboring nations shall share the same fate. This is indicated by the use of the same verb "to pluck out" in the next clause with reference to Judah. In the ease of Judah, however, to be "plucked out" is a mercy as well as a judgment, considering who they are "out of" whose "midst" the Jews are "plucked." Jeremiah 12:15 I will return, and have compassion. The rendering is too Hebraistic; the sense is simply, I will again have compassion. The prophets offer no partial or "nationalistic" view; of the mercy of God (comp. on Jeremiah 48:47). Jeremiah 12:16 Israel has been converted and restored, and if the other nations follow his example and swear by my name, i.e. adopt the religion of Jehovah (comp. Isaiah 19:18), they shall be rewarded by being suffered to dwell safely in Israel’s midst. Observe the contrast with Jeremiah 12:14. Before, Israel had dwelt amidst them to his own detriment; now they shall dwell amidst Israel to their profit. Jeremiah 12:1, Jeremiah 12:2 The prosperity of the wicked. I. THE . The prosperity of the wicked was a difficulty of peculiar force to the Jews, since it seemed to contradict an item of their peculiar faith—the doctrine of temporal rewards and punishments. The difficulty is less to us Christians; but it is idle to deny its existence. It is threefold. 1. The success of wickedness. The treacherous plans of the wicked often succeed. Their violent actions are often unchecked and produce fatal results. How is it that these evil things are not frustrated before they ripen to perfection? That wicked men should plot evil, should attempt evil, we can imagine; but that they should be allowed to carry it out—often only because many accidents are favorable—this is hard to understand. "Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper?" 2. The security o/ the wicked. After they had succeeded we should expect that they would discover the vanity of their most prosperous efforts. But they not only attain their objects. They find these to be satisfactory, and are able to enjoy them with calm self-complacency. Here is the greater mystery: after completing their bad deeds the wicked are left in undisturbed enjoyment of the fruits of them. "Wherefore are all they secure that deal very treacherously?" 3. The Divine blessing apparently enjoyed by the wicked. Not only does their own work succeed, but Providence bestows favors upon them. Outside events of life over which they have no control minister to their prosperity. Here is the greatest element of the difficulty. God has planted them, and they enjoy fruitfulness through his help. II. THE WAY TO TREAT THE . 1. Face it. Jeremiah boldly confronted his troublesome thoughts. People often try to hush up their doubts. The result is that a subtle spirit of skepticism spreads unconsciously through all their ideas, and its disintegrating influence undermines all solid faith. Suppressed doubt is fatal to sincerity. It begets indifference to truth. We cannot hold firmly the truths we know till we distinctly separate these from those we doubt. The suppression of doubt is cowardly. Doubt can only be conquered by being boldly confronted. 2. Do not charge God foolishly. Jeremiah did not accuse the justice of God. We are dim-sighted and weak in our judgment. Much of this great world must be a mystery to us. We must not assume that, because we cannot justify the ways of God, they admit of no justification. It is foolish as well as rebellious to presume to be the judge of God. 3. Bring the difficulty to God. Doubt should drive us to prayer. God only can enlighten our darkness. God graciously permits his children to plead and debate with him (Isaiah 1:18). Doubt is not necessarily a result of any misconduct. But, however it arises, it is best to confess it to God. III. THE IN WHICH TO LOOK FOE A OF THE . 1. The righteousness of God. Jeremiah sees the difficulty, but it does not drive him from faith in the justice of God. Religion makes constant demands on faith—the personal faith of trust in the character of God where appearances are against what we believe that character to be. Confidence in the unwavering righteousness of God will help us to look for certain indications of a solution of the difficulty occasioned by the prosperity of the wicked. Right must and will be done, and if it is not yet accomplished it will be ultimately. From the character of God we may thus reason to his certain action (Genesis 18:25). 2. Hence we have an argument in favor of future rectification. Jeremiah expects it to come even in this life, though it is long deferred (Verse 3). The Christian looks for it in the great judgment, and the fruits of this in the life to come. 3. The difficulty may be lessened even for the present by the reflection that material prosperity is not real prosperity. It may be well for a good man to suffer. Prosperity may be an evil. True welfare consists not in success, not in security from calamity, but in inward peace, in progress in the Divine life. (last clause) God near to the mouth but far from the life. I. IT IS TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD ON OUR LIPS WHILE THE THOUGHT OF GOD IS ABSENT FROM OUR MINDS. This is the case with mere formal worshippers, who use the language of devotion without realizing to themselves its meaning. The danger of it besets us all. Words come to be handled like coins, without any distinct recognition of what they represent. This applies especially to words which refer to God, since it requires a high act of abstraction to keep constantly before us the ideas of the unseen Object of such language. Understand that these empty words are worse than wasted breath; they are a mockery to God, a deception to men, and a source of self-delusion to the speaker of them. II. IT IS TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD ON OUR LIPS WHILE THE LOVE OF GOD IS ABSENT FROM OUR HEARTS. We may not fall into the first mistake. The language may not be empty words. The thought of God may be present. Yet this may be a mere thought—a cold and barren idea, having no influence on our affections. This religion of words and notions is a vain thing. Indeed, it is not a religion at all; it is only a theology. Religion does not begin till the heart opens to receive God. It consists not in the intellectual recognition of God, but in the love of God (Deuteronomy 10:12). III. IT IS TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD ON OUR LIPS WHILE THE POWER OF GOD IS ABSENT FROM OUR . God may be spoken of, thought of, approached with a certain affection, though not the true love of our hearts, and yet be practically disregarded. His will may still be of no account to us. We may still not make our lives subservient to his Law. There is then no evidence of God in our conduct. Though our thought may be religious, our life is godless. IV. IT IS TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD ON OUR LIPS WHILE THE SPIRIT OF GOD IS ABSENT FROM OUR SPIRITS. The deepest fact of religion is the indwelling of the Spirit of God—the real presence of God. God inhabits the soul as a temple. We may have much religiousness without this. The Name of God may be inscribed on the portals of the temple while the shrine is empty of his presence. V. IT IS TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD UPON OUR LIPS AND TO BE VERY WICKED. If the Name be only on our lips, this is no sign of moral and spiritual goodness. The wicked contemporaries of Jeremiah were many of them religious precisionists; yet their moral guilt was nonetheless for all their language of devotion. VI. IT IS TO HAVE THE NAME OF GOD ON OUR LIPS AND TO SUFFER RUIN. Formalism and hypocrisy may prosper for a time. Those men who had the Name of God on their lips were the wicked who prospered (Verse 1). Yet they were doomed to ultimate punishment. It is important to remember this constantly, since we are too ready to be deceived by professions and appearances. A dark prospect. If Jeremiah was ready to despair when he discovered the conspiracy of the men of Anathoth, how would he bear the news of the treachery of his own brethren? His condition under the lesser trouble made the prospect of greater trouble most alarming. The Divine admonition which such a situation showed him to need may be of value to others who may be repeating the experience of the prophet. I. DESPAIR UNDER LESSER TROUBLE MAKES THE OF GREATER TROUBLE A DARK . 1. Greater trouble may reasonably be expected. God usually prepares us for the endurance of trials by sending them by degrees, and reserving the more severe till we have been trained to the endurance of milder ones. Few men can say that they have drunk the cup of sorrow to the dregs, and none can know what bitter drops may yet be in store for them. 2. The advent of greater trouble is not itself an alarming fact. Trouble is fearful only in proportion as it strikes fear into us. If we are prepared to meet it we need have no terror. God can give strength equal to our requirement, and for the sterner trial the more abundant support. The man’s trouble is greater than the child’s, but so is the man’s strength. 3. The one cause of alarm is in our weakness. If this is revealed before slight tests, it must be much worse when the strain is harder. The important point is not that after enduring the foot-race we shall fail in contending with the chariots, but that, failing in the one trial, we may expect only failure in the other. II. THE OF GREATER TROUBLE SHOULD HELP US TO SEAR THE LESSER. Some of us are too ready to "give way" at once. But there is more power of endurance in all of us than we are ready to acknowledge to ourselves. After the latest wrench of the rack we cry out that we can bear no more; yet another and still another turn is given, and we do bear it. The prospect of this possibility should make us husband our strength. The very sight of danger may be a stimulus to courage by inspiring a heroic spirit. Life is generally pitched in too low a key, and thus men whine under slight smarts and shrink before mean difficulties. If the same men saw more imperative calls to energy and endurance, they would rouse themselves and call up latent powers which as yet lie slumbering unheeded. III. FAILURE BEFORE LESSER TROUBLE SHOULD LEAD US TO SEEK BETTER MEANS FOR THE OF THE GREATER. 1. It is more important that we should be able to bear the greater trouble. This is a more serious matter, and defeat under it involves a more overwhelming disaster. Therefore it is exceedingly needful to learn the lesson of our weakness before this has brought us into a more terrible condition of distress. 2. It is also more difficult to endure the severer strain. The strength which is barely sufficient for the cares and toils of a quiet home life will fail utterly if a man has to contend with lions in the wild thickets of the lonely Jordan valley. If health breaks down before the soft breezes of summer, how will it stand before the frost and fog of winter? If the young man falls into vicious habits while under the protection of his father’s home, what will become of him when he goes out into the world? If the prospect of sickness and earthly sorrow fill one with hopeless distress, how will he pass through the valley of the shadow of death? How will he endure death itself? 3. These questions should not make us despondent, but should drive us through self-diffidence to seek the help of God. Failure in small things will be good for us if it teaches us a wholesome lesson on our own weakness, and so inclines us to turn to a higher source of safety. Then we shall find that God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). The forsaken heritage. I. GOD REGARDS HIS PEOPLE AS HIS LINEAGE. The temple was God’s house, the Jews were God’s heritage. The Church is now the habitation of the Spirit of God, and her members are God’s possession. This fact implies: 1. That God dwells with his people. 2. That he takes delight in them. 3. That he may be expected to protect them from harm. 4. That he has rights over them and claims their submission to himself. 5. That his honor is concerned with his people’s conduct, so that their wickedness is not a matter of indifference to him, but is an insult to his Name. II. GOD MAY FORSAKE HIS . God’s people have no such "vested interests" that nothing can destroy their claims upon him. The present enjoyment of God’s favor is no guarantee that this will be perpetual. 1. History shows that God has forsaken his heritage in the past; e.g. the Jews, ancient Christian Churches of Asia and Africa, individual Christians who have fallen from the faith. 2. It is reasonable to expect that he will do this when honor and righteousness require it. Let us, there fore, not presume on the favor of God. III. GOD ONLY HIS WHEN THAT HAS BECOME CORRUPT. God never leaves his people till they leave him. He is not changeable, capricious, arbitrary in his favors. His love never wanes, his grace never fails, his help and blessings are never limited. The change begins on man’s side. It is found in rebellion against God. 1. In self-will. The heritage becomes like a lion of the forest.—i.e. no longer tame, but swayed by its own wild passions. 2. In evil-doing. The lion is fierce and destructive—a beast of prey. 3. In direct opposition to God. The lion "cries out against" God. IV. GOD’S IS IN A WHEN IT IS BY HIM. Birds and beasts of prey come up to devour the heritage. 1. It needs no positive act of God’s to bring desolation on his sinful people. If he but withdraw his protection, the natural evils of the world and the special evils which they have provoked will be enough to bring ruin on their heads. 2. God’s people will suffer in an especial way by the withdrawal of the Divine presence. The heritage is "like a speckled bird." It is strange, and so it draws upon itself opposition. The Jews were a mark for the enmity of the heathen through the singularity of their national customs. Christians are often singled out for opposition from the world for similar reasons. If they have lost their peculiar protection, their peculiar position and nature will invoke a peculiar ruin. Profitless labor. I. WILL CONSIST IN PART IN THE OF LABOR. This will perhaps be the special punishment of industrious bad people. To them it will be peculiarly painful, for in proportion to the zest and earnestness with which any work is carried on will be the bitterness of disappointment when this is seen to fail Thus the victorious general is punished by being robbed of his conquests, the statesman by having his political schemes frustrated, the inventor by finding his invention superseded or rendered futile, the literary man by seeing his pro-auctions treated with neglect. II. LABOR MAY BE GOOD IN ITSELF AND YET . It need not be mistaken in direction nor incompetent in execution. 1. It may be real sowing. "They have sown "—have not simply run uncertainly nor beaten the air with indefinite energy. 2. It may be the sowing of good seed. "They have sown wheat." 3. It may be assiduous and arduous. "They have put themselves to pain." III. LABOR WILL BE IF IT BE CURSED BY GOD. "They are ashamed of their increase because of the fierce anger of Jehovah." 1. We cannot succeed in our work without the blessing of God. This is necessary, not only for those things in which we can do nothing and are wholly dependent on him, but also in regard to our own efforts. Man sows, but God must give the increase. We cannot order the seasons, command the weather, determine the germinating power of nature. The farmer is but the attendant of nature. The real work of the farm is done by nature, and nature is a name we give to the action of God. If, therefore, God did not follow with his work, the farmer might as well scatter sand of the desert over his fields as sow good wheat. So also all our labor depends on God’s biasing for its fruitfulness. 2. The curse of God will destroy the fruits of labor. Tremendous destructive agencies are in his hands. He can send frost to nip the tender buds, drought to wither the growing plant, blight to destroy the filling ears, storms to beat down the ripe corn. Sickness, commercial disaster, wars, etc; may frustrate the wisest, ablest, most industrious efforts of men. Therefore let us learn (1) to live so that we dare ask for God’s favor; (2) to labor at such work as God will approve; and (3) to seek the blessing of God upon our efforts (Psalms 90:17). Jeremiah 12:14-17 General punishment and general restoration. I. IS GENERAL. It is not selective, it is impartially administered. 1. The people of God do not escape. If the Christian falls into sin, the Law of God must be vindicated on him at least as rigorously as on the worldly man, Judah had shared the sins of her neighbors; she must also share their punishment. If sin is general, so must be its penalties. No religious position which does not secure us against wickedness will protect us against its consequences. 2. The godless do not escape. The heathen nations are to suffer with Judah. Though they were sometimes the instruments in the hands of God for the chastisement of Judah, they were not on that account exonerated from blame for the bad motives of their conduct. The sin of others is no excuse for us in wronging them. The executioner of the law is himself subject to the law. They who do not admit the authority of God are not the less subject to his authority. Men who refuse to submit to the Law of God will be judged by that Law as certainly as those who have freely gone under its yoke. It is not for us to choose our government in spiritual things, but to submit to the one righteous government which God has set over all men. In the execution of this it will be found that all men have sufficient light to render them accountable for their actions, though the degree of their responsibility will vary with the degree of their knowledge. II. IS GENERAL. This is offered to the heathen nations as well as to Judah. As general punishment must follow general sin, so general restoration will follow general repentance. Here, too, God is impartial. 1. This restoration is not the less perfect for each individual by being general. "Every man" is to come and each to his "own land" and his "own heritage." There are men who seem to fear the broadening of the mercies of God, last they should become less valuable to each recipient, and so they would jealously narrow them to protect their full privileges for a few. Such ideas are not only basely selfish—since the holders of them quietly assume that they are among the few—they are dishonoring to the grace of God, which is exceeding abundant, with enough for all who need it. 2. The general character of the restoration is its most happy feature. It will mean the abolition of war, rivalry, jealousy, separation, and the enjoyment of peace and brotherhood, the realization of the glory of the unity of the race through harmony in the unity of faith. "Then shall they be built in the midst of my people." Thus through the great restoration, i.e. through the perfected redemption in Christ, we may look for the fulfillment of the great ideal human brotherhood. 3. The conditions of this restoration are the same for all, viz. (1) the compassion of God, and (2) repentance and amendment. They who taught Judah to serve Baal must learn with Judah to follow the true religion. But if this condition is not fulfilled, the restoration can never be enjoyed. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 12:1-4 Moral difficulties with the providence of God. The tone of this address to Jehovah is strikingly contrasted with that to the men of Anathoth. To them he is as a lion or a brazen wall. To Jehovah he is as a fretful child, ignorant, willful, perverse, and requiring to be corrected. I. THE OF THE WICKED A -BLOCK TO FAITH. (Jeremiah 12:1, Jeremiah 12:2.) David even is envious over this, and many a saint has felt its bitterness in his soul. That there are instances enough to make the idea plausible that wickedness is the best policy, we all know. The difficulties that beset the honest trader or the conscientious courtier and statesman are proverbial. And often just those measures which are most clearly condemned by Scripture and conscience appear to be the means most justified by the circumstances of the case. This view, however, is corrected by larger experience. It does not take all the facts within its scope, or it does not rightly interpret them. It is impossible for a mere outsider to judge of any one’s actual happiness, or the private conditions which most powerfully affect the possession and enjoyment of wealth or high position. The teachings of history and of individual experience will in the end lead to the conclusion, "Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith" (Proverbs 15:16). II. THE IMPULSE TO FORCE JEHOVAH’S HAND. (Jeremiah 12:3). This is the meaning of Jeremiah’s imprecation. To one who sees by supernatural aid the tendencies of things, it must be very hard to refrain from this. Judgments that are justified to the moral nature sometimes appear to be mysteriously delayed. What would be well done had better be done quickly. But this is the presumption of the creature, the promptings of ignorance and not of faith. God can afford to wait. It is his character to have long patience, and the results more than justify this in the end. He will work out his purposes in his own way and in his own time, notwithstanding the impatience of his servants inquiring, "What or what manner of time?" There is a species of tempting Providence closely connected with this in many spiritual men. They have the clearest conviction that certain things are right and proper for them to do, and, without consulting as to seasonableness or the best means for their accomplishment, they hasten to do them, and then expect that God will recoup them for the loss they incur or extricate them from the difficulties in which they have entangled themselves. This certainly is not waiting upon the Lord, but an arrogant assumption of his prerogatives. It was the principle that lay at the root of Moses’ great transgression; and even the disciples had to be rebuked because they knew not what spirit they were of. III. THE TONE OF THE PROPHET’S PRAYER. Superficially it appears reasonable, considering the character and position of those to whom he refers. And there is at any rate a formal recognition of the righteousness of God to begin with. It is evident, too, that the conscience of the prophet is without offence in the sight of God, and yet there can be no doubt that the language he adopts is not to be justified. He is carried away by excess of zeal, but it is zeal without knowledge, and he himself will be the first bitterly to regret his presumption. It is a perilous thing for any man to attempt to judge his fellows by infallible standards. One thing in the behavior of the prophet was to be commended. He did not conceal these thoughts within himself. He says, "Let me talk with thee," conscious that in this openness of soul lay his moral safety. A few minutes’ honest communion with God will tap many a festering sore and correct many a subtle error of spirit and life. The last lesson of Divine revelation is not severity but love.—M. Jeremiah 12:5, Jeremiah 12:6 A prophet’s foes they of his own household. These two verses are related, and must be read together in order to get at their proper sense. The prophet had complained of the treachery and prosperous circumstances of the enemies of Jehovah; whereupon he was told that worse things were in store for him—that his own family would be his fiercest opponents. This was in a degree the lot of Christ; it is experienced by many of the true servants of God. I. THE WORD OF GOD IS NOT TO THE WILL OF THE FLESH, AND MAY BE TO EXCITE HATRED AND WHERE THAT ASSERTS ITSELF. II. THE SERVANT OF GOD WILL OFTEN BE TRIED BY THE FAILURE AND OF HIS MOST FRIENDS. III. IT BEHOVES ALL WHO ARE WITH DIVINE TRUTH TO ASK WHAT IS THE GROUND OF THEIR .—M. Jeremiah 12:7, Jeremiah 12:8 Leaving all for God. (Naegelsbach is of opinion that the words of Jer 12:7-13 "are to be understood as having a double reference," i.e. both to the prophet’s own feelings and to Jehovah’s judgment. Zwingli and Bugenhagen consider that Jehovah begins to speak at "Go" or "Come," in Jeremiah 12:9. There is evidently an intimate blending of the prophetic with the Divine consciousness throughout the whole passage.) A hard duty, but one often devolving upon faithful servants of Jehovah. Indeed, spiritually, it is the first condition of discipleship imposed by Christ. Only thus can the soul preserve its equipoise and integrity in what may be required of it. The Master will brook no rival. I. THE REASONS FOR SUCH A . It is possible that for one with the keen, affectionate nature of Jeremiah, much intercourse with his family and friends would have interfered with the performance of his duty. He was appointed to discharge an anomalous function, for which the greatest concentration of energy and spirit was required. Even though he had to weep as he spoke the words that God had commanded him, he must speak. His duty to the nation overshadowed or pushed into the background the claims of friends. So the follower of Christ may be subjected to discipline in providence, or to voluntary self-deprivation of a like kind by the demands of spiritual work. And it behooves all who labor in the cause of truth to hold themselves spiritually detached from those things and relations which might impede true usefulness. II. KEEN SORROW IS BY IT. That it was a real trial to Jeremiah there can be no doubt; and probably the special discovery made to him (Jeremiah 11:18 seq.) was intended to facilitate the transfer of attachment to Jehovah. The endearing terms—"mine house," "mine heritage," "the dearly beloved of my soul," and the manner in which he repeats the history of his estrangement, prove how deeply the trial had affected him. III. THEREBY IS TESTED THE LOYALTY OF THE SAINT TO GOD. In a question between one’s friends and Jehovah, the settlement ought not to be doubtful to the mind of the saint. The reasons for withdrawal from entangling relations may not immediately appear, but the believer can with confidence leave them in the hands of God, by whom they will in due time be revealed. There is a danger in the midst of ordinary human relations that Jehovah shall be considered simply as an addition to our obligations, instead of being the supreme and all-modifying influence of our life. In proportion to the severity of the experience will be the consolations to be received.—M. Mercy and judgment. In these verses we have one of the "larger words "which make the whole world’s testament of salvation and life. The threatenings are stern and will be executed to the letter; but the promises seem to transcend the immediate occasion. A gate of hope and redemption was herein opened to multitudes who at that date were not included in the covenant of Israel. The conditions upon which their possible comprehension within the future Israel is based are moral and spiritual, and therefore truly universal I. THE OF GOD UPON THE OF ISRAEL BUT WITH THEIR CRIMES. That grave evils were inflicted upon the enemies of Israel cannot be denied. Multitudes were put to a painful death. Nations were uprooted, and human life appeared to be looked upon as an insignificant thing. In judging of this, however, it must be remembered that they had clone and were ready to do similar things to Israel and Judah. The moral platform, too, upon which they lived has to be considered. Ages of depravity and barbarism, upon which higher appeals would have been utterly lost, had to be imaginatively impressed and overawed. And there were not wanting testimonies of conscience amongst the enemies of Israel themselves to justify this course. But— II. EVEN IN BEING FOR THE SAKE OF ISRAEL, THEIR DESTINY WAS LINKED WITH HERS. If at first their lot would appear to be hard and inconceivably hopeless, yet in the end there can be no question that they were gainers by the association. In common life, with those whom they subdued they received manifold advantages, especially of a spiritual kind, and the choice was set before them of good as well as evil. On the principle, therefore, that it is better for one to suffer even severely at first if afterwards he may retrieve his position and attain to a higher and more desirable one through the initial discipline, it was better for these nations to Be brought to book in this way for Israel’s sake. Enemies to Begin with, they might, and in many cases did, become friends and fellow-heirs of the promise. III. TOWARDS ISRAEL IS BY OF . As compared with her neighbors, it might appear as if one measure were meted out to her and another to them. But this is only contemporary and relative. The punishment inflicted has to be estimated by the spiritual deprivations which accompanied it. The deferring of Israel’s hope must have been a keener sorrow than any mere temporal reverse. It must be remembered that through Israel, the seed of Abraham, all nations were to Be blessed. To avert from her utter extinction was indirectly to ensure the greater benefit to the future. But that to be made to cease as a nation from the face of the earth would have been relatively less painful than many of the dispensations through which she had to pass, cannot but be allowed. IV. IN THE MIDST OF THE FREE MERCY OF GOD IS THE MORE . How unlooked for this promise concerning the future of Israel’s enemies! The silver thread of hope traverses the dark labyrinth of judgment. It is only the wisdom of infinite Love that could so disentangle spiritual possibilities from such stupendous and widespread ruin. How glorious the mercy which can so assert itself! The only phrase that can describe the phenomenon is "grace has reigned." The individual sinner, in the midst of his deserved miseries, may take comfort from this. However great the wretchedness and ruin which he has brought upon himself, and however long continued his alienation from God, if he but turn now from his wickedness, a way of escape will be opened up for him through the sacrifice of Christ.—M. BY S. CONWAY Perplexing questions. "Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper?" etc. Unquestionably they very often do. Some of the reasons are— I. THEY ARE MORE SHREWD. "The children of this generation are wiser than the children of light." They give more heed to the laws of success, are more alert to seize opportunities and to guard against those men and things which would work them harm. No amount of piety will compensate for inattention to the laws of success. II. THEY ARE LESS . Where success is thus won by some seemingly short cut which a godly man hesitates to take, it will not seldom Be found, after awhile, that the apparently long way round of the righteous was yet the nearest because the truest road. But meanwhile the ungodly appear to have the best of it. III. THEIR IS MORE AND . The godly man cannot say in regard to the pursuit of this world’s goods, "This one thing I do;" but the ungodly can. Whilst "not slothful in business," the Christian has also to "serve the Lord." Whilst a citizen of this world, he is also a citizen of another country, even a heavenly one, and by his faith he has avowed that he seeks that country. His attention must therefore be divided, as his who sows only to the flesh is not. IV. THE LONG- OF GOD. The ungodly are his children, though ungrateful ones, and the heavenly Father would woo and win them back. Therefore in all gentleness he deals with them, making his sun to shine and his rain to descend on them as on his faithful children. The long-suffering of God is to lead to repentance. V. TO TEST, IMPROVE, AND DECLARE THE FAITH OF THE GODLY. If righteousness were a royal road to riches, and faith infallibly led to fortune, where would Be the room for trust in God? How would such trust Be tested and deepened, and how would it ever be made manifest? The devil would have had reason for his taunt concerning Job, "Doth Job serve God for naught?" But that there may Be such men as Job, heroes of the faith, pure, noble, God-fearing souls, saints indeed, God does at times let such men serve him for naught so far as this world is concerned, and hands over this world’s wages to the devil, that he may with them bribe, as he in vain sought to bribe our Lord, those who will "fall down and worship him." But that these questions may not perplex us, let us live day-by-day in view of the unseen and eternal, walking with God, holding communion with him; so shall our estimates of this world’s prosperity be corrected, and we shall be able to behold with calmness the allotment of that prosperity to the ungodly rather than to ourselves.—C. Imprecatory prayers. "Pull them out like sheep," etc. There are many of these. Some of them, like this one, are very terrible (cf. Psalms 109:1-31.; Psalms 137:9, etc.). How are they to be understood? how justified? Of what use are they to us now? Questions like these cannot but be started in reading such prayers. The difficulty of them has been felt by almost every Christian and even humane reader. To get rid of such difficulty— I. SOME HAVE THEM. The slaughter work which they call for is to be done, not on human bodies, but on human wickednesses, those inward and deadly foes which are so many and which hate us with cruel hatred. But whilst it is quite lawful to so make use of these petitions, it cannot be said that this is what they who first prayed them meant. II. OTHERS HAVE TRIED TO TURN THEM SIMPLY INTO —mere announcements of what God would do. But such alteration would never have been thought of but for the moral difficulty of letting them stand as they are. And the alteration is not permissible. III. OTHERS, VERY MANY, HAVE THEM ON THE GROUND OF THE OF GOD’S ANCIENT PEOPLE. "They knew," it is said, "no better. True, their prayers are wrong, unchristian, cruel, but they are to be excused because of the dim light, the very partial knowledge, of those days." But, in reply, it is clear that they were not ignorant; they had plain laws against revenge (cf. Le Jeremiah 19:8; Exodus 23:4, Exodus 23:5). And hence St. Paul, when arguing against revenge, cites the Old Testament, as in Romans 12:19, Romans 12:20, quoting from Deuteronomy 32:35 and Proverbs 25:21 (cf. also Proverbs 20:22; Proverbs 24:17). And Job (31.) emphatically disavows both the act and thought of revenge; and so David (Psalms 7:4, Psalms 7:5). And see David’s conduct in regard to Saul twice. See, too, his gratitude to Abigail for holding him back from revenge (1 Samuel 25:1-44.). And they had numerous laws enjoining mercy (cf. also Balaam’s speech, given in Micah, "What cloth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy," etc.?). IV. OTHERS HAVE SAID THAT SUCH ARE BUT THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN THE OLD WRITERS—that they were not inspired when they thus speak. But David claims inspiration (2 Samuel 23:1, 2 Samuel 23:2). And the apostles claim it for him; and with especial reference to the hundred and ninth psalm, one of the most notable of these utterances (Acts 1:16). And they were composed for the temple service as acts of worship. Hengstenberg says of them," They were from the first destined for use in the sanctuary. The sacred authors come forth under the full consciousness of being interpreters of the spiritual feelings of the community, organs of God for the ennobling of their feelings. They give back what in the holiest and purest hours of their life had been given to them." Hence we are compelled to regard these utterances as being only— V. THAT WHICH IT WOULD BE RIGHT FOR A GOOD MAN, PLACED IN THE LIKE , BOTH TO FEEL AND UTTER. Let it be remembered: 1. They knew nothing or but little of the great day of future judgment as we do. 2. The judgments implicated are all temporal. It can never be fight to pray for the eternal damnation of any soul, and this they never do. 3. Many of the expressions are poetical. 4. These desires for the overthrow of their enemies were: (1) Natural. Resentment against wrong, anger on account of it, and desire that it may be punished, are implanted in us. Let us but place ourselves in their position. How did we feel in the time, e.g; of the Indian Mutiny? (2) Necessary. In those fierce days a stern and fierce spirit was needed if any people were to hold their own at all (cf. Isaac Taylor, on ’ Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry’). (3) Based on the eternal truth of God’s retributive justice. God had declared by word and deed this attribute of his. Could it, then, be wrong that they should call on him to show himself what he had declared himself to be? (4) Left to God to carry out. "Unto God," says Jeremiah, "have I revealed [or, ’committed’] my cause. (5) And in the New Testament we have some similar utterances. (Cf. Matthew 23:11.) (6) And we ourselves in war—which we all allow to be at times lawful—act on these very principles, and do for ourselves what the Old Testament saints only besought God to do. Hence conclude that, in like circumstances and for similar reasons, such prayers as these are not evil. What the New Testament condemns is revenge for private personal injuries, for persecution when suffered for the gospel’s sake; but not war for defensive purposes, and therefore not the stern spirit which is essential to war. And one practical lesson from all such utterances is that they reflect what exists in God—a determined and fierce hatred against wickedness—and therefore they awaken a salutary fear of that vengeance and an earnest desire to "flee from the wrath to come."—C. Failure in little things. "If thou hast run with the footmen," etc.? The prophet of God was weary hearted. Like Job, like the writer of the thirty-seventh psalm, like John the Baptist, he was sore perplexed at God’s dealings. The wicked prospered, the righteous were cast down. Hence he sadly asks, "Wherefore doth," etc.? (Verse 1). Now, God answers such questionings as these in different ways. Sometimes by showing his servant the true state of the ungodly, making him" to understand their end." Sometimes by revealing to the righteous the vast superiority of their portion over that of the ungodly. Sometimes by gently soothing the ruffled spirit. At other times, as here, by rousing rebuke and sharp remonstrance, bidding him bethink himself, if he broke down under these comparatively small trials, how would he bear up when much more terrible ones had to be endured? If running with "footmen" was too much for him, then how would he "contend" with the swift "horses ’? If he could feel secure only in a quiet land (see Exposition), how would he do in a region full of peril like that of the jungle-land, the lair of the lion and other fierce beasts of prey, which stretched along the banks of the Jordan? Greater trials were to come to him than he had as yet known; how would he meet them if he failed in the presence of these lesser ones? Now, in applying the principle here laid down, note— I. GOD PUTS UPON US FIRST THAT WHICH IS LESS, AND THAT WHICH IS GREATER, In all departments of life. 1. Our physical powers are taxed first lightly, afterwards more heavily. 2. So our mental powers; the easy lessons first, then-those that are more difficult. 3. So with our moral life; temptation comes "as we are able to bear it." 4. So in business life i the lesser responsibilities and duties first. 5. And so in the spiritual life; God does not expect from the young beginner that which the veteran in his service can alone render. II. AND THE LESS IS TO PREPARE US FOR THE GREATER. Childhood is to prepare for youth, that for manhood, and all our life here for our everlasting life yonder. But— III. FAILURE OF THAT WHICH IS LESS CARRIES WITH IT FAILURE IN THAT WHICH IS GREATER ALSO. This is the law implied by the question of Verse 5. And it is a universal law. Therefore we may ask this question, "If thou hast run," etc.? 1. Of such as are unable to bear the lesser trials of life. What unmanly complaining we often hear, though in the presence of sorrows compared with which their own are as nothing! If they fail here and now, what will they do there and then? 2. Of such as find a little prosperity do them harm. This is the reason why many are kept poor. God sees that they would be puffed up, spiritually injured in many ways, if worldly prosperity were granted them; and hence he keeps it away. A little was given, as if to test them, but they could not bear it; and hence in God’s love they were not tried again. 3. Of such as fall before slight temptation. If conscience is set aside and trampled on in lesser matters, it will be served no better in such as are greater. 4. Of such as are looking for a more convenient season than now to yield themselves to God. Will the opposition of your own heart, of the world around you, of the power which habit has over you, become less? But if you yield thereto now, how will it be when all these have become, as they will, more powerful still? IV. BUT THE REVERSE OF THIS LAW IS TRUE ALSO. Victory over the less will lead to victory over the greater. By the successful running with the footmen we shall be prepared for the severer contest with horses. Hence little trials borne well prophesy our bearing well such as may be greater, should God please to send them. And if, when entrusted with but a few things, we are found faithful in them, the Lord whom we serve is likely to make us" ruler over many things." The lesser temptation resolutely withstood prepares for withstanding the greater when it comes; and the overleaping of the frail barriers that now may oppose our self-surrender to Christ ensures that nothing at any future time shall be able to keep us back from him, nothing shall "separate us from the love of Christ."—C. Jeremiah 12:7-13 The hiding of God’s face. Here is a most terrible condition of things set forth. It may be taken as telling of the calamities which ensue when God hides his face from his people. It is terrible every way. Because— I. OF HIM BY WHOM HIS FACE IS HIDDEN. It is God. We feel such conduct from our fellow-men according to our estimate of the person who manifests it. Now, all these facts which make the hiding of his face grievous to us meet in God—righteousness, goodness, wisdom, power. Were he devoid of these, could we question the existence of any of them in him, we could bear with more equanimity his hiding his face from us. II. OF THOSE FROM WHOM HIS FACE IS HIDDEN. Had they been enemies all along, it would have been taken as a matter of course; that he should have regarded them with favor would never have been expected. Or had they been strangers and aliens to him, then, too, his favor would not have been looked for. Or had that favor never been known or enjoyed, then its absence would not have been felt, nothing that they had been accustomed to would have been missed. But the reverse of all this is the truth. They had been counted by him as friends, as dear children, as precious in his sight; and he had been wont to cause his face to shine upon them. See the endearing epithets by which he describes them. He had counted them as "the dearly beloved of his soul" (Jeremiah 12:7), "his portion," "his pleasant portion," etc. (Jeremiah 12:8-10). How dark, therefore, must be the frown of God to such! how intolerable to them his displeasure ] III. OF THAT WHICH THE HIDING OF HIS FACE. There is withdrawal: 1. From the sanctuary. "I have forsaken mine house." The customary services went on, but the glow, the unction, the power of them had departed. The place where his honor dwelt, the dearly beloved of his soul, was forsaken by him. 2. From the people. His heritage was no longer pleasant to him; he delighted not to dwell amongst them. All that joy, strength, prosperity, which belonged to them when God was amongst them had departed. 3. From the land. "The whole land is made desolate." In the outward circumstances and surroundings of the people the effect of God’s hiding his face from them became terribly manifest. And there has come a terrible revulsion of feeling on the part of God towards them (see Jeremiah 12:8, Jeremiah 12:9). And not only his mind, but his hand, his providence, is awfully changed towards them. He calls on their enemies to come (Jeremiah 12:9). And they come (Jeremiah 12:12). And the ruin is complete: "The sword of the Lord shall devour from the one end of the land even to the other" (Jeremiah 12:12). All their own plans—their sowing of wheat (Jeremiah 12:13)—for their own good are miserably defeated, they "reap thorns." Thus the inward displeasure of God manifests itself oftentimes in the outward circumstances of a man or nation. IV. OF THAT ON ACCOUNT OF WHICH GOD’S FACE IS HIDDEN. It was "because no man layeth it to heart" (Jeremiah 12:11). The lesser judgments of God, his repeated warnings, had been disregarded—hearing they heard not, seeing they saw not; and hence all this. Had the cause of their woe been their misfortune, the result of mistake, or ignorance, or lack of timely counsel, then there would have been some element of consolation amid all they had to suffer. But to add to their distress was the ever-present reflection, "It was all our own fault; we brought it all on ourselves." With what intense hatred, therefore, should we look upon all that grieves the Spirit of God! and with what earnest haste should we endeavor to return unto God, if we have wandered from him! These miseries which beset those from whom God hides his face are his loving scourgings whereby we may be led to say, "I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father,! have sinned," etc.—C. The speckled bird. A great preacher relates the following incident:—He says, "I had during my early ministry to preach one evening at a neighboring village, to which I had to walk. After reading and meditating all day, I could not meet with the right text. Do what I would, no response came from the sacred oracle, no light flashed from the Urim and Thummim. I prayed, I meditated, I turned from one verse to another; but the mind would not take hold, or I was, as John Bunyan would say, ’ much tumbled up and down in my thoughts.’ Just then I walked to the window and looked out. On the other side of the narrow street in which I lived I saw a poor, solitary canary bird upon the slates, surrounded by a crowd of sparrows, who were all pecking at it as if they would tear it to pieces. At that moment the verse came into my mind, ’ Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird; the birds round about are against her.’ I walked off with the greatest possible composure, considered the passage during my long and lonely walk, and preached upon the peculiar people and the persecutions of their-enemies, with freedom and ease to myself, and I believe with comfort to my rustic audience. The text was sent to me, and if the ravens did not bring it, certainly the sparrows did." But while the use here made of the text is a legitimate one, it certainly is not its meaning. That, therefore, as in all cases, has the priority of claim to be considered, and we note how it tells— I. OF WHAT MAY BE THE OF GOD’S TO HIMSELF. He who had once so loved them as to call them by all endearing names, "the dearly beloved of my soul" (Verse 7), "mine heritage" (Verse 8), "my portion," "my pleasant portion" (Verse 10), and whose hand had been wont to follow the dictates of his heart, had now completely changed towards them. HIS love had departed, and in place thereof had come aversion and anger (cf. Homily on Verses 7-13). Sad as it is, this similitude snows what may come to be the relation between God and his people. "Therefore have I hated it" (Verse 8), saith God. We cannot but inquire the cause of so terrible a change. It was because "no man layeth it to heart’ (Verse 11); no man, i.e. would give heed to God’s words and signs of warning, but went on in sin just the same. They would not repent, but persisted in their evil ways. But we may take the words also as suggesting— II. WHAT WILL BE THE OF GOD’S PEOPLE TO THE WORLD. The world will hate the Church. "The birds around" will come "against her." Sometimes it seems as if it were not so. For unquestionably there are many portions of God’s heritage that the world does not persecute. The age of martyrdom is over. God has shut the lions’ mouths. He puts his fear upon the world; they see that God is with his people; or they are partly in sympathy with them. But at other times it is true as it was with that poor bird amongst the sparrows. "Well may we pity a godly wife bound to an ungodly husband; alas! full-often a drunkard, whose-opposition amounts to brutality. A tender, loving spirit, that ought to have been cherished like a tender flower, is bruised and trodden underfoot, and made to suffer till the heart cries out in grief. We little know what lifelong martyrdoms many pious women endure. Children also have to bear the same when they are singled out by Divine grace from depraved and wicked families. Only the other day there came under my notice one who loves the Lord. I thought if she had been a daughter of mine I should have rejoiced beyond all things in her sweet and gentle piety; but the parent said, ’You must leave our house if you attend such and such a place of worship. We do not believe in such things, and we cannot have you about us if you do.’ And nobody knows what godly working men often have to put up with from those among whom they labor. Frequently the working men are great tyrants in matters of religion. If a man will drink with them and swear with them, they will make him their companion; but when a man comes out to fear God, they make it very hard for him." Yes; God’s heritage is in the eyes of the world "as a speckled bird," etc. But let God’s servants remember, when they are thus tried, that they have fellowship with Christ. They were forewarned of it; Christ did not conceal the cross from them. "Behold," he said, "I send you forth as sheep amongst wolves." But they cannot do you much harm (cf. Matthew 10:1-42). The day is soon coming when their power will be forever destroyed. Meanwhile, keep away from them as much as you lawfully may. Do not needlessly provoke them; whilst harmless as doves, be wise as serpents also. Do not be like them, and do not be afraid of them. Go not alone with them; have the Lord Jesus ever with you, and you will be able to meet them in all holy and courageous wisdom and meekness. If the persecution be very great, ask the Lord to place you somewhere else, if so it may be. And till he does, and always, pray for them—Sauls may become Pauls. III. IT IS A IN WHICH GOD’S MUST STAND EITHER TO GOD OR TO THE WORLD. There cannot be compromise. "No man can serve two masters." "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." "The friendship of the world is enmity against God." "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Whose aversion, then, will you have, since that of God or of the world you must have? Your peril is not that you should deliberately choose to have the aversion of God rather than that of the world, but that you should seek to compromise. But that also is impossible. In coming to a decision be sure you take eternity into view, and may God who compels you to make this great choice help you—as he will if you seek his grace—to choose, like Moses, "rather to suffer affliction with," etc.—C. The tide that has no ebb, but overflows. Such is the grace of God. I. IT HAS NO EBB. It seemed to be going back in regard to those to whom the prophet wrote. What terrible calamities were threatened and also came! How dark the face of God seemed towards them! But they were to be restored Jeremiah 12:14, "I will pluck out the house of Judah from among ye. And even yet God’s mercies to his ancient people are not done. Another restoration is to be theirs. "The gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (cf. Romans 11:1-36.). And Israel is but a type of humanity at large. God has not created all men in vain. Man, as such, is precious in his sight; "the dearly beloved of his soul." And notwithstanding the dark records of human history—man’s sins and sorrows—God’s love is upon him still. He "so loved the world," and that love has not ceased. The tide of his grace has not ceased to flow. But there may be barriers in the way of its onward progress. Human sin is such. It is so in nations and in individuals, and not only do men by their sin bar for themselves the inflow of God’s grace, but for those who come after them. And to break through and break down these barriers is a work of time. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ The chapter falls into two parts—the one describing a divinely commanded action of the prophet, symbolical of the approaching rejection of the Jewish people, the other announcing in literal language the ruin especially of the king and the queen-mother, and emphasizing the inveterate corruption which rendered such a blow necessary. The mention of the queen-mother (see Jeremiah 13:18) renders it probable that Jehoiachin is the king under whom the prophecy was composed. It is true that other kings besides Jehoiachin ascended the throne in the lifetime of their mother; but the express and repeated mention of the queen-mother in the account of Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24:12, 2 Kings 24:15; comp. Jeremiah 29:2; Jeremiah 22:26) warrants the inference that Nehushta, Jehoiachin’s mother, was a more powerful personage than other queen-mothers. This will be confirmed if, with Hitzig and Bertheau, we accept the statement of the text of the Chronicles (2 Chronicles 36:9), that Jehoiachin was eight (not eighteen) years old on his accession (see on Jeremiah 21:1-14:28). Jeremiah 13:1-11 The entire people of the Jews is like a good-for-nothing apron. Jeremiah 13:1 A linen girdle; rather, a linen apron. "Girdle" is one of the meanings of the Hebrew (’ezor), but is here unsuitable. As Jeremiah 13:11 shows, it is an inner garment that is meant, one that "cleaveth to the loins of a man". The corresponding Arabic word, ’izar, has, according to Lane, the meaning of "waist-wrapper.’ Israel was to Jehovah in as close a relation spiritually as that in which the inner garment referred to is to him who wears it materially. There is an Arabic proverb which well illustrates this: "He is to me in place of an ’izar". "A linen apron" may perhaps be specified, because linen was the material of the priestly dress (Le Jeremiah 16:4), and Israel was to be spiritually" a kingdom of priests." But this is not absolutely necessary. The common man used linen in his dress as well as the priest; the only difference between them was that the priest was confined to linen garments. But an ,’ apron" would in any case naturally be made of linen. Linen; literally, flax (a product of Judah, Hosea 2:5). Put it not in water. The object of the prohibition is well stated by St. Jerome. It was at once to symbolize the character of the people of Israel, stiff and impure, like unwashed linen, and to suggest the fate in store for it (Jeremiah 13:9). Jeremiah 13:4-6 After Jeremiah has worn the apron for some time, he is directed to take it to P’rath, and hide it there in a cleft (not "hole") of the rock. A long interval elapses, and he is commanded to make a second journey to the same place, and fetch away the apron. What does this P’rath mean? It is by no means easy to decide. Hardly "the Euphrates," (1) because the common prefix, "the river," is wanting, though in so extraordinary a narrative it was peculiarly needed; (2) because of the length of the journey to Babylonia, which has ex hyp. to be made twice; and (3) because the Euphrates is not a rocky river. Ewald suggested that "some wet place near Jerusalem" probably had the name of P’rath, and indicates a valley and spring called Forah, about six English miles north-east of Jerusalem. Mr. Birch appears to have hit independently on the same spot, which he identifies with the Parah of Jos 18:23, about three miles north-east of Anatbeth, and describes as a picturesque gorge between savage rocks, with a copious stream. This combination, however, involves an emendation of the text (P’rath into Parah)—logically it involves this, as Mr. Birch has seen; Ewald’s comparison of the Arabic furat, sweet water, seems inconsistent with his reference to Parah—for which there does not seem to be sufficient necessity; and it is better to adopt the view of the great old French Protestant scholar, Bochart, that P’rath is a shortened form of Ephrath, i.e. at once Bethlehem and the district in which Bethlehem lay (see 1 Chronicles 2:50; 1 Chronicles 4:4; and perhaps Psalms 132:6). It need hardly be said that the limestone hills of this region afforded abundance of secluded rocks. There may, of course, be at the same time an allusion to the ordinary meaning of P’rath, viz. Euphrates, on the analogy of the allusion in Isaiah 27:12. Those who hold the view here rejected, that P’rath is equivalent to the Euphrates, sometimes suppose that the narrative is a parable or symbolical fiction, such as Luther, Calvin, and others find in Hosea 1:1-11; Hosea 3:1-5, the thing signified being in this case the carrying captive of the people to Babylon; and this seems the best way of making this interpretation plausible. Jeremiah 13:6 After many days. To allow time for the apron to become rotten. Jeremiah 13:7 I went … and digged. The apron, then, had been covered with a thick layer of earth. Jeremiah 13:8-11 Explanation of the symbol. Could there be a greater humiliation for Judah and Jerusalem than to be compared to a rotting linen apron? The hard things said of this evil people in Jeremiah 13:10 must of course be understood with the limitations indicated in the note on Jeremiah 9:15, Jeremiah 9:16. Imagination should (as usual) be stubbornness. The explanation in Jeremiah 9:11 is a strong argument for the rendering "apron" (see above, on Jeremiah 9:1). Jeremiah 13:12-14 Here another symbol is introduced—a symbolic phrase rather than a symbolic action. The first symbol referred to the people as a whole; the second represents the fate of the individual members of the people. The words, Thus saith the lord God of Israel, are omitted in the Septuagint, and certainly the form of the following phrase seems hardly worthy of so solemn an introduction. Every bottle. It is an earthenware bottle, or pitcher, which seems from Jeremiah 13:13 to be meant (comp. Isaiah 30:14), though the Septuagint renders here ἀσκός. The kings that sit upon David’s throne; rather, that sit for David upon his throne; i.e. as David’s heirs and successors. The plural "kings" is to include all the kings who reigned during the final period of impending ruin. With drunkenness. The effect of the "wine-cup of [the Divine] fury" (Jeremiah 25:15). Dash them one against another. This is merely the development of the figure of the pitchers; not a prediction of civil war. The pitchers, when cast down, must of course fall together into pieces. Jeremiah 13:15-19 An admonition to seize upon the only means of escape. Jeremiah 13:16 Give glory, etc. Let your tribute to your King be that of humble submission to his will. The precise application of the phrase must be derived from the context (comp. Joshua 7:19; Malachi 2:2). Upon the dark mountains; rather, upon mountains of twilight. A "mountain" is an image of a great obstacle (Zechariah 4:7; Matthew 21:21). As Judah is walking along, the hitherto even tenor of his way gives place to huge mountains wrapped in an impenetrable dusk, over which he will stumble and fall if he does not repent in time. Jeremiah 13:17 Should all admonitions be in vain, Jeremiah will return (like Samuel, 1 Samuel 15:35) and give vent to his sorrowful emotion. The Lord’s flock. Jehovah is likened to a shepherd (comp. Zechariah 10:3). Jeremiah 13:18 The extent of the calamity shown in individual instances. For the fulfillment, see 2 Kings 24:15. After a reign of three months, the young prince and his mother were carried to Babylon. And to the queen; rather, and to the queen-mother (literally, the mistress). It will be noticed that, except in two cases, the names of the mothers of the reigning kings of Judah are scrupulously mentioned in the Books of Kings. This and the title of "mistress" are indications of the high rank they enjoyed in the social system. In the case of Asa, we are told that he removed his mother, Maachah, from her position as "mistress," or queen-mother, on account of her idolatry (1 Kings 15:13). The political value of the station is strikingly shown by the ease with which Athaliah, as queen-mother, usurped the supreme authority (2 Kings 11:1-21.). From an historical point of view, the "queen-mother" of the Jews is a most interesting personage; she is a relic of the primitive age in which relationship was reckoned with regard to the mother (so with the Accadians, Etruseans, Finns, etc.). It should be added, however, that once (viz. 1 Kings 11:19) the same title, "mistress," is applied to the queen-consort. Humble yourselves, sit down; rather, sit down in abase-sent; i.e. take the station suitable for your abased circumstances (comp. Isaiah 47:1). Your principalities; rather, your head. ornaments. Jeremiah 13:19 The rendering of the Authorized Version is substantially right, as the events referred to are obviously future. The tense, however, in the Hebrew, is the perfect—viz. that of prophetic certitude. Jeremiah sees it all in prophetic vision, as if it were actually taking place. The cities of the south; i.e. of the dry, southern country of Judah, called the Negeb—shall be [are] shut up—i.e. blocked up with ruins (as Isaiah 24:10)—and none shall open them (openeth them), because all Judah will have been carried captive. (For fulfillment, see Jeremiah 34:7.) Jeremiah 13:20, Jeremiah 13:21 The captivity being still (in spite of the perfect tense) a thing of the future, the prophet can seek to awaken the conscience of the careless under-shepherd by showing how serf-caused is his (or rather her) punishment. Jeremiah 13:20 Lift up your eyes. The verb is fern. sing; the pronoun (in suffix form) masc. plu,—a clear indication that the person addressed is a collective. Probably the "daughter of Zion" is intended, which, in a certain sense, might be called the "shepherd" or leader of the rest of the nation. From the north. Again this horror of the north as the source of calamity (see on Jeremiah 14:1-22). Jeremiah 13:21 What wilt thou say, etc.? The rendering of the verse is uncertain, though the Authorized Version undoubtedly requires correction. The alternatives are, What wilt thou say when he shall appoint over thee (but thou thyself hast trained them against thee) familiar friends as thy head? and, What wilt thou say when he shall appoint over thee those whom thou hast taught thy familiar friends as thy head? The rendering "familiar friends" is justified by Psalms 55:13; Proverbs 16:28; Proverbs 17:9; Micah 7:5. The "captains" of Authorized Version, or rather "tribal chiefs," is unsuitable. Jeremiah 13:22 Thy heels made bare; rather, treated with violence. The fate held out to the daughter of Zion (trained to walk about with "tinkling ornaments," Isaiah 2:18) is to plod wearily along with bare feet (comp. Isaiah 47:1). Jeremiah 13:24 As the stubble. "The word means not what we call stubble, but the broken straw which had to be separated from the wheat after the corn had been trampled out by the oxen. Sometimes it was burnt as useless; at other times left to be blown away by the wind coming from the desert, on which see Jeremiah 4:11; Job 1:19" (Payne Smith). Jeremiah 13:25 The portion of thy measures; i.e. thy measured portion. But it is probably safer to render, the portion of thy garment, the upper garment being used instead of a bag to hold anything (comp. Rth 3:15; 2 Kings 4:39). In falsehood; i.e. in false gods (Jeremiah 16:19). Jeremiah 13:26 Therefore will I, etc. But the Hebrew is much more forcible, "And I also," etc; implying, as Calvin remarks (comp. Proverbs 1:26), a certain retaliation. Upon thy face; an allusion to Nahum 3:5. Jeremiah 13:27 I have seen, etc. The Hebrew is again more forcible than the English. It runs, "Thine adulteries and thy neighings," etc. l (this is an exclamation as it were; then more reflectively)," I have seen thine abominations." Neighings; i.e. passionate craving for illegitimate objects of worship (comp. Jeremiah 2:24, Jeremiah 2:25; Jeremiah 5:8). In the fields. The Hebrew has the singular. The "field," as usual, means the open country. Wilt thou not, etc.? rather, How long ere thou be made clean? In Jeremiah 13:23 the prophet had vehemently declared his people to be incorrigible. But, like the tender Hoses, he cannot continue to hold such gloomy thoughts; surely Israel, God’s people, must eventually be "made clean!" But this can only be as the result of judicial affliction, and these afflictions will be no slight or transient ones. The spoiled girdle. I. GOD’S PEOPLE ARE LIKE A GIRDLE TO GOD. 1. They are his peculiar property. The girdle is a private personal possession. It belongs solely to the wearer. When all ordinary property is taken from him he retains the clothes on his body. Even the bankrupt has a right to these. 2. They are near to God. This girdle—really an under-garment—is close to the person of the wearer. God does not simply hold his people as an absentee landlord holds his property. ’He draws them near to himself. He cherishes them with affection, sustains the burden of them, carries them with him in his glorious out-going to works of wonder and mercy and in his blessed in-coming to Divine peace and sabbatic repose. 3. They are a glory to God. (Jeremiah 13:11.) Garments are worn, not only for clothing, but to add grace and beauty. God’s people are more than safe with him; they are glorious. It is true that they have no inherent grace which they can add to the splendor of God, but they can adorn that splendor by reflecting it, as the clouds which gird about the rising sun seem to increase its beauty by reflecting its own rich rays. 4. They are required to cleave to God. God graciously takes his people near to himself; yet they must voluntarily bind themselves to him in love, in devotion, in submission, in obedience. II. GOD’S PEOPLE, IN THEIR SIN, ARE LIKE A GIRDLE DEFILED AND . 1. Jeremiah was forbidden to put the girdle in water (Verse 1). Whilst living in this world the best men daily contract stains of sin; but God has provided a fountain for cleansing, and by daily penitence and faith in his purifying grace the soul may be made and preserved pure (Zechariah 13:1). As all have sinned and do sin, all need this constant cleansing. To neglect it is to become increasingly foul and unfit for the honor that God bestows upon his people. 2. This corruption is manifest (1) in neglect of the will-of God—"they refuse to hear my words;" (2) in willful obstinacy—they "walk in the stubbornness of their heart;" (3) in positive disobedience and impurity—they "they walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them;" (4) in inveterate impenitence—they "would not hear." III. THE OF GOD’S SINFUL PEOPLE IS LIKE THE OF THE GIRDLE. 1. They are cast off. The unwashed girdle can be worn no longer. In their holiness God’s people were his glory; in their defilement they are his dishonor God can endure the presence of nothing impure (Hebrews 12:14). 2. They are left to their own increasing defilement. The unwashed garment is buried, and becomes only worse. The most terrible punishment of sin is to be left to sin unchecked. Vice then becomes ingrained—a second nature. 3. They are dishonored. The girdle is visibly marred with the earth in which it is buried. Internal impurity is punished with external shame. Punishment is appropriate to guilt. Pride is chastised by humiliation. 4. Though their sin may be hidden for a time, it will be revealed at last. The girdle is buried only to be exhumed. The longer it was buried the worse must have been its condition when it was again exposed to view. The corruption of the heart cannot be ultimately concealed; it must reveal itself in the life. In the resurrection-life, wherein the body is spiritual and fits truly and expresses clearly the soul that inhabits it, the foul soul will be compelled to inhabit a foul body. 5. They are rendered worthless. The girdle is utterly spoiled—profitable for nothing. Sin not only dishonors, it destroys. The girdle becomes rotten. As dirt rots a garment, so sin rots a soul. It not only makes it foul and hideous, but it destroys its faculties and energies, degrades its essential nature, and introduces the corruption of death (James 1:15). The parable of the wine-flagons. I. THE PROUD ARE LIKE WINE-FLAGONS. Jeremiah is thinking chiefly of the aristocracy of his nation (Verse 13) and their pride (Verse 17). The metaphor, therefore, specially designates the proud. These are swelled-out and pretentious, but not solid, and do not contain anything good of their own. They are brittle. Pride is itself a source of danger (Proverbs 16:18). II. THE WRATH OF GOD IS LIKE WINE. It is a disturbing influence, breaking in upon the quiet of serf-complacency. The more its natural tendency to reduce us to repentance is suppressed by pride, the more terribly will its presence agitate us. The larger the flagon, the more wine will it contain; the greater the rank, the greater the trouble when universal retribution comes. The more empty the flagon, the more wine will it contain; so the less of real solid worth there is in a man’s life, the more room will there be for the exercise of Divine wrath against his wretched condition. III. THE EFFECT OF THE WRATH OF GOD ON THE PROUD IS LIKE THE ROLLING OF WINE-FLAGONS FILLED WITH WINE. The flagons are imagined to be drunken, and to behave as drunken men would behave. In this condition they exemplify the state of those into whom God has poured the vials of his wrath. This does not simply work in them, leaving their exterior undisturbed. Spiritual though it is, it affects the whole life. We cannot escape the effect of God’s anger by ignoring spiritual facts and living in the outside, worldly life alone. This and all our experience will be disturbed. The flagons strike one another. Companions in the pleasures of sin become mutual enemies in the punishment of it. Moral corruption leads to social discord. Civil war is one of the greatest calamities which can overtake a nation, and when this arises, not from any contention for right or liberty, but from the outburst of wild passions, selfish greed, etc; it is doubly destructive. In such an event wickedness becomes its own executioner. Darkness. I. SIN PLUNGES THE SOUL INTO . "Light is sown for the righteous" (Psalms 97:11). The darkness of evil thoughts and an evil will throws its shadow out on the world, and ultimately brings gloom over the whole of life. 1. This darkness is distressing. The benighted feel a horror of great darkness falling upon them amid the wild and lonely mountains. When God withdraws the sunshine of his grace this mournful condition must be the experience of the godless. 2. It is confusing. They "stumble upon the twilight mountains." Without God we have no true guide in life. There are mountains of difficulty to be overcome in our earthly pilgrimage, steep and toilsome and dangerous. How dreadful to venture unenlightened and unguided through such pathless wilds! If the life were to be spent in a paradise, it would be sad to dwell amidst its beauties in perpetual gloom; but, seeing that it is a pilgrimage over the mountains, it is fearful to be left in darkness. 3. It will grow into deeper darkness. At first it is a twilight. Some hope that this is the herald of the dawn; but they are mistaken—it is the portend of the night. The mingled lights and shadows will melt into the blackness of midnight. The mixed joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, of this life, which some sanguine souls suppose to be the worst condition they will be in, and likely to give place to rest and joy hereafter, will end to the sinner in the terrible darkness of a much worse future retribution. 4. The present light is no guarantee that the darkness is not approaching. The brightest day may be followed by the blackest night. II. THE OF THIS SHOULD WARN MEN TO AVERT IT. 1. It is not inevitable. It has not yet come. There is still time to escape. If there were no remedy, all warnings would be useless. The very utterance of warnings implies that the terrors to which they refer may be avoided. 2. The contemplation of its approaching advent should urge men to seek an escape. The prospect is gloomy, and many will not face a gloomy prospect. They dislike allusions to unpleasant subjects. But it is necessary to contemplate such sad truths, that men may be roused by selfish fear when they will not be moved by the love of God. 3. The way of escape is to be found in "giving glory to God." It is returning from rebellion to the service of God, humbling ourselves, rejecting the pride which clings to the old sin, and regarding God alone as worthy of honor, and so submitting to his will and obeying his commands as to glorify him by our acts. To the Christian all this is implied in faith in Christ which involves the humbling of ourselves before him, and our trust in his grace which glorifies his love, and loyalty to his will which honors his rights of royalty. Royalty humbled. I. GOD IS THE JUDGE OF KINGS. They are as far beneath God as are the meanest beggars. Their rank is no protection against the execution of Divine justice; their power no security against the consequences of the wrath of God. No earthly honor or power will serve men when they stand before the great throne of judgment. II. WICKED KINGS WILL MEET WITH SEVERE . The greater the privileges they have had, the more have they been able to abuse them, and therefore the greater their guilt. The larger their influence has been, the more harm have they done in using that influence for evil purposes. All who are entrusted with exceptional power should remember that this incurs exceptional responsibility. III. THE PRIDE OF KINGS WILL BE WITH . Every sin will have its appropriate retribution. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," not only in the main characteristics, but in particular features. Pride thus naturally sows the seed of shame (Proverbs 29:23). IV. THE OF THE PRESENT OF WICKED KINGS WILL ENHANCE THE OF THEIR FUTURE . They who stand highest can fall lowest. Poverty is felt more keenly by people who were once in affluence than by the children of the poor. The memory of his former luxuries must have added keenness to the sufferings of Dives in Hades. We are not to infer from this that future retribution is only a compensation for the inequality of the joys and sorrows of this life, that kings will suffer for their very greatness (for the wicked poor will be wretched hereafter, while the good and great will be blessed in the future with heavenly treasures), but that if we are unfaithful, the measure of future distress will necessarily be partly determined by that of present enjoyment. We need not, therefore, be envious of the prosperity of the wicked. Rather it should fill us with horror, grief, and pity as we consider what a fool’s paradise they live in—what anguish will grow out of the contrast of it with the certain retribution of all sin! Jeremiah 13:23 The Ethiopian’s skin and the leopard’s spots. I. SIN BECOMES IN THE NATURE OF MEN. The black of the Ethiopian’s skin and the spots of the leopard are natural. Sin is, of course, originally unnatural. Yet it is so engrafted into the very life of men that it becomes part of their nature. 1. Men inherit tendencies to evil; e.g. the child of the drunkard is likely to feel strong temptation to intemperance, etc. We are not to blame for what we inherit; but we do suffer through it. The degraded moral nature is a fact, and one for which the possessor of it suffers, although he will not be responsible for it, nor punished simply for having it, but only for the way in which, with his free-will, he yields to it, and, on his own account, makes it still more corrupt. 2. Men habituate themselves to sin. Habit is second nature. The sin which is willfully chosen becomes a tyrannous habit. We are coloring our very being by the tone of our thoughts and actions. What we do today, that we will be to-morrow. We are the result of our own past deeds. He who speaks or acts a lie becomes a liar; he who indulges in impurity becomes an unclean being; he who follows selfish impulses becomes a creature of selfishness. Thus every man is building up a habitation for his soul by his own deeds. What shall this house be? A temple of divinity? a palace of pure delights? a charnel-house of corruption? or a prison of gloom? II. THIS OF SIN MAKES IT FOR ANY MAN TO IT. 1. Self-reformation is impossible. Sin is not a mere defilement to be washed off. It is ingrained. It is in the blood, in the life, in the nature. Action is according to character. If the character is corrupt, so must be the action. It is true we are free to do as we will, but so long as our nature is corrupt we shall will to do evil, because the will is part of the nature. But apart from the vexed question of the freedom of the will, every man is conscious of the difficulty of overcoming opposing habits, even when his will is roused against them. When he would do good evil is present with him, and this evil is so strong that it can only be regarded as a law of (corrupted) nature (Romans 7:21-23). 2. Perfect reformation must be sought from God. This must be regeneration (John 3:3). Man can do much with himself, but only God can "create" in him" a clean heart" and make him" a new creature." Therefore, to be born again, we must be born "from above." Regeneration must be the work of the Spirit, which is the brooding source of all life. But this is possible for all (Matthew 19:26). The impossibility for self-reformation should not leave us in sullen indifference, but should rouse us to seek the one sure means of renewal in crucifixion of the old life and spiritual resurrection to a new life, through yielding ourselves up to the influence of the grace of God in Christ Jesus. BY A.F. MUIR The marred girdle. This and the following emblem are intended to symbolize the characters and punishment of pride in spiritual and carnal men respectively. The "girdle" of linen cloth worn by the priest represents the close relation of Judah and Jerusalem to Jehovah. He had chosen them, and taken them into closest fellowship. They were as his cincture to declare his character and glory to men. But they had abused his confidence. For them, therefore, the fate was reserved which is described in connection with the girdle. Where the cleft of the rock was, in Ephrath or Euphrates, is not quite plain; but the probability is that the last-mentioned is really meant, and that a journey to it was indeed made by the prophet. I. THE DIGNITY AND IDEAL OF GOD’S PEOPLE THUS SET FORTH. The linen girdle worn by the priests was a portion of their appointed and consecrated garments. It represented, therefore, the idea of consecration arising from nearness and closeness. They were highly favored amongst the nations as being brought into immediate relation with Jehovah. "As the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah, saith the Lord" (Jeremiah 13:11). And as the girdle, by bracing the body, becomes a means of strength, so Israel was to be the power of God amongst the nations of the world. They were to be as kings and priests before God, to show forth his righteousness and to execute his will. II. THE UPON WHICH THESE HAVE TO BE . Simply because they had been so designed in the eternal purpose. They had no security for this position being retained. It would not do for them to rely upon prestige. With spiritual strength relaxed and moral pretty lost, they were no longer fit for the honorable service to which they had been called. It was only as their spiritual life rose to the height of their calling, and maintained itself from age to age by means of Divine truth and continual exercise of faith, that they could expect to retain their privileges. But this Israel was far from seeing. She required, therefore, to be taught the truth of it by experience, and nothing would do this better than that which the symbol suggested. Their outward circumstances and position would be made to correspond with their inward character, so that all men, and even they themselves, would cease to be deceived. This is ever the order of the Divine government. He will set our secret sins in the light of his countenance. II. THE OF GOD SHOULD SPARE NO EFFORT TO EMBODY AND ENFORCE THE TRUTH HE HAS TO DECLARE. Whether Ephrath in Israel or Euphrates was meant, a journey of considerable length had to be taken, and much trouble was involved. But the prophet did not grudge this if thereby he might appeal through the imagination the more forcibly to the heart of his people. So sometimes ancient prophets had to submit to themselves being made signs that were spoken against. There can be no question that the manner adopted by the prophet of illustrating his message was most effective and striking. And it was clear even to the simplest understanding. An illustrative style of discourse is carefully to be distinguished from a florid one; and anything which conveys more vivid impressions to one’s self is more likely to add impressiveness and vivid force to what one has to say to others. This going to Euphrates on the part of the prophet was quite an important business, but it was justified by its result. And so preachers should spare no pains to link the truth of God with the actions, the experiences, and the interests of men.—M. Jeremiah 13:12, Jeremiah 13:15 Broken pitchers; or, worldly sufficiency and its punishment. I. THE SIGNS OF THIS . The threatenings of God are interpreted as if they had been truisms of blessing justified by the unbelievers’ own experience. The prophet is therefore despised, and his message wrested from its original meaning. The people were so oblivious to their own guilt that they looked forward without fear to the future, or they professed to do so. They had clothed themselves in triple armor of self-sufficiency against Divine warnings. So the worldly mind continually prophecies good for itself instead of evil, and inverts the messages of Divine grace. The sharpest experiences and most signal reverses are not enough to rid it of this folly, and thereby it condemns itself. II. HOW IT IS DEALT WITH BY GOD. That this is provoking to the Divine mind is evident. It is a fresh element added to the guilt already denounced. The insult to the messenger of God must be avenged, and this is accomplished: 1. By removing all ambiguity from his words. Their real meaning is explained so that no one can mistake it. In this pointed disillusion there is the greater emphasis imparted to the original message. God will not suffer any one to remain in ignorance of his final destiny, whether it be good or evil. 2. The doom already predicted is repeated with expressions of Divine determination and anger. Civil discord and national destruction are plainly set forth, and whilst these take place the ear of an offended God is turned away. He will "not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them." III. IT IS WELL, , FOR MEN TO GIVE HEED TO DIVINE AND . Sometimes in the history of the Church omens, dreams, and visions have been given whose meaning was not clear, but on prayerful solicitation it has been revealed. Willful blindness cannot escape punishment, because it provokes the just anger of God. But to those who ask in humble inquiry what the will of the Lord may be, he will return a gracious answer, and declare how the evil may be averted.—M. Days of grace and how they should be spent The mind of the prophet was full of the doom which he had predicted, and he was apprehensive of the spiritual results of exile and confusion with heathen nations. The people themselves, however, did not exhibit any such anxiety. They treated his words as idle tales, or as the expression of ill nature and enmity. The relation of these two is a typical one. From age to age the preacher of righteousness urges his pleas and presses for immediate attention to reformation of life. As constantly those addressed put off the needed repentance and waste the time which is afforded them for working out their salvation. I. THE PRESENT IS TO BE AS A FOR AND SERVICE. The element of time in these, as in other prophecies, is left for the most part indefinite. Exact dates would defeat the purpose the message of the prophet has in view. It was sufficient for him to impress upon them that there would be but a short time between the present and the fate he had described. It was a sign of God’s grace that he had been sent to warn them. They were to listen to his voice as to the voice of Jehovah. And in the event of repentance, that which was near at hand might be indefinitely postponed or altogether averted. But in any case the really essential work of repentance ought to be done whilst they had clear views of the nature of their sin and the requirements of God’s Law. From Joshua 7:19 it is evident that the phrase, "Give glory to the Lord," meant nothing else than to repeat. It suggests the honor of God, which is acknowledged and felt by the humbled sinner as he bows before the footstool of grace and tells out the dark history of his sin. The lower he is in his own estimation the higher is that throne of glory before which he lies prostrate. And at such a time the grandest conceptions are given of the greatness, the power, and the love of God. His forgiveness shines forth in new, unspeakable splendor. And the restored sinner is eager to declare to others the grace which he himself has received. But all this is necessarily a work of time, and demands for its adequate fulfillment the full possession of our faculties and the clearest perceptions of truth. II. THE RISKS BY DELAY IN THESE DUTIES ARE THEN . The figure is that of a traveler in a mountainous region who loses his way amongst the dark rocks until eventually the deepening gloom leaves him in despair and death. The picture is very vivid, and appeals to the deepest human feeling. It suggested the mental and spiritual confusion which were likely to arise from unlooked-for reverses, from captivity in a heathen land, and from forgetfulness of the traditions of Israel. But it is even more truly correspondent with the condition of those who have delayed making their peace with God until they have suffered mental eclipse, or been overtaken by the terror, the weakness, etc; of a death-bed. The worth of "a death-bed repentance" has been rightly discounted by every preacher and writer of the Church. There is but one instance of such a thing in Scripture. It is but seldom that resolutions formed under such circumstances, in the event of restoration to health, avail against the temptations and lifelong habits of the sinner. ― M. (See on Jeremiah 10:19.)—M. Moral helplessness: how induced. I. THE EXTENT TO WHICH IT MAY GO. The metaphors employed are intended to illustrate the difficulty of getting rid of that which has become a part of one’s self, or which has become natural to one. It is evident that superficial means would never produce the effect supposed, because that which seems to be superficial has really its root in the nature, and would be reproduced similarly in place of that which was removed. The doctrine is that there are certain evils into which men fall which may appear to be external, matters of custom and observance, but which have really their origin in the depravity of the heart. Any merely external reform, like that of Josiah, would fail to effect a permanent change, because the source of the errors and transgressions which were corrected was deeper than the remedy could reach. And this is the case with the sins of men. To cease to do evil we have not only to stay the hand but to purify the heart. To cease to do evil we must cease to think it, to feel it, and to conceive it. So helpless is the sinner when he stands face to face with the problem of reformation. Effort after effort is made and fails. It is bound to fail because the source of the wrong-doing has net been rectified. To change himself—who is capable of this feat? II. CAUSES OF IT, REAL AND UNREAL. Excuses readily suggest themselves to the sinner who would avoid the humiliation of repentance. He may ask the question, as if it were a mystery, "Wherefore come these things upon me?" Or, ignoring the witness of conscience, he may attribute his weakness to circumstances and external influences. This is the error which the prophet refutes. With great skill he shows the terrible power of habit: how men continue to do that which they have been doing simply because they have been doing it. The feet acquire a fatal facility in transgression, and the, hands a skill in working evil. They almost act automatically when things forbidden are suggested. But when the commandments of God are concerned they are unfamiliar with the duties enjoined, and the will is not resolute enough to persevere in them. III. ITS GREAT REMEDY. Seeing that in himself the sinner is without strength, it would appear at first as if he could only despair. But this is not the teaching of the prophet. He has already counseled vigorous effort, and implied that a commencement and continuance in well-doing were possible. But the change could only begin at a spiritual point, viz. repentance. And this, as Scripture abundantly shows, though within the power of every one, is a supernatural grace. A true sorrow for sin may be induced in answer to prayer, by the study of Scripture, and the contemplation of Christ; but it is always the work of the Holy Spirit. When that grace, however, has once been attained, it is open to the sinner to reverse the process by which he has been enslaved. After conversion evil habit will assert itself, and can only be met by constant dependence upon Divine grace and constant effort after holiness. The good habit formed by repeated and regular actions according to the Law of God is the best antidote to the evil one.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 13:1-12 The ruined girdle; or, it may be too late to mend. The much-needed lesson of this section was taught by means of one of those acted parables of which we have so many instances both in the Old Testament and in the New: e.g. Zedekiah’s horns of iron (1 Kings 22:11); the strange marriages of Isa 8:1, Hosea 1:2; the two yokes (Jeremiah 27:2); and in the New Testament, our Lord’s standing the little child in the midst of the disciples; the washing the disciples’ feet; the withering of the fig tree; the taking of Paul’s girdle (Acts 21:11), etc. The present instance seems very strange, and to us it would have appeared unmeaning, uncouth, and simply grotesque. But to Orientals, and especially to Jews, the dramatic action of the prophet—for we regard what is here said as having been literally done—would be very impressive. It was a strange garb for the prophet to be arrayed in. It would attract attention, be the subject of much comment, and, when the prophet continued to wear it, though soiled and in much need of washing, this would cause more comment still, and would indicate to the people that the strange garb and conduct of the prophet had meaning and intent which it would be well for them to give heed to. Then the taking of the girdle to Euphrates—whatever place be meant—burying it there, leaving it; and then finding it and fetching it back, and no doubt exhibiting it, ruined, worthless, good for nothing;—all this would rivet the people’s attention, and deeply impress their minds. Now, one evident, if not the chief, lesson designed to be taught by this to us curious procedure, was the irreparable ruin that would come upon the people through the exile and captivity which they were by their sin bringing upon themselves. Many, no doubt, had comforted themselves with the idea—as is the manner of all transgressors—that if trouble did come to them it would not be so bad as the prophet made out. They would get over it, and be but little the worse. This dramatic parable was designed to shatter all such notions, and to show that Judah, like the much-marred girdle, would be, after and in consequence of their exile, "good for nothing." Note, then— I. THE FIRST PART OF THE PARABLE—THE GIRDLE WORN. This would encourage their delusion. For the likening of them to a girdle, especially to a linen girdle—a priestly and therefore a sacred vestment-and to a chosen and purchased girdle, would vividly declare to them how precious they were in God’s sight. 1. For as the girdle (Hosea 1:11) was worn close to the person of the wearer, it denoted how very near to the heart of God they were who by this similitude were set forth. The known favor of God led them, as it had led others, to presume that they could never try God too much. He would be sure to bear with them and forgive them, do what they might. 2. Then the girdle was a portion of the dress most necessary to the wearer, and so denoted how necessary his people were to God. Had not God said, over and over again, in every variety of way, "How can I give thee up? how can I make thee as Sodom?" (Hosea 11:8; Jeremiah 9:7) As the girdle was indispensable to the comfort, the decorousness, the strength of the wearer, so God taught by this figure that he could not do without his people. 3. Moreover, as the girdle was adorned and ornamented, and thus was a most valuable portion of the dress, so it showed that his people were to God a cherished ornament and praise. They were to be to him "for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory" (Hosea 1:11). And as such God had worn this girdle and put it on him. And his people knew all this, and presumed upon it. II. THE SECOND PART—THE GIRDLE . This would show wherefore their ideas must be a delusion. "Put it not in water" (Hosea 1:1). The prophet was hidden to wear it in this soiled and foul condition, and no doubt he did so. It would provoke the contempt, which adornments associated with uncleanliness ever excite. But its intent in thus being worn unwashed was to depict the moral state of those to whom the prophet was sent. As they would put away from them a soiled and unclean girdle, so they were to learn that God, though he might bear long with a morally unclean people, would not always do so. And— III. THE THIRD PART OF THE PARABLE—THE GIRDLE PUT AWAY. This would show that their presumptuous ideas were actually a delusion. The girdle was so spoiled by its burial by the Euphrates that it was henceforth "good for nothing." And all this came true. It was but a miserable remnant of the people that came back from Babylon, and as an independent nation they have never since regained the position that they then lost. All their national glory came to an end; the lesson of the marred girdle was literally fulfilled. IV. THE WHOLE A PARABLE THAT HAS MANY . TO Churches, to individuals, to all the gifted of God’s grace in time, talents, opportunities, and, above all, in the presence and help of the Holy Spirit. They will be tempted to presume, to think they can never forfeit these things, that God will be ever gracious to them as he has been in the past. This parable is a word for all such, and should prompt the earnest and constant putting up of the psalmist’s prayer, "Keep back thy servant … from presumptuous sins," etc.—C. Vessels of wrath. This is another similitude having the same general purpose as the former one. "Every earthen flagon (cf. Jeremiah 48:12)—the inhabitants of Jerusalem, her king, her priests, and prophets—will be filled with the wine of the intoxicating beverage of God’s wrath (cf. Jeremiah 25:15; Isaiah 28:7; Isaiah 51:17; Ezekiel 23:31; Psalms 60:3; Psalms 75:8) given them as a punishment for the pride and cruelty and impiety which they drank greedily as wine; cf. Revelation 14:8; Revelation 18:3, where the harlot drinks the wine of her own fornication and gives it to others, and intoxicates herself and them with it (Revelation 17:2; Revelation 18:6), and therefore God gives her the cup of his wrath, and she reels under it" (Wordsworth). The awful threatenings of these verses teach us much concerning the characteristics of those whom the Lord "will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy" (Revelation 18:14). I. THEY BECOME VESSELS OF WRATH. Not till they are filled with their intoxicating sin are they certainly to be so called. But this goes on day by day. II. THEY COME TO JEER AND MOCK AT BOTH THE MESSAGE AND THE GOD SENDS TO WARN THEM. Revelation 18:12, "Do we not certainly know," etc; as if they would say, "Tell us something we do not know." It is an utterance of unbelieving and mocking contempt. III. THEY ARE AS DRUNKEN MEN: bereft of reason, unable to help themselves or their brethren, the sport of fools, and at the mercy of the most contemptible foe. Either torpid and insensible to all that concerns them, or else filled with fury and lost to all natural affection, hurting and destroying those nearest and dearest to them (Revelation 18:14). IV. ALL VESSELS, LARGE AND SMALL, ARE FILLED ALIKE. (Revelation 18:13.) Not alone the common people were to be thus filled, but the magnates of the land—king, priests, etc. V. THEY ARE . (Revelation 18:14.) Such is the doom of sin. . We all are vessels. We all shall be filled. But what with? Pray that it may not be with the wine of the wrath of God, but "with the fullness of God" (Ephesians 3:1-21.).—C. The last results of sin. I. GOD AND HIS MESSAGE MOCKED. II. OUR ENTIRE NATURE UNDER ITS CONTROL. III. ALL RANKS AND ORDERS BY IT. IV. EVERY MAN’S HAND AGAINST HIS FELLOW. V. GOD KNOWN ONLY AS THE GOD OF WRATH.—C Jeremiah 13:15 Be not proud. It is difficult to see what those whom the prophet was addressing had to proud of; but it is certain that they were proud, and that thereby they were, more than by aught else, hindered from receiving the word of God. The inflated shape, the mean material, and the easily destroyed nature of those" bottles" to which he had likened them, as well as the arrogant boastful talk of the drunkard, whose doings theirs he predicted should resemble; both these comparisons show how vividly the prophet discerned in them this besetting sin of pride, and the ruin it would be sure to work them. Let us, therefore, note— I. SOME OF THE REASONS FOR THIS , "Be not proud." 1. The main reason which the prophet here urges is its antagonism to the Word of God. Now, such antagonism cannot but be, for: (1) The Word of God despises what men most esteem. (a) Their own moral worth. How high men’s estimate of this! how low that of the Word of God! (b) Their own capacities. Man deems himself capable of self-support, self-deliverance, and self-salvation. The Word of God tells him he is utterly dependent on God for all things, be he who he may. (c) The world—its maxims, honors, wealth, etc. (2) It esteems what men most despise. (a) Such qualities of mind as meekness, forgiveness of injuries, humility, indifference to the world, great regard to the unseen and the spiritual. (b) Persons who have nothing but moral excellence to recommend them, be they poor, obscure, and despicable in the world’s esteem. (c) Courses of life which may involve "the loss of all things," so only as we "may be accepted of him." 2. Its other terrible fruits. Some of these are given in the verses following. It will not suffer men to give glory to God; it leads men into deadly peril (Jeremiah 13:16). It causes deep distress to those who care for their souls; it will end in their utter ruin (Jeremiah 13:17). II. How MAY BE TO IT. Probably there is nothing but that threefold work of the Holy Spirit of which our Lord speaks which will ensure such obedience. Pride is too deeply rooted in the hearts of men to yield to any lesser force but: 1. The conviction of sin—destroying all man’s self-complacency. 2. Of righteousness—filling him at the same time with admiration of the righteousness of Christ, with despair of attainment of it, but with joy that, though he cannot have it in himself, he yet has it by virtue of his faith in Christ. 3. Of judgment—destroying the supremacy of the world over his mind, and so delivering him from the temptation to its pride. This work of the Holy Spirit lays the axe at the root of the tree, and ere long hews it down. Let, then, this Holy Spirit be sought in all sincerity, and let his guidance be ever followed; so shall "the mind of Christ" be increasingly formed in us, and we shall learn of him who was "meek and lowly in heart," and so find rest in our Souls.—C. Jeremiah 13:16, Jeremiah 13:17 Lost upon the dark mountains. "Give glory to the Lord," etc. I. THE SCENE . It is that of unhappy travelers overtaken by night, when crossing some of the perilous mountain tracks of Palestine. A traveler overtaken as these seem to have been by a night storm, is in imminent danger of falling over precipices and perishing miserably. Even by day the way is perilous: the paths are easily lost, or are strewn with rocks, or they lead along steep and slippery slopes, or by overhanging cliffs, where a single foot slip may plunge the heedless passenger headlong to a frightful death in the far depths below. But how much more dangerous such journey must be when night overtakes the travelers, is evident. The fading light has gone, but the journey has still to be pursued. And now comes that stumbling upon the dark mountains, which is so terrible and inevitable. There is the anxious looking for the fitful light of moon or stars, and occasionally hope arises that the clouds will break and some glimmer appear. But this hope has been speedily quenched by the clouds gathering over again, and with the added darkness of the rain-storm, so that the darkness is "gross," like unto that of the shadow of death. Every step, therefore, is fraught with frightful peril, and not a few thus benighted amid such mountain passes perish miserably ere the morning dawn. Such is the scene portrayed. II. THAT WHICH IT . 1. The temporal calamities which God sends—as to the Jews—in punishment for their sins. All earthly distress has the sad tendency to unhinge the mind, to fill with foreboding fear, and greatly to perplex and overwhelm; but when to the natural effects of such earthly distress there is added the consciousness of guilt and of having deserved what God has sent, then the dismay, distress, and despair which are suggested by the prophetic picture are miserably increase. 2. The hardened sinner’s despair of God’s mercy. The vision of judgment and wrath has come upon him, but the remembrance of his sins crushes hope of mercy (cf. Judas "going out and hanging himself"). 3. The entanglements of sin. It is a great mistake to imagine that those who are enslaved by any sin are happy in it. Not a few of them endure a very hell in their frantic but futile endeavors to break the chain which long indulgence has forged and fastened around them. The bitter repentance, the unavailing remorse, every gleam of hope of deliverance so soon quenched, the recklessness of despair, the groaning as of the prisoner appointed to death,—all these are realities known to the slaves of sin, and should make every soul shudder lest the like should come upon him. 4. The procrastinator’s death-bed. He who has been convinced over and over again that he ought to seek the Lord, but has ever put it off,—his feet are likely to "stumble upon the dark mountains "when the night of the shadow of death draws upon him. III. HOW SUCH MISERY MAY BE AVOIDED. It was very near: the prophet’s words imply that the’ oft-threatened doom was at their very doors. And so the like doom may be near to many now. But yet it may be avoided. Giving heed to God’s Word (Jeremiah 13:15). We have much hope when we see an earnest heeding of that Word, a really serious attention paid to it. But that by itself is not enough. There must be the actual "giving glory to God;" by confession of sin, acknowledging the wrong done; by casting the soul on God for forgiveness in lowly trust; by forsaking the evil that has roused the just anger of God. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man," etc. IV. THE GREAT REASON FOR FEAR THAT THIS MISERY WILL NOT BE AVOIDED AFTER ALL. It was and it ever is the accursed pride (Jeremiah 13:15, Jeremiah 13:17) that will not allow of such giving heed to the Divine Word and such giving glory to him. All the instincts of the unrenewed heart are up in arms against such self-abasement. Any sacrifice will be brought rather than that of the broken and contrite heart. V. THE UTTERLY OF THOSE THUS LOST. (Jeremiah 13:17.) See the prophet’s piteous tears. He can do nothing—every resource has been tried and failed, and he can but "weep sore in secret places" for the "pride" that has ruined those he would fain have saved. Oh then, sinful heart, down, down before thy God, and "give glory to him," as he would have thee do, as it is so fight and reasonable and good for thee to do, as the ministers of God entreat thee to do.—C. The neglected trust demanded. "Where is the flock that was given thee," etc.? This word is addressed to the rulers of Judah and Jerusalem. Their people, the nation over whom they ruled, were God’s flock, his "beautiful flock." That flock had been entrusted to the rulers’ care. The influence of those in power was very great. As were the leaders of the people—especially the king—so were the people themselves. They could be led like a flock, and were so. Tremendous, therefore, was the responsibility of those in power, to whom was entrusted this flock of the Lord. But they had used their great authority and power badly. Ruin had come or was about to come upon the flock (cf. Jeremiah 13:18, Jeremiah 13:19); they were to be scattered, scattered wholly, and the greater portion of them lost. To these careless and guilty shepherds the Lord now comes, and asks for the flock he had placed in their hands. "Give an account of thy stewardship," was said to those who were to be no longer stewards because of their faithlessness. Now, this question, "Where is the flock," etc.? is one which should be often heard sounding in the ears of many others besides those to Whom it was first addressed, e.g.— I. TO THE PASTORS OF THE CHURCH. The Church of God is his flock, his "beautiful flock." Its members are very dear to him, "purchased with his own blood." The Church is given, entrusted, to pastors. When Christ ascended up on high he gave some "pastors." This method of ordering his Church is the one he has willed. His blessing has evidently rested on it. What does not the Church of God owe to her faithful pastors? But whatever their character they cannot but have great influence. They are trusted by the people. They have received special gifts for their work in the form of mental and moral endowments. They are much prayed for. They are specially set apart for the charge of the Church of God. They have every inducement to fidelity. Faithful, the love of their charge will gather round them; the fear of God will dwell within them; the crown of life awaits them. And these mighty motives, acting upon hearts already prepared by God’s grace and devoted to this high office, have for the most part secured a great degree of fidelity in it. Hence a character and reputation have become associated with the office, which cannot but invest with much influence, as it does with much responsibility, all those who occupy it. But in spite of all this there may be, as there has been at times, great unfaithfulness. Hence the flock has been scattered. The Church has suffered in numbers, in purity of doctrine, in consistency of life, in spirituality of character. Its enjoyment in all holy service goes; its power for good in the neighborhood where it dwells goes; its regard for all that marks vigorous life in a Church all goes; and ere long its "candlestick is removed out of its place." Perhaps its numbers may not greatly diminish. There shall be the observance of the sabbath, its services, its sermons, its sacraments—orderly, Pedlar, frequent. Many things may conduce to this. Its name may live, but it is dead. Oh, the awfulness of this! And if it have been through the negligence and unfaithfulness of the pastor, who shall deliver him from the charge of blood-guiltiness which will lie at his door? What will he answer when the question is addressed to him, as one day it surely will be, "Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?" Let every pastor of Christ’s Church consider this and pray— "Chief Shepherd of thy chosen sheep, From death and sin set free, Let every under-shepherd keep His eye intent on thee." II. TO ALL PARENTS. Our children are the Lord’s flock, his "beautiful flock." They are very dear to him. He puts his arm round every one of them; he takes them all up in his arms and blesses them. He declares by his Word and by their baptism that they are of his kingdom, and he both promises vast reward to those that receive them in his Name, and threatens with dreadful doom all those who "offend" them. But parents have unspeakable influence over them. They mould and fashion them, not in outward form and habits alone, but in inward character. For a long time they are as God to their children, who know no higher authority, no higher help. Hence they trust their parents utterly. And to guard against the abuse of this tremendous trust, God has implanted the instincts of parental love, and given every motive to parents to guard and keep well those he has entrusted to their care. Now, if through parental unfaithfulness those children become renegades from God, he will surely ask this question, "Where is the flock," etc.? Let remembrance of this lead to earnest prayer and diligent heed so that each parent at last may have the unspeakable joy—as he may have—of standing at last before God, and saying, with glad thankfulness, "Behold, here am I, and the children, thou hast given me." III. TO EVERY SOUL. For the sum of all the faculties, opportunities, talents, the whole of the varied gifts and capacities which together form our spiritual nature—judgment, affection, conscience, intellect, will,—all these are the flock of God which is entrusted to every individual man; and by due care and cultivation of them he can preserve and develop them into an offering of worship and consecration which God will ever accept and bless. Every man has the making of his own life by the help of God. There is scarce any degree of honor and joy which he may not win by faithfulness in the use of that which God has entrusted to him. Concerning them all God says, "Occupy till I come." And how vast and varied is the help God gives to us in this great work! What means of grace are provided! What recompense even here and now is given! Victory over self; a mind at peace; blessed influence over others; the love and esteem of the good; free communion and intercourse with God himself; the consciousness of the Divine love; the bright and blessed hope of the eternal life hereafter. So that even now "in keeping of God’s commandments there is great reward." But if we be unfaithful here and waste all our goods—these high gifts, faculties, and opportunities—sowing to the flesh when we should be sowing to the Spirit, then this question will be heard concerning all these things, "Where is the flock," etc.? And then we search in vain for any answer to the next question (Jeremiah 13:21), "What wilt thou say when he shall punish thee?" Therefore let us each keep continually before our minds such truths as those that are taught in the well-known hymn— "A charge to keep I have, A God to glorify, A never-dying soul to save And fit it for the sky. "Help me to watch and pray, And on thyself rely; Assured if I my trust betray I shall forever die." C. Jeremiah 13:21, Jeremiah 13:22 Sin its own scourge. I. THERE ARE OTHER FOR SIN. The direct and positive inflictions of the Divine wrath. Not alone the Bible but the great books of history and experience must all be denied if we deny such positive punishment of sin. Never has there been yet any system of laws for moral beings which has been left to be simply self-acting, and which therefore have had no positive sanctions of penalty for transgression added. And God’s Law is not such. As the Jews and other nations and individuals have found, and as the unrepentant will find hereafter, if not now, God’s Word upon this matter is most assuredly true. II. BUT SIN IS ITS OWN SCOURGE. That scourge is woven and knotted with many cords. 1. Conscience, ever passing sentence of judgment. 2. Habits of wrong-doing, hateful but fast clinging to the soul, and by which it is "tied and bound." 3. The manifold difficulty of repentance. The man would heartily turn from his evil way, but he has got into the current just above the falls, and it is bearing him on and down, resist as he will. 4. The sight of children, companions, etc; corrupted and perhaps ruined by our evil example. Oh, what a horror is this: seeing those whom, for every reason human and Divine we were bound to cherish and guard from evil, cursed by our sin! 5. The moral disapprobation of the good around us. Their sentence of condemnation is felt to have a binding power. What they "bind on earth is bound in heaven." 6. The "fearful looking for of judgment." Such are some of the cords which, woven together, make up the dreadful scourge wherewith sin scourges itself. III. AND THIS SELF-MADE SCOURGE IS THE MOST OF ANY. Deep and unfathomable as were the sufferings of our Lord, he distinctly declared that those coming on his enemies were worse. "Weep not for me," he said, "but weep for yourselves, and for your children If they do these things in a green tree," etc. It is evident, therefore, that suffering in which the consciousness of sin enters must be worst of all. Those "stripes by which we are healed," though they "ploughed deep furrows" on the body of our blessed Lord, yea, upon his inmost soul, still there are stripes more terrible even than they. The quenchless fire of God’s positive inflictions would be more tolerable were it not for the gnawing of that undying worm—the sinner’s own remorse. Are not they, then, "fools" indeed who "make a mock at sin"?—C. An awful condition indeed. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin," etc.? This verse tells of one who as brought himself to such a pass that he cannot cease from sin. It is an awful condition indeed. Note— I. SOME OF THE WHICH MAKE IT SO. They are: 1. The memories of a better past. There was a time when his soul was unsullied, his hands clean, his heart pure, his life unstained; when he could hold up his head in conscious integrity by the grace of God. But that is all gone. 2. The prostration of his will He is continually making resolves, but they are frail as cobwebs, they are broken through by the slightest temptation now. The power to firmly and steadfastly resolve seems gone from him. He has resolved so often, but in vain, that his will now refuses to rise to the endeavor. 3. The powerlessness of all means of deliverance. He attends God’s house, he reads the Scriptures, he kneels in prayer, he goes to the Lord’s table still it may be, but they have lost their power to hold him back from his sin. They seem to be of no use at all. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ This chapter must be read in connection with the following one. They describe chiefly Jeremiah’s twofold attempt at intercession (see verses 7-9 and 19-22)—a tender and appealing attempt indeed. The terrible sufferings of the people during a drought went to the prophet’s heart. He even ventured, when repelled the first time, to intercede anew, on the ground of the covenant, but in vain. On receiving (Jeremiah 15:2-9) a revelation of the bitter fate in store for his people, he bursts out into a heartrending complaint that his own destiny should throw him into such a whirlpool of strife. His Lord at once corrects and consoles him (Jeremiah 15:10-21). There are doubts, however, about the connection of these latter verses—The date of the drought is not stated; but as the punishment of Judah is described as future, and no reference is made to the captivity of Jehoiachin, we shall probably be right in setting it during the reign of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah 14:1 The dearth; rather, the drought, or, more literally, the droughts, the plural being used to indicate the length of time the drought lasted. Jeremiah 14:2 The tenses in the following description should be perfects and presents; the Authorized Version, by its inconsistency, destroys the unity of the picture. The gates thereof; i.e. the people assembled there. They are black unto the ground. "To be black," in Hebrew, is "to be dressed in mourning" (so e.g. Psalms 35:14, "I bowed down in black"). Here we must understand the same verb which is expressed in the psalm, "They bowed down in mourning attire to the ground." "Black," however, is not to be taken literally; it means rather "squalid, unwashed" (of garments). Jeremiah 14:3 Their nobles—i.e. the upper classes of Judah and Jerusalem—have sent their little ones; rather, their mean ones; i.e. their servants, or perhaps (as Naegelsbach and Payne Smith) simply, "the common people;" it was not a matter concerning the rich alone. To the pits; i.e. to the cisterns. Covered their heads; a sign of the deepest mourning (2 Samuel 15:30; 2 Samuel 19:4; Esther 6:12). Jeremiah 14:4 The ground is chapt. Perhaps: but it is more obvious to render, is dismayed, according to the usual meaning of the word. Words which properly belong to human beings are often, by a "poetic fallacy," applied to inanimate objects (as in Jeremiah 14:2). In the earth; rather, in the land. Jeremiah 14:5 Even the animals starve. Yea, the hind also. The hind, contrary to that intense natural affection for which she was famous among the ancients, abandons her young. Jeremiah 14:6 The wild asses … in the high places; rather, on the bare heights. "The wild asses," says a traveler cited by Rosenmüller," are especially fond of treeless mountains." Like dragons; render rather, like jackals (as Jeremiah 9:11; Jeremiah 10:22). The allusion is to the way jackals hold their head as they howl. We are told that even the keen eyes of the wild asses fail, because there was [is] no grass; rather, herbage. They grow dim first with seeking it so long in vain, and then from lack of nourishment. Jeremiah 14:7 The intercession of Jeremiah begins. Do thou it; a pregnant expression, equivalent to "act gloriously" (as Psalms 22:31; Isaiah 44:23); For thy name’s sake. Jehovah s" Name pledges him to be merciful to his people, and not to make a full end of them, even when they have offended (comp." Our Redeemer was thy name from of old" Isaiah 63:16). Jeremiah 14:8 How pathetic a supplication! Jehovah will surely not be as a stranger in the land—the strangers, or" sojourners," like the μέτοικοι, enjoyed no civic rights, and consequently had no interest in the highest concerns of the state, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside—or perhaps, pitcketh his tent; for the traveler in Palestine doubtless carried his tent with him then as now—to tarry for a night. With the latter figure compare the beautiful comparison of the hope of the ungodly to "the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day" (Wis. 5:14). Jeremiah 14:9 As a man astonished; rather (comparing the Arabic dahama), as one struck dumb. But Dr. Payne Smith, with much reason, is more than half inclined to follow the Septuagint reading, equivalent to "as one in a deep sleep." Leave us not; literally, lay us not down; as if a burden of which the bearer is tired. Jeremiah 14:10-16 The answer of Jehovah. Jeremiah 14:10 Thus have they loved to wander, … therefore the Lord doth not accept them; i.e. with such pertinacity have they been set upon "wandering" (roving lawlessly about), that the Lord hath no more pleasure in them. "Therefore," is, literally, and. "Thus," or "so," is used in the same sense as in 1 Kings 10:12, which runs literally, " … there came not so [abundantly] among timber." The particle of comparison has given much occupation to the commentators (see Payne Smith’s note), but the above view is at once simple and suitable to the context; for Jeremiah has already admitted that "our backslidings are multiplied" (verse 7). The Lord doth not, etc. (to the end of the verse), is quoted verbatim from Hosea 8:13. Jeremiah puts conspicuous honor on the older inspired writers; he has no craving for originality. Nearly all has been said already; what he has to do is chiefly to adapt and to apply, He will now remember, etc. The emphasis is on "now" Nothing is more remarkable in the prophets than the stress laid on the unerring justness of the time chosen for Divine interpositions. When the iniquity is fully ripe, it as it were attracts the punishment, which till then is laid up in store (comp. Genesis 15:16; Isaiah 18:5; Isaiah 33:10). Jeremiah 14:11 Pray not for this people. So in Jeremiah 7:16 (on which see note); Jeremiah 11:14. Jeremiah 14:12 Their cry. The word is very forcible; it is the shriek in which an unsophisticated man gives vent to his pain and grief. An oblation. It is the vegetable offering (Authorized Version, "meat offering;" Luther, "speisopfer") which is referred to in the so-called minkhah (literally, gift). Though sometimes offered separately, it regularly accompanied a burnt offering. I will not accept them. Dr. Payne Smith tries to soften the rejection of these worshippers by the remark that "there is a time when the most genuine repentance avails nothing to avert the temporal consequences of sin." But the analogy of other similar passages (e.g. Isaiah 1:15) warrants the view of Keil that the ground of the rejection of the worship is its heartless formalism and insincerity, which was equally a bar to Jehovah’s favor and the prophet’s intercession. Jeremiah 14:13 "Pleading with Providence, the good prophet lays the blame on ill teaching, but the stern answer (Jeremiah 14:14), admitting the plea as true, rejects it as inadequate (Jeremiah 14:14), and denounces sorrows which (Jeremiah 14:17-22) the prophet passionately deprecates" (Rowland Williams). Ah, Lord God! rather, Alas! O Lord Jehovah (see on Jeremiah 1:6). The prophets say unto them. The greater part of the prophetic order had not kept pace with its more spiritual members (Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc.). They still traded on those natural gifts of divination (Micah 3:6) which were, no doubt, where genuine, of Divine origin, but which, even then, needed to be supple-merited and controlled by a special impulse from the Spirit of holiness. Jeremiah, however, declares, on the authority of a revelation, that these prophets did not divine by any God-given faculty, but "the deceit of their own heart" (Verse 14). The Deuteronomic Torah, discovered after a period of concealment at the outset of Jeremiah’s ministry, energetically forbids the practice of the art of divination (Deuteronomy 18:10). Jeremiah 14:14 A thing of naught. The word, however, is collective, and means all the various futile means adopted for prying into the future. Jeremiah 14:16 I will pour their wickedness; i.e. the fruits of their wickedness (comp. Jeremiah 2:19, "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee"). Jeremiah 14:17-21 The prophet’s grief, and second intercession. Jeremiah 14:17 Therefore thou shalt say, etc. There is something strange and contrary to verisimilitude in the prefixing of this formula, not to a Divine revelation, but to a mere expression of the pained human feelings of the prophet. It is possible that the editor of Jeremiah’s prophecies thought the paragraph which begins here needed something to link it with the preceding passage, and selected his formula rather unsuitably. Let mine eyes run down, etc. (comp. Jeremiah 13:27). Jeremiah’s tender compassion shows itself in his choice of the expression, the virgin daughter of my people, just as we feel an added bitterness in the premature death of a cherished maiden. Jeremiah 14:18 A picture of the state of things after the capture of Jerusalem: the slain without, the famine-stricken within. The latter are described allusively as "sicknesses of famine" (so literally). As a peculiarly striking evidence of the downfall of greatness, it is added that even prophet and priest have to go about into a land that they know not. The verb used here can obviously not have its ordinary sense of going about for purposes of traffic. Aramaic usage suggests, however, a suitable meaning; what the prophet sketches before us is a company of these ex-grandees "begging their way" into an unknown land. Jeremiah 14:19 We looked for peace, etc.; a repetition of Jer 8:15. Jeremiah 14:20 Our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers. There is a mysterious connection between the sin of the past and of the present. So in another prophet we read, "Your iniquities and the iniquities of your fathers together [will I requite]." Jeremiah 14:21 The throne of thy glory; i.e. the temple (Jeremiah 17:12; Ezekiel 43:7), or Jerusalem (Jeremiah 3:17). It is the same conception where Jehovah is said to "dwell between" [or, ’sit upon’] "the cherubim" (Isaiah 37:16; Psalms 80:1; Psalms 99:1). Jeremiah 14:22 None of the vanities, or false gods (Jeremiah 3:17), of the heathen can deliver us in this our strait (want of rain). "Rainmakers" is still a common name of soothsayers among savage nations. Thou alone art God, and our God; or, in Jeremiah’s phrase (not, Art not thou he, etc.? but) Art thou not Jehovah our God? and the ground of the appeal follows, Jehovah is the Maker of all these things; i.e. all the heavenly phenomena, especially the clouds and the rain. Jeremiah 14:1-6 A plague of drought. I. A PLAGUE OF DROUGHT IS AN OF A NATURAL GREAT . Jeremiah gives a vivid picture of the trouble such a plague causes. Men of all classes, from the noble to the ploughman, suffer under it; the animal world is driven from its natural instincts; universal desolation and agony prevail. Yet this is all natural. It is not the result of war nor of any human interference; it is a natural calamity. Nature is not always placid and pleasing. She has her frowns, her storms, her droughts. The world is not a. waste, howling wilderness; but neither is it a garden of Eden. Thorns spring up among the wheat. Even away from the perpetual deserts fertile fields are occasionally parched and withered. We must expect a mixed experience in human life, as we meet with it in nature. Showers of blessing are not always failing. There come also periods of dearth, seasons of natural distress. II. A PLAGUE OF DROUGHT IS AM EXAMPLE OF ONE FORM OF THE OF SIN. Though the drought is natural, it is not, therefore, to be separated from all relation to human and moral affairs. God rules Nature through her laws when he does not supersede them. In his government of men God may overrule natural events to the execution of his decrees. When such a calamity as a plague of drought falls upon a land, it is well to ask whether there are no national sins for which it is sent as chastisement. Sometimes the calamities of nature are the direct result of human conduct. Thus Palestine now suffers from lack of water, partly because the felling of trees has diminished the rainfall, and partly because what rain there is is quickly drained off for want of proper irrigation arrangements. Still, we must not assume that every natural calamity is sent for the punishment of sin. This is but one among many Divine purposes. Wholesome discipline, ulterior advantages, the avoiding of worse though unseen calamities, etc; may enter into the Divine reasons for permitting the trouble. Such calamities should make us examine ourselves, not humiliate ourselves without thought and clear conviction of conscience. III. A PLAGUE OF DROUGHT IN NATURE SHOULD SUGGEST THE OF DROUGHT. Outward things are symbolical of inward experiences. There is a drought of the soul—when the soul is not partaking of the "water of life," and it is the most fearful kind of drought. Yet, while the physical calamity excites all attention and occasions universal distress, this calamity is often unheeded. But the effects of it are not the less destructive. The soil becomes barren, unfruitful; the heavenly graces within, the instincts of Christian charity, are lost; the spiritual vision fails. It is unnatural not to feel thirst in a season of drought. The soul that is in this condition will first come to itself with a feeling of deep distress, a pain of inward, longing, a panting and thirsting after God (Psalms 63:1). IV. A PLAGUE OF DROUGHT SHOULD MAKE US MORE FOR THE COMMON OF DAILY LIFE. The commonest blessings are the most valuable. The first necessary of life is air, and air is the most abundant thing in nature. The next most important requirement is water, and water is usually exceedingly plentiful. Gold and diamonds are rare, but these can easily be spared. This very fact, which is a result of God’s providential care, induces an ungrateful neglect. We take without thought that which we are always receiving. We must lose it to appreciate it. In sickness we prize health; in thirst we value water. It would be more wise and grateful to acknowledge God’s blessings while we have them, instead of requiring him to take them from us to teach us their worth. A plea for mercy in spite of grout. I. WE CAN ONLY PLEAD FOR GOD’S MERCY AFTER A FRANK OF OUR OWN GUILT. The common habit of people is to take the opposite course—to excuse themselves, extenuate their faults, or ignore, or even deny them. But this is vain before God, and while persisted in it shuts the door against forgiveness. God can only forgive sin that is confessed, can only have mercy on the humble and penitent. This confession must be frank and full. Such a confession is contained in the prayer of Jeremiah. 1. Personal guilt is admitted—"our iniquities." 2. The shame of increasing guilt is admitted—"our backslidings." If we feel we are better than we once were, we excuse our present imperfection on the ground that it is at least an improvement on the past. It requires a genuine penitence to admit that we have been growing worse. 3. Sin is seen to be an offence against God—"We have sinned against thee." It is not a mere fault in ourselves; it is a direct act of warfare with Heaven. David said this (Psalms 51:4); so did the prodigal son (Luke 15:18). 4. Sin is recognized as abundant—" Our backslidings are many." It is vain to confess some sins whilst denying others, or to attempt to represent them as leas numerous than they really are. This keeping back of part of the confession mars the whole of it. 5. Guilt is acknowledged to be open before God—" Our sins testify." 6. It is seen to be a bar to our claim of simple right—they testify "against us." Condemnation, therefore, may justly follow the plain evidence of guilt. Our own sins are witnesses to oppose any plea we may found on our personal deserts. II. OUR OWN GUILT, WHEN FRANKLY , IS NO TO THE MERCY OF GOD. The only hindrance is impenitence. The ground of God’s mercy is not our desert, but Iris goodness. If there is anything in us which predisposes him to be gracious, this is not our worth, but our want. The more wretched the condition to which our sin has brought us, the more urgent the call to his pity. The one plea is" for his Name’s sake." 1. For the sake of God’s character. His Name expresses what he is. His highest name is "Love." By this name we plead for mercy. Because of what he is, because of his inherent goodness, love, and pity, we implore his help. 2. For the sake of God’s honor. He has promised to have mercy on the penitent (e.g. Deuteronomy 30:1-10). Thus he has pledged his Name, bound himself by his own certain faithfulness. 3. For the sake of God’s glory. His highest glory is his goodness. When he delivers his children his own Name is glorified. Redemption honors God more than creation. The song of the redeemed at the end of the world will be more sweet and more noble than the song of the sons of the morning at the dawn of creation. As Christians we see these truths more clearly revealed in Christ. He is the "Word" incarnate, the "Name," the highest manifestation of the character of God, the fulfillment of his greatest promises, the expression of his brightest glory. For us to pray "for Christ’s sake" is the same as praying "for God’s Name’s sake." Jeremiah 14:8, Jeremiah 14:9 The Hope of Israel a stranger in the land. I. GOD IS THE HOPE AND SAVIOR OF HIS PEOPLE. 1. God is the Hope. (1) He inspires hope; (2) in him is the ground for the realization of hope; (3) our highest hope is for the possession and enjoyment of God himself; (4) this hope is justifiable in the people of God. He is the Hope of Israel, truly the Hope of the spiritual Israel. 2. God is the Savior in trouble. He is remembered in trouble if he is forgotten in prosperity. In our greatest need he is found nearest to us. Though he does not always prevent us from falling into trouble, he is always ready to help us when we are in. There is to us no more important character of God than that of the Savior, since, as "man is born to trouble," we all need a Savior, and he alone can deliver from the great sorrows and sins of life. II. GOD MAY BE WITH US AS A . 1. He may be with us and unknown—like the stranger who passes through a country unrecognized. He was received by Abraham as a stranger (Genesis 18:2). Hagar and Jacob failed at first to discern his presence. Christ was treated as an unknown stranger by the two disciples journeying to Emmaus. 2. He may be with us but for a season—like the traveler who sojourns for a night and is gone the next morning. We may receive temporary visitations of God without enjoying his abiding presence, casual glimpses of the Divine instead of a constant walking with God, the light of Heaven falling now and again on our path while earthly clouds fling long stretches of dreary shadow over the most of it. 3. He may be with us without having communion with us—as a stranger, not as a companion—as the traveler who pitches his tent in our land, not as the guest whom we welcome to our hearth. Thus God may be near to us without our receiving him into our hearts as our great Friend. 4. He may be with us without acting for our good—like a mighty man slumbering. So he may see our need and yet we may not be saved. III. IT IS MOST SAD THAT GOD SHOULD BE WITH US AS A . 1. It is sad because the blessings of his presence are then not received. (1) He must be known if we are to benefit by his aid. (2) We need his constant presence for constant distresses. (3) God helps by inward grace, which must come through close personal communion. (4) We need the active aid of God, not the mere fact of his presence. 2. It is sad because it is a violation of our natural relations with God. God is our Father. Shall our Father be but as a stranger passing through our midst? He is changeless in his eternal love to us. We are bound to him by close and perpetual obligations, and we are in great and constant need of him. How, then, do we ever find ourselves in this unnatural condition? The cause is in us (Jeremiah 14:10). Great sin cherished in impenitence severs us from God, and makes it necessary that he should depart from us. God is a stranger when with us, (1) because we are too earthly minded to discern his presence, and too occupied with worldly things to think of it; (2) because we do not open our hearts to receive him in inward companionship; and (3) because we do not seek and trust his help in our need (Romans 10:21). Jeremiah 14:13-16 False prophets. I. MAY BE FALSE . The false prophets belonged to the recognized order of prophets. No rank in the Church confers infallibility. Popes have been heretics. The authority of a teacher must be sought in his message, not in his office. It is our duty to try the spirits by their correspondence with known revelation (1 John 4:2), by the fruits of their lives and doctrines (Matthew 7:16), and by the standard of our own conscience (2 Corinthians 4:2). II. WHICH IS NOT BY THE DIVINE SPIRIT OF IS LIKELY BE FALSE. The prophet may have a piercing intellect and a towering imagination. Yet he will err if he be blinded by unholiness and excluded from the revelations of spiritual communion. He speaks only out of his own heart; but the heart is "deceitful above all things." Attempts are constantly made to evolve religious truth out of the inner consciousness of the thinker. No idle dreams are more delusive, since (1) men have not the materials out of which to build a theology of their own; (2) they have not the faculties capable of using those materials—sin perverts the spiritual vision, prejudice and self-interest distort views of truth. III. FALSE IDEAS OF IS A HEINOUS CRIME. It is using the Name of God in vain (Jeremiah 14:14). It is abusing the trust of a high office for low purposes. It is likely to involve many in the toils of a fatal deception. It is easy to prophesy smooth things—easy thus to gain a vulgar popularity. But if this is done at the expense of truth, it is an awful sin. All Christian teachers should beware of the temptation to degrade their mission by aiming at pleasing their hearers instead of faithfully proclaiming the will of God. IV. FALSE IN WILL BE BY FATAL RESULTS. It ought to be clear to everybody that the first question concerning any teaching is whether it is true. Yet this question is often ignored. The prophet is eloquent; the doctrine is pleasing; the prediction is inviting. But what of all that if it is false? The prophecy will be punished when truth is revealed by facts. Then the false prophet will suffer by the fulfillment in himself of the prophecy he denied, and the people by the coming of the evil day they were too ready to hear discredited. Jeremiah 15:1 Prayer for mercy rejected. I. THE PRAYER IS BASED ON URGENT PLEAS. 1. A complete confession of sin. (Jeremiah 15:20.) It is acknowledged as hereditary, bug as also personal. Therefore all claims must rest on Divine considerations, since no ground for prayer can be found in anything human. 2. The plea of the Name of God. This is a plea all men can urge. The character, the honor, and the glory of God are suggested by his Name. For the sake of what he is, and the glory that his mercy will reflect, we may plead for pardon. By his love we beg for his forgiveness. 3. The plea of disgrace to the throne of God’s glory. This is a more special plea. The temple was the house of God, wherein his glory was manifested. To destroy it was to put an end to the manifestation of Divine glory associated with it. God’s glory is reflected on his Church. If the Church is humiliated, disgrace falls on the throne of God’s glory. Yet, note, it is only the throne that is directly disgraced, not the glory itself. The tarnished mirror can no longer reflect the radiance of the sun; this is a discredit to the mirror, but not directly to the sun, since there is no diminution of the sun’s brightness. Still, indirectly, dishonor is done to the original source of glory. The sun is less admired if its light is less reflected. God is less honored if his glory is less manifested. 4. Plea of the Divine covenant. This is the most special plea. God has made promises. To the fulfillment of these his faithfulness is bound. He has made a covenant with his own people. They who have accepted the covenant plead its special claims. The Christian has not only the universal mercy of God to trust in; he has the special promises of the gospel, the assurance of the privileges of God’s restored Children. II. THE PRAYER IS . 1. Intercession is useless for those who will not repent and seek mercy for themselves. The prayer was that of the prophet on behalf of his impenitent countrymen. The intercession of good men is recognized as powerful. Their character adds weight to their intercession (James 5:16). But not only must Jeremiah’s prayer be rejected, even Moses the founder of the nation and Samuel the father of the prophets could not prevail in the present case. The intercession of one greater than Moses, of Christ himself, will not save those who are obstinately hardened against returning to God. 2. The Name of God includes reference to his justice as wall as his mercy. For his Name’s sake he must vindicate the fight. The one-sided view of God which excludes all reference to his wrath is dishonoring. Even a man who can never feel righteous indignation is weak and imperfect. For a judge to acquit all criminals would be fatal to justice. 3. The throne of God’s glory is more dishonored by sin than by external disaster. The Jews feared discredit to the temple in its desecration by the heathen. It was more desecrated by their corrupt practices in it. To make the temple a den of thieves is more dishonoring than to overthrow it so as not to leave one stone upon another. The sins of Christ’s Church are more dishonoring to his Name than her sufferings, her willing subservience to the spirit of the world more humiliating than her apparent lowly condition when trampled under the feet of persecutors. The pure martyred Church is a glory to Christ, the corrupt prosperous Church a shame to his Name. 4. God’s covenant has human conditions. He condescends to bind himself to bless us so long as we fulfill our obligations to submit to him. Disobedience breaks the covenant. The faithless Christian cannot urge the pleas of the privileges of the gospel Prayer for rain. I. TO PRAYER FOR RAIN. 1. The universality of law. It seems to have been vaguely imagined till recently that the weather was not subject to laws of nature in the same strict form in which most material things are thus bound. But this surmise was simply based on ignorance. Recently more indications of law have been discovered, and we see the dawn of a meteorological science. How, then, can we expect God to change the weather in response to our prayers? 2. The limitations of knowledge. We really do not know what weather is best. What is good for one place is bad for another. The effects of rain and of drought are so far-reaching that it seems vain for us to judge what is best regarding them. But God knows all and is infinitely wise. Why should we not trust to his unerring discretion? 3. The goodness of God. If God is well disposed to his creatures, will he not give them what is for their good? Why, then, even if it were possible for the weather to be affected by our prayer, and if we were wise enough to know what was best for the world, should it be necessary for us to pray about the weather, as if God needed to be urged to govern the world for our benefit? II. REASONS IN FAVOR OF PRAYER FOR RAIN. 1. The control of God over the laws of nature. God is not the slave of his own legislation. Without changing his laws, he can act through them, as men who cannot alter the laws of nature can still alter the facts of nature by their use of those laws. Moreover, are there no spiritual laws? Yet, without violating the principles of the constitution of the spiritual universe, we believe that God can answer prayer for spiritual blessings. 2. The conditional character of prayer. The limitation to our knowledge makes it necessary for us to pray on the condition that God will only answer our requests so far as they agree with his wise and righteous will. Prayer for rain, of all prayers, must not be an absolute demand, but a submissive and humble request, accompanied by the desire that not our will but God’s be done. We have no right to dictate to God in prayer, and wisdom would not desire such a right. But there need be no limit to the greatness of the objects of prayer when the right condition of trust in God’s higher will is observed. 3. The fact that prayer alters our condition before God. It may be wise and right for God to do after our prayer what it would not be well for him to do without it. The very prayer may be a link in a chain of causation. Drought may be sent to us, as it was to Judah, with a Divine purpose concerning our conduct. A change in our conduct will then modify the action of that purpose. Prayer may be the best indication of such a change. We have distinct promises that we may receive, when we seek them in prayer, blessings which are withheld so long as we abstain from asking for them (Matthew 7:7, Matthew 7:8). BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 14:7, Jeremiah 14:9 A prayer for God’s people in time of his judgments. The prophet’s words, as he intuitively places himself in the position of those who are about to be afflicted. Not, therefore, to be regarded as an ideal prayer, but a true representation of the spiritual state of those who are conscious of their sin and their need of salvation. They explain the lack of apparent answer to prayer, and truthfully interpret the spiritual condition of the awakened sinner. I. PRAYER IS AN INDEX OF THE STATE. Here we have the oscillation between fear and hope, doubt and faith, vividly portrayed. There is a flitting to and fro of the soul between the extremes of dejection and of confidence. All real prayer ought thus faithfully to represent the mind of the petitioner. It is a laying bare of secret thoughts and moral convictions; an unconscious as well as a conscious confession. Whilst it may be said that a man’s inner being is revealed in his prayer, he is not to be judged by it by his fellow men. It is only God who can truly understand the indications which it affords, and only he who has a right to interpret them. There is a rising, a falling, and a rising again in the course of the prayer. It is the Name of God which serves as a reminder and spiritual confirmation. II. PRAYER IS A AND A MEANS OF GRACE. There is evident in this utterance a wrestling with unbelief. Memories of evil crowd upon the soul and seem to darken the horizon. The sinful nation confesses that in itself there is no hope, but as that conviction is arrived at, another asserts itself, namely, that God is the Hope of Israel, and that in his name or character there is the promise and potency of restoration. It is in spiritual transitions like these that the soul is lost and found again. Temptation is anticipated and overcome, sin is cast away, and God is throned in the heart, It is better to make such honest discovery of ourselves to God, even in our weakness and lack of faith, than that we should carry these into the conduct of life. It is in these transitions of despair and hope reaching to and resting in restored faith and settled purpose of righteousness, that the overcoming of the world is already accomplished. III. THE PRAYER THAT SEEMS TO BE NOW MAY YET PROVE A OF . Had Israel herself really adopted the words of this her representative mediator, she would have escaped the awful abyss that yawned before her, but she knew not the day of her opportunity. By slow stages of recovery, marked by many relapses, was she to climb to the great truth from which she had fallen, that the Name of God was her salvation and hope. So it is that many a prayer uttered without apparent answer supplies in itself a spiritual condition of ultimate blessing. Its answer is really begun in the change of attitude assumed, and the spiritual truth laid hold of. By-and-by irresolution and uncertainty will give place to faith, and the windows of heaven will be opened.—M. Jeremiah 14:19, Jeremiah 14:22 Prayer a fruit of chastisement. There is a deeper and more spiritual gone in this utterance. The heart of Israel is conceived of as having been searched and revealed. Repentance is felt, and confession made. The true source of peace and help is sought after; and the false ones which have been tested are rejected. I. IS THE AND OF LIFE GOD TEACHES MEN HOW TO PRAY. Thereby they learn in a stern school their own sinfulness; the misery and desolation of the soul that is alienated from the life of God and exposed to his wrath and curse; the incapacity of earthly things to deliver or console, and the power of God to forgive and to save. It is in this estimate of themselves and their resources that the foundation is laid for real spiritual desire. When sin has been felt and acknowledged, a relation is established between the soul and God which is immediately recognized in its claims. II. THE SPIRIT WHICH IS THUS IS ALONE TO GOD. There are many prayers which evidently ought not to be, and with due regard to the needs of the sinner and the honor of his heavenly Father could not be, answered. The chief end of prayer is not gained in the obtaining of the objects that are asked for, but in the gradual assumption of a right relation to God and acknowledgment of his character and authority. Thus it is that some prayers sound like wails of despair, whilst others are full of the breathings of resignation, obedience, faith, and love. It is with this filial tone that true prayer begins. And it is only when we have learned that "whom he loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth," that we are able to adapt it. "Thy will be clone" is the burden of every Christ-taught prayer, as it is the outcome of all true spiritual discipline.—M. Invoking the honor of God. Not along ago this phrase," Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory," was employed in prayer by a convert in a certain religious meeting. Shortly after a letter was sent to the papers, inveighing against the "pro-faulty" of the idea; in apparently complete ignorance of its scriptural origin and warrant. Often the language of humility may conceal a conception of real arrogance, and so, on the other hand, the most daring appeals to the promises, the character, and the honor of God may have their root in the profoundest reverence and faith. It is high ground go take, simply because no other ground is available. I. AS SINNERS HAVE NO REASON FOR MERCY IN , THEY MUST APPEAL TO GOD. Mere pity would be inadmissible as a motive to which to appeal. There is no ground of acceptance in the sinner himself, and consequently there remains only that course of action which will illustrate and glorify the character of God. That God had chosen Israel as his servant, and Jerusalem as the seat and center of the theocracy, are the only reasons that are valid in approaching him for mercy. Any course of action which would fail to give due respect to the attributes of his character or the purposes of his grace in the world is already forbidden when it is stated. God has been at pains to pledge himself to the ultimate salvation of men. His Name is itself a promise that no compromise shall be entered into or ineffectual means of salvation adopted. Therefore the necessity of Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. In him the justice of God is honored, and his Name revealed in the hearts of men. It is only as the gospel is perceived as the offspring of the purest, highest motives on the part of God that it can call into existence corresponding motives in the sinner himself. II. To THE SAINT THE HONOR OF GOD SHOULD EVER BE OF MORE ACCOUNT THAN HIS OWN WELFARE. "For Christ’s sake" is a formula in which much of this feeling is implicitly expressed. The exigencies of God’s kingdom, the furtherance of his purposes of love and grace, the recognition of the principles of righteousness, are essential to a true Christian life as to true prayer. And the keenest susceptibility should be felt to any conduct on the part of God’s servants which would seem to injure his cause in the world or to misrepresent his character. III. GOD’S NAME IS PLEDGED TO AND BOUND UP WITH THE OF MEN. It seems a daring and wondrous plea to urge in the presence of him with whom we have to do; but it is the only one which we can truly offer, and it is of infinite avail. If we accept Christ as representing the honor and righteousness of God, are we not assured that every prayer truly offered in his name shall be answered? The welfare and usefulness of God’s servants are guaranteed by such a consideration, and we cannot offer it too often or insist upon it with too great earnestness.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 14:1-9 Thankfulness through contrast: a harvest sermon. These verses are a terrible picture of drought and famine. Our thankfulness for what God has done for us in the bounteous harvest he has given may be called forth the more by considering the contrast with our happy lot which these verses present. Contrast is a great teacher. It is the black board on which the teacher’s white markings are more clearly seen, the dark background of the sky on the face of which the stars shine out the more. Now, this chapter is all concerning, not a bountiful harvest, but a dread famine. We cannot determine the date of this famine, but it appears to have been one of those premonitory judgments of God sent to teach his sinful people wisdom, so that the more terrible judgments of the future years might not be needed. "A terrible drought had fallen upon the land, and the prophet’s picture of it is like some of Dante’s in its realism, its pathos, and in its terror. In the presence of a common calamity all distinctions of class have vanished, and the nobles send their little ones to the wells, and they come back with empty vessels and drooping heads, instead of with the gladness that used to be heard in the places of drawing water. Far afield the ploughmen are standing among the cracked furrows, gazing with despair at the brown chapped earth, and out in the field the very dumb creatures are sharing in the common sorrow. And the imperious law of self-preservation overpowers and crushes the maternal instincts. ’Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass.’ And on every hill-top, where cooler air might be found, the once untameable wild asses are standing with open nostrils, punting for air, their filmy eyes failing them, gazing for the rain that will not come. It is a true description—so they say who know what drought in Eastern lands is and does. How it distressed the earth, the beasts, and man, is all vividly portrayed." The pits, some of them natural hollows in the hard rock and in caves, where evaporation was less speedy; others of them dykes and cisterns, the works of man;—but all alike were empty. The ground was split by reason of the long drought into wide and deep fissures; earth’s wounds for man’s sin, mute mouths crying to Heaven for pity, the lips of earth suffering, waiting for a drop of water to relieve the torment of its awful thirst. And not the land only, but the dumb brutes were involved in the common woe. The hind, driven down from her high places into the fields in search of the grass that has disappeared from the lofty heights, meets with disappointment here also, and in her agony of hunger and thirst forgot and forsook her young, whom she, above most other of the beasts of the field, was wont to care for and cherish tenderly; and the hardy wild asses (Jeremiah 14:6) found their hunger even greater than they could bear, and punted in terror and distress. And man-all ranks and ages were smitten, the people generally were languishing. The gates of the cities and other chief places of concourse were "black unto the ground," with the sad, colored garments of the mourners who bent prostrate there; and one long, loud, bitter cry went up from the whole city of God. But what a contrast is our condition to theirs! See it in the aspects of the fields ere harvest was gathered in. In the gifts of all nurturing powers from heaven—rain, dew, and fountains of water. In the abundance provided for man and beast, and in the contentment and peace of the herds of the field. In the glad congratulations of all classes in the land, from the laborer to the noble, because of what God has given. The whole nation rejoices, a cry not of sorrow but of gladness goes up from the homes of the rich and poor, high and low alike. And this contrast is seen also in the thoughts of God prompted by the two events. "The dearth" made the people think that God was as a stranger in the land, one who knew nothing of them or their need. If we felt concerning our distresses that God was as a stranger to us, they would be much harder to bear. But so Judah and Jerusalem thought. Nor was this the worst thought; for if God knew how they were suffering, and yet no help came, did not a yet darker surmise seem warranted? Was it not as if he were "as a wayfaring man that but turned aside to tarry for the night," and who therefore, having no interest in the place or the people, would care but little for them? This was a terrible thought indeed. If our mind be haunted with the dread thought that God looks on unmoved at our affliction, and cares not for our distress—what, then, can we do? But so they thought. The sun rose and set, the stars looked down upon them just as they had done at other times; but there was no heart of love in their calm, unmoved gaze; and so it seemed there was no heart in God, and that he, unmoved by their appeal, left them to perish. Or could it be that, after all their boasting in him as mighty to save, One mightier than he had arisen and overpowered him; that he was "as one astounded, as a mighty man that cannot save?" Was there some cruel fate which, after all, was ruling over their destinies, and so preventing the mighty One, of whom their fathers told, from coming to their help as in the days of old? Such dark and terrible thoughts float about the minds of men in the hour of dire distress such as this dearth had brought upon them. And so all hope was quenched, the voice of prayer was stifled, their hearts died down in complete despair. The dearth in itself was bad enough, causing bodily agony beyond all description, but its horrors were heightened and awfully intensified by the dark thoughts about God to which their distress gave rise. But in all this, what a contrast does our happier lot present? The thoughts of God which the harvest he has given prompt are the very opposite of those which, as we have seen, haunted the minds of those who suffered under the dearth. Not as a stranger ignorant of us and our wants does God appear, but as One who "knoweth that we have need of all these things," and who openeth his hand and filleth us with good. And still less as a wayfaring man, and who therefore has no concern nor care for land or people. Every golden ear of corn has been a tongue as well, and has told eloquently though silently of our Father’s care. The wide-stretching fields of corn have been filled with these myriad witnesses to his love, and have stood up in their serried ranks, to give the lie to the unbelieving heart, that would harbor hard thoughts of God. As all with one consent yield to the summer breeze, so with like oneness of consent, do they attest his unfailing goodness and his never-ceasing care. And they proclaim him, too, as the Hope of his people, and their Savior indeed. He is no "mighty man that cannot save." For all the treasures of the field, created, preserved, and ripened for our use, in spite of all adverse influences which threatened them, all show that he is mighty to save. His hand held in check every hostile power, every destructive storm, every killing frost, every blighting mildew, every creeping caterpillar, and all else that would have robbed us of the corn he has given. Oh, what a gospel do the fields preach! And how differently God might have dealt with us! For whilst there is so vast a contrast between our harvest and that dearth of which these verses tell, there has been no such contrast between our conduct and that which brought upon Judah the calamity from which they suffered. Have we not reason to make the same confession which was made concerning them?—" O Lord … our iniquities testify against us," etc. (Jeremiah 14:7). What, gratitude then, does such long-suffering love call for from us? Let, then, our harvest lead us to do that which Judah’s dearth led the prophet to do—to turn to God, and confess him as our Hope and our Savior in time of trouble. In this way he is again, standing at our doors and knocking for admission. The "miracle of the loaves is done over again for our comfort and help. We have "the joy of harvest," let him have it also in gathering us into the garner of his faithful souls for time and for eternity.—C. Jeremiah 14:7-9 An absent God deplored. The dearth told of in foregoing verses and the misery caused thereby led to the conviction that God had abandoned his people. In these verses and throughout this section down to Jeremiah 15:9 we find the prophet pleading with God to return. In these verses we are shown— I. THE CAUSES WHICH HAD BROUGHT ABOUT THE DIVINE FROM THEM. Their "iniquities," "backslidings," "sins" (Jeremiah 15:7). Nothing else has such power; sin only can shut out God, but it always will and does. II. THE HAPPY WHICH MADE IT SO BITTER. God had revealed himself to them in such endearing manner. He had been ever "the Hope of Israel." He had inspired, maintained, and justified that hope again and again. And he had become the Hope of Israel through having shown himself so perpetually "the Savior thereof in the time of trouble." The memory of God’s servants was stored with recollections of such deliverances, national and individual, from troubles temporal and spiritual; vouchsafed, too, not because of Israel’s deserving, but out of God’s pure bounty. Now, it was these happy memories which made God’s present dealings with them so terrible to bear. III. THE SAD BETWEEN THE DIVINE NOW AND OF OLD. We have seen what he had been to Israel, but now, the prophet complains, he is to them very far from what he was then. He is "as a stranger," "a wayfaring man," as one "taken by surprise," as one strong but yet unable to help. Their enemies would taunt them with the reproach that either God was as a stranger, and therefore did not care for them; or, if they denied that, then it must be that there was a stronger than he, who had taken him by surprise and prevented his rendering help to his afflicted people. Either he would not or he could not—on one of the horns of this dilemma they by the force of their present circumstances were thrown. And there can be no doubt that the great mystery of life, its sins and sorrows, do often force perplexed and troubled minds perilously near to one or other of these ’conclusions, which nevertheless faith affirms to be alike false, and will never admit for one moment. IV. THE SOURCES OF HOPE UNDER LIKE THESE. They are: 1. The Name of God. This the prophet pleads (Jeremiah 15:7). He confesses that all their own conduct is altogether against them. They can have no hope in themselves. But the Name of God remains to be urged in his pleading, and therefore it is this Name that he does urge. "Do thou it for thy Name’s sake." Here is a fact which cannot change. When driven out of all hope in ourselves by reason of our sins, we may yet hope in God, and plead the grace and goodness that are evermore in him. 2. The presence of his appointed ordinances and his chosen dwelling-place in their midst. This is the meaning of Jer 15:9, "Yet thou art in the midst of us," The temple, the altar, the sacrifice, the priests, the ark, were all there; the appointed channels of communication between God and his people. And so long as we may go unto his footstool, and the throne of grace is open to us, there is hope in that. God will come to us again in the way of his holy and appointed ordinances, if we will go along that way to seek him. 3. They were the objects of history. We are called by thy Name." Israel was so. God had chosen them at the first. "When Israel was a child, then I loved him." And it is because of that undying love of God, they who for their sins have lost his presence may yet win it back again. V. THE PRESENT DUTY. Prayer. The prophet betook himself hereto. "Leave us not," he cries (Jeremiah 15:9). And nothing barred the success of this prayer but that the people for whom he prayed had no heart in it. God stood ready to forgive and restore. The prophet’s prayer was fully answered on the part of God. But those for whom he prayed were not ready, and so their judgment went on. But for ourselves, if we deplore an absent God, let us betake ourselves to these potent arms of all-prevailing prayer, and God shall ere long be again known to us as of old as our Hope and our Savior in time of trouble.—C. False teachers no adequate excuse for evil conduct. No doubt the people to whom Jeremiah was sent had been encouraged in their ungodliness by the faithlessness and sin of their prophets. Blind guides were leading the blind, and with the inevitable result. And here Jeremiah pleads, as an excuse for his people’s sin, that they had been thus misled. But God refuses to admit the plea. Now, on this, note— I. FALSE IS SOME EXCUSE FOR EVIL CONDUCT. The deepest instincts of our hearts affirm this. Our Lord himself does so, when he says, "He that knew not his Lord’s will and did it not, shall be beaten with few stripes." But this word of his, whilst it allows that lack of teaching is some excuse, denies that it is sufficient (cf. John 19:11). St. Paul also says, concerning the heathen nations, "The time of this ignorance God winked at." II. BUT IT IS NOT AN EXCUSE. For: 1. The taught are the creators almost as much as the creatures of their teachers. The people who clamor for smooth things to be prophesied to them will find such prophets forthcoming. Ahab’s prophets all of them but Micaiah—were such. It is true, "like priest, like people;" but it is also true, "like people, like priest." The demand creates the supply. The pastors of the Church are the product of the Church, almost as much as the Church is the product of the pastors. What a worldly Church wants it will have, for the woe both of itself and its pastors alike. 2. They have a sure test by which to try all their teachers. "To the Law and to the testimony," etc. Conscience also is ever on the side of God, and is prompt to condemn all teaching that leads to sin. The Holy Spirit likewise pleads in men’s hearts for God. And the faithful words of those in whom God’s Spirit dwells. None, therefore, are shut up to any human teachers. 3. And where evil teachers have been followed, it has been in spite of the protest which these other higher and surer guides have uttered, or would have uttered had they been suffered so to do. III. BUT IF IT BE ILL FOR THE TAUGHT, IT IS YET MORE ILL FOR THE . "His blood will I require at the watchman’s hands." The most awful of our Lord’s denunciations were addressed to such evil teachers (cf. the oft-repeated, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" cf. Verse 14, etc.). . 1. Let those who are taught by any human teachers test what they receive by the Word of God. Be as the Bereans (Acts 17:1). 2. Let those who teach watch anxiously and prayerfully against the temptation to conform their teachings to the likings of their hearers rather than to their needs. Let them remember that the causes of error and false teaching are much more moral than they are intellectual. 3. Let teachers and taught alike sit daily at his feet who said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."—C. Jeremiah 14:17-22 The distracting power of great distress. The prophet seems blinded by his tears. The distress portrayed here is terrible indeed, and the prophet so realized it that his mind appears to have reeled beneath his apprehensions of the coming calamities. Hence he falls into utterances which can only be regarded, however pardonable and comprehensible under his piteous circumstances (cf. Jeremiah 14:18), as exaggerated, and in many respects, as all such utterances are, incorrect. Every sentence in Jeremiah 14:19, etc; is open to grave question. It would be dreadful if they were not. Note- I. THE PROPHET’S , (Jeremiah 14:19.) Now, God did not "utterly reject Judah," nor did "his soul loathe Zion." It was his love for his people that determined him at all costs to purge them from their evil. II. HIS . (Jeremiah 14:19.) He complains that they had been disappointed and implies that God was the cause why their expectations had failed. They had no right to look for peace, being what they were. III. HIS . Nothing could be more appropriate or more sure to gain the mercy of God than such confession as this, if it were indeed sincere and general on the part of those who had sinned. But this it was not; it was because they would not repent, would not return unto the Lord, that therefore his wrath arose against them until there was no remedy. IV. HIS . (Jeremiah 14:21.) God never "abhorred" his people but only their sins; and that God should be thought to "disgrace" the throne of his glory can only be explained on the grounds we have stated. Nor either is it God’s way to "break his covenant." V. HIS PLEAS. (Jeremiah 14:22.) Here the prophet pleads truly. There was no hope in any heathen deity, but in God alone. And had the people indeed "waited" upon God, matters had gone more happily with them. But this was just what they did not do. Now, concerning all such utterances as these: 1. Bear with them. God did so. He rebuked not his servant, though that servant had spoken unadvisedly concerning him. 2. Be very slow to believe them. Cf. Naomi, and her false forebodings of fear. How ill she thought God would deal with her! How gracious, in fact, that dealing was I And St. Paul assures us that "God hath not cast off his people." "All Israel shall be saved." Let us wait on and wait for God. 3. Be ashamed if by our sin we have caused such distress. Jeremiah had not sinned, but he mourns as if the sin were his own. Beholding the sorrow our sin causes to those who love us will, if we be not utterly hardened, arouse shame, sorrow, and contrition in our own hearts. 4. If those who know most of the mind of God tremble for us, have we not reason to tremble for ourselves?—C. A dreadful apprehension. That God should "abhor" us. Such apprehension filled the prophet’s mind, as it has other minds. I. BUT THIS GOD NEVER DOES. He is our Father; he so loved us as to give Christ for us. It is impossible, therefore, let our apprehensions be what they may, that he can abhor us. II. BUT HE MAY SEEM TO. 1. No one will think thus of God by reason only of temporal calamities. These have again and again come and do come to God’s servants, but produce no such distressing thought as this (cf. Psalms 22:1-31; "He hath not despised nor abhorred," etc.). 2. Nor will spiritual distress alone cause it. There may be loss of comfort in God; no enjoyment in prayer or worship. Sin may again reassert its mastery, and fill the soul with sorrow. Doubts may insinuate themselves into the soul. But none of these will of themselves lead to the thought that God abhors us. 3. They may do so, however, if the presence of sorrow, temporal or spiritual, be so severe as to throw the mind off its balance. (Cf. former homily.) Despair has for a while under such circumstances wrought this harm, and that in the holiest minds. Even our blessed Lord knew somewhat of this awful experience (cf. the agony in the garden, and the cry on the cross, "My God, my God," etc.). Elijah, John the Baptist, Jeremiah here, and others have been instances. Cowper the poet also, and the not infrequent cases of religious melancholy leading either to settled gloom or even suicide. The tenderest pity and compassion are to be felt for such. 4. Persistent disobedience and repeated backsliding are the chief causes of this apprehension. When the world, the flesh, and the devil fill the heart, especially the heart which has once been cleansed, then "the last state of that man is worse than the first" (cf. Saul, Judas, Ahithophel). Yes; such sin has power to turn the sun into darkness and the moon into blood, and to make the very stars fall from heaven. God becomes the horror of the soul, and men will "make their bed in hell" if but they may flee from his dreadful presence. III. THE GREAT OF THIS DREAD. It is suggested by the prophet’s own words: "Abhor us not, for thy Name’s sake." This is the antidote of all such fearful dread. The Name of God, i.e. that by which he has made himself known. And what has been the verdict of all the witness concerning God, which his words and works and ways have borne, but this, that he is plenteous in mercy to all that call upon him—to all that call upon him in truth? He is the "God of all grace." And if Israel of old had proof of this, how much more have we in Christ! Behold God in him; he is the Name of God to us men. Then, where this dread apprehension exists, let Christ be preached, meditated upon, sought in prayer, confessed with the lip, served and followed in the life, waited on continually, and soon this dread shall pass away.—C. BY J. WAITE Lying prophets. Every divinely inspired prophet of the olden times was emphatically a "seer," gifted with the power of looking, as other men could not, into the inmost heart of things—passing events, natural laws, Divine providences—so as to discern their deeper meaning. The past, the present, and the future all came under his survey, inasmuch as he had to do mainly with those absolute and universal truths which are in no way subject to the conditions of time. As the prophet is called a seer, so the subject of his prophecy is often called a" vision." It is remarkable how large a proportion of the prophetic revelations of the Old Testament were of a pictorial, symbolic character (see Numbers 24:4; 1 Kings 22:17; Isaiah 6:1; Ezekiel 37:1:10; Habakkuk 2:1), and even when they were otherwise, similar phraseology is often used to indicate the prophet’s extraordinary power of moral and spiritual insight. But this passage speaks of false prophets—men who assumed the prophetic function when not divinely called to it, mere pretenders to the prophetic gift. Ezekiel calls them the "foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing" (Ezekiel 13:3). Every age has had some such misleading witnesses. Christ warned the people against them in his day (Matthew 7:15; Matthew 24:24). St. John spoke of their uprising as a characteristic of the "last time" (1 John 2:18; 1 John 4:1). Our own age is certainly no exception. Men may not claim Divine inspiration in the old prophetic sense, but never were there bolder claims to deep spiritual insight, never such adventurous flights into the realms of mystery, never so many dogmatic remedies for the intellectual restlessness or the moral diseases of human nature. Note, here— I. THAT FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND OF SPEECH WHICH WOULD SEEM TO BE A FIXED OF DIVINE . There was nothing to prevent the false prophets from speaking; the people were only forbidden to listen to them. Though it be nothing but a vision of their own diseased fancy, a conceit of their own distempered brain, that men have to deliver, they are allowed to deliver it. Better so, that the false should come out to the light of day, confronting the truth, rather than that it should be suppressed by an external force that may at another time be enlisted on its side. The truth has nothing to fear from public conflict with error and all its forces. A marvelous change, as regards the openness of the conflict, has taken place since the days when Milton wrote his ’Areopagitica’ and Jeremy Taylor his ’Liberty of Prophesying.’ No doubt it is full of danger to the weak and wavering, to those whose mental eagerness is not tempered by humility and whose hearts are not "established with grace." But this is God’s way of leading the world on to fuller, clearer light. And is it not in harmony with his whole moral administration of human affairs? He puts awful, destructive powers into men’s hands, and he holds each one responsible for the way in which he wields them. There are boundless possibilities of evil around us all, moral as well as physical, and our case would be sad indeed if there were not equal and still greater possibilities of good. It is well that the false prophets should tell out their "dreams," if only that the light of God may expose their emptiness and the breath of God may scatter them. II. THE NEED OF A SURE OF . How shall we discern between the false and the true? These supposed prophetic utterances of old were subjected to certain tests. 1. Their verity. If they were falsified by the facts of history or the inner consciousness of the people, they could not be of God. 2. Harmony with Divine Law. They must be favorable to the cause of virtue and morality; could not promise prosperity apart from repentance, or cry, "Peace, peace," when there was "no peace." 3. The personal character of the teacher. The messengers of a holy God must needs be themselves holy. The quality of their message would be reflected in their own life. The same principles hold good now. Such an essential connection exists between truth in thought and truth of feeling, character, life, that every form of doctrine must be judged by its moral influence, both on the teacher and the taught. "By their fruits ye shall know them." Moreover, Christianity refers us to a testing principle of still higher quality and completer efficacy—the presence of the Spirit of truth and grace in our own souls. "He that is spiritual," etc. (1 Corinthians 2:15). "Ye have an unction from the Holy One," etc. (1 John 2:20, 1 John 2:21). There is no safeguard against error but this Divine faculty. As regards an external standard, the Scriptures of eternal truth are the touchstone. "To the Law and to the testimony," etc. (Isaiah 8:20). The voice, the Law, the life of God in your own soul, is a touchstone of still more delicate quality and ready application. ― If what you read or hear wilt not bear this test, it is but the "dream" of a false prophet, "the deceit of his own heart," and no true "burden of the Lord." III. GOD’S SURE OF THE CAUSE OF HIS OWN TRUTH, FORCES MAY ASSAIL IT. (See Verses 15, 16.) The ministry of the true prophets was a marvelous revelation of the Divine power that sustained them and verified their words. They were seldom called to. do battle with the false prophets on their own ground, directly to assail their errors by argument and disproof. They were simply called to proclaim the truth, leaving it with God to make it victorious. The apostles of Christ dealt with the abounding theoretical and practical evils of their day on very much the same principle. The thing that is false gains its influence over men’s minds by reason of its resemblance to the true. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Jeremiah 15:1-9 Second rejection of Jeremiah’s intercession; awfulness of the impending judgment. Jeremiah 15:1 Though Moses and Samuel, etc. It is a mere supposition which is here made; there is no allusion to any popular view of the intercession of saints (see my note on Isaiah 63:16). If even a Moses or a Samuel would intercede in vain, the ease of the Judahites must indeed be desperate. For these were the nearest of all the prophets to Jehovah, and repeatedly prayed their people out of grievous calamity (comp. Psalms 99:6). Jeremiah had already sought to intercede for his people (see on Jeremiah 7:16). Cast them out of my sight; rather, Dismiss them from my presence. The people are represented as praying or sacrificing in the fore courts of the temple. Jeremiah 15:2 Such as are for death, etc.; a sternly ironical answer. Death, sword, famine, captivity, lie in wait for them in every possible road. "Death" here means "pestilence" (comp. "the black death" in the Middle Ages), as in Jeremiah 18:21; Job 27:15. Similar combinations of evils occur in Jeremiah 43:11; Ezekiel 14:21; Ezekiel 33:27. Jeremiah 15:3 Appoint; i.e. give full power to them as my vicegerents (Jeremiah 1:10). Four kinds; literally, families; i.e. kinds of things. The first-mentioned has reference to the living; the remaining ones to the unburied corpses (Jeremiah 14:16; Jeremiah 19:7; Jeremiah 34:20). To tear; rather, to drag along. Jeremiah 15:4 Cause them to be removed into; rather, make them a shuddering unto. So in the Deuteronomic curses for disobedience (Deuteronomy 28:25). Jeremiah 15:5 For who shall have pity? or, for who can have pity, etc.? (the imperfect in its potential sense). The horror which will seize upon the spectators will effectually preclude pity. Who shall go aside? As one turns aside to call at a house. So Genesis 19:2 (literally, turn aside, not "turn in"). Jeremiah 15:6 Will I stretch; literally, I stretched—the perfect of prophetic certitude (so in next verse). I am weary with repenting; i.e. with recalling my (conditional) sentence of punishment (see on Jeremiah 18:1-10). Jeremiah 15:7 The gates of the land. The phrase might mean either the cities in general (comp. Micah 5:5; Isaiah 3:26) or the fortresses commanding the entrance into the land (comp. Nahum 3:13). The context decides in favor of the latter view. Ewald’s explanation, "borders of the earth" (i.e. the most distant countries), seems less natural. I will bereave them, etc. The proper object of the verb is my people (personified as a mother). The population are to fall in war (comp. the same figure in Ezekiel 5:17). The tense is the perfect of prophetic certitude; literally, I have bereaved, etc. Jeremiah 15:8 To me; i.e. at my bidding. It is the dative of cause. Against the mother of the young men; rather, upon … young man. The widow has lost her husband, the mother her son, so that no human power can repel the barbarous foe. The word rendered "young man" is specially used for "young warriors," e.g. Jeremiah 18:21; Jeremiah 49:26; Jeremiah 51:3. Others following Rashi, take "mother" in the sense of "metropolis," or "chief city", in which case "young man" must be connected with the participle rendered "a spoiler;" but though the word has this sense in 2 Samuel 20:19, it is there coupled with "city," so that no doubt can exist. Hero the prophet would certainly not have used the word in so unusual a sense without giving some guide to his meaning. The rendering adopted above has the support of Ewald, Hitzig, and Dr. Payne Smith. At noonday; at the most unlooked-for moment (see on Jeremiah 6:4). I have caused him, etc.; rather, I have caused pangs and terrors to fall upon her suddenly. Jeremiah 15:9 That hath borne seven; a proverbial expression. Her sun is gone down, etc. The figure is that of an eclipse (comp. Amos 9:9). She hath been ashamed, etc.; rather, she ashamed, etc. Ewald supposes the sun, which is sometimes feminine in Hebrew, to be the subject (comp. Isaiah 24:23); but the view of the Authorized Version is more probable. The shame of childlessness is repeatedly referred to (comp. Jeremiah 1:12; Isaiah 54:4; Genesis 16:4; Genesis 30:1, Genesis 30:23). Jeremiah 15:10-21 These verses come in very unexpectedly, and are certainly not to be regarded as a continuation of the preceding discourse. They describe some deeply pathetic moment of the prophet’s inner life, and in all probability belong to a later period of the history of Judah. At any rate, the appreciation of the next chapter will be facilitated by reading it in close connection with Jeremiah 15:9 of the present chapter. But the section before us is too impressive to be east adrift without an attempt to find a place for it in the life of the prophet. The attempt has been made with some plausibility by a Jewish scholar, Dr. Gratz, who considers the background of these verses to be the sojourn of Jeremiah at Ramah, referred to in Jeremiah 40:1, and groups them, therefore, with another prophecy (Jeremiah 31:15-17), in which Ramah is mentioned by name as the temporary abode of the Jewish captives. We are told in Jeremiah 40:4, Jeremiah 40:5, that Jeremiah had the choice given him of either going to Babylon with the exiles, or dwelling with the Jews who were allowed to remain under Gedaliah the governor. He chose, as the narrative in Jeremiah 40:1-16. tells us, to stay with Gedaliah; but the narrative could not, in accordance with the reserve which characterizes the inspired writers, reveal the state of mind in which this difficult choice was made. This omission is supplied in the paragraph before us. Jeremiah, with that lyric tendency peculiar to him among the prophets, gives a vent to his emotion in these impassioned verses. He tells his friends that the resolution to go to Gedaliah may cost him a severe struggle. He longs for rest, and in Babylon he would have more chance of a quiet life than among the turbulent Jews at home. But he has looked up to God for guidance, and, however painful to the flesh, God’s will must be obeyed. He gives us the substance of the revelation which he received. The Divine counselor points out that he has already interposed in the most striking manner for Jeremiah, and declares that if he will devote himself to the Jews under Gedaliah, a new and fruitful field will be open to him, in which, moreover, by Divine appointment, no harm can happen to him. Whether this is really the background of the paragraph must remain uncertain. In a case of this kind, we are obliged to call in the help of the imagination, if the words of the prophet are to be realized with any degree of vividness. There are some great difficulties in the text, and apparently one interpolation. Jeremiah 15:10 Woe is me, my mother! This is one of those passages (comp. Introduction) which illustrate the sensitive and shrinking character of our prophet. "If his meek spirit erred, opprest That God denied repose, What sin is ours, to whom Heaven’s rest Is pledged to heal earth’s woes?" (Cardinal Newman, in ’Lyra Apostolica,’ 88.). I have neither lent on usury, etc.; a speaking figure to men of the ancient world, to whom, as Dr. Payne Smith remarks, "the relations between the money-lender and the debtor were the most fruitful source of lawsuits and quarrellings." Jeremiah 15:11 The Lord said. The prophets are usually so tenacious of the same formulae that even their slight deviations are noteworthy. "The Lord said," for "Thus saith the Lord," occurs only here and in Jeremiah 46:25 (where, however, the phrase has possibly been detached by mistake from the preceding verse). It shall be well with thy remnant; rather, I have loosed thee for (thy) good, or, thy loosing (shall be) for (thy good), according as we adopt the reading of the Hebrew text or that of the margin, which differs in form as slightly as it is possible to do. If we accept the historical setting proposed by Gratz for this paragraph, the reference will be to the "loosing" of Jeremiah from his chains mentioned in Jeremiah 40:4. The rendering given here is, however, only a probable one; it is in conformity with the Aramaic usage of the verb (the Targum uses it in this sense in Jeremiah 40:4), and is supported by its suitability to the context and, philologically, by the fact of the growing influence of Aramaic upon Hebrew. Gesenius, in his anxiety to keep close to the native use of the root, produces a rendering which does not suit the context, viz. "I afflict thee for (thy) good." Jeremiah does not complain of being afflicted by God, but that all the world is against him; Ewald, comparing a different Aramaic verb to that appealed to above, renders, "I strengthen thee," etc; which is adopted by Keil, but does not accord with the second half of the verse so well as the rendering adopted. The Authorized Version follows the Targum, the Vulgate, Aquila, Symmachus, Rashi, and Kimchi, assuming that sherith is contracted from sh’erith (as in 1 Chronicles 12:38), and that "remnant" is equivalent to "remnant of life." But, though the sense is not unacceptable (comp. Verses 20, 21), the form of expression is unnatural; we should have expected akharith’ka, "thy latter end" (comp. Job 8:7). I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well. This expression is as difficult as the preceding, and our rendering of it will depend entirely on our view of the context. If "the enemy" means the Chaldeans, the Authorized Version will be substantially correct. Rashi has already mentioned the view that the phrase alludes to Nebnzar-adan’s respectful inquiry as to the wishes of Jeremiah in Jeremiah 40:2-5. In this ease, the literal rendering is, I will cause the enemy to meet thee (as a friend); comp. Isaiah 47:3; Isaiah 64:4. But if "the enemy" means the Jews, then we must render, I grill cause the enemy to supplicate thee, and illustrate the phrase by the repeated applications of Zedekiah to the prophet (Jeremiah 21:1, Jeremiah 21:2; Jeremiah 37:3; Jeremiah 38:14), and the similar appeal of the "captains of the forces," in Jeremiah 42:1-3. Jeremiah 15:12 Shall iron break, etc.? Again an enigmatical saying. The rendering of the Authorized Version assumes that by the northern iron Jeremiah means the Babylonian empire. But the "breaking" of the Babylonian empire was not a subject which lay within the thoughts of the prophet. It was not the fate of Babylon, but his own troubled existence, and the possibility that his foes would ultimately succeed in crushing him, which disquieted this conscientious but timid spokesman of Jehovah. The Divine interlocutor has reminded him in the preceding verse of the mercy which has been already extended to him, and now recalls to his recollection the encouraging assurances given him in his inaugural vision (Jeremiah h 18, 19). Render, therefore, Can one break iron, northern iron, and bronze? The steel of the Authorized Version is evidently a slip. The Hebrew word is n’khosheth, which means sometimes (e.g. Jeremiah 6:28; Deuteronomy 8:9; Deuteronomy 33:25; Job 28:2) copper, but more commonly bronze, since "copper unalloyed seems to have been but rarely used after its alloys with tin became known" (Professor Maskelyne). "Steel" would have been more fitly introduced as the second of the three names of metals. "Northern iron" at once suggests the Chalybes, famous in antiquity for their skill in hardening iron, and, according to classical authors (e.g. Stephanus the geographer), the neighbors of the Tibareni, in the country adjoining the Euxine Sea, the Tibareni being, of course, the people of Tubal, whom Ezekiel mentions (Ezekiel 27:13) as trafficking in vessels of bronze. Any Jew, familiar with the wares of the bazaar, would at once appreciate the force of such a question as this. Even if iron could be broken, yet surely not steel nor bronze. Thus the verse simply reaffirms the original promises to Jeremiah, and prepares the way for verses 20, 21. Jeremiah 15:13, Jeremiah 15:14 Thy substance, etc. These verses form an unlooked-for digression. The prophet has been in a state of profound melancholy, and the object of Jehovah is to rouse him from it. In Jeremiah 15:11, Jeremiah 15:12, the most encouraging assurances have been given him. Suddenly comes the overwhelming declaration contained in Jeremiah 15:13, Jeremiah 15:14. And when we look closely at these verses, two points strike us, which make it difficult to conceive that Jeremiah intended them to stand here. First, their contents are not at all adapted to Jeremiah, and clearly belong to the people of Judah; and next, they are repeated, with some variations, in Jeremiah 17:3, Jeremiah 17:4. It should also be observed that the Septuagint (which omits Jeremiah 17:1-4) only gives them here, which seems to indicate an early opinion that the passage only ought to occur once in the Book of Jeremiah, though the Septuagint translator failed to choose the right position for it. Without price; literally, not for a price. In the parallel passage there is another reading, "thy high places," which forms part of the next clause. Hitzig and Graf suppose this to be the original reading, the Hebrew letters having been partly effaced and then misread, after which "not" was prefixed to make sense. However this may be, the present reading is unintelligible, if we compare Isaiah 52:3, where Jehovah declares that his people were sold for nothing, i.e. were given up entirely to the enemy, without any compensating advantage to Jehovah. And that for all thy sins, even, etc.; literally, and in all thy sins and in all thy borders. The text is certainly difficult. Externally a parallelism exists between the two halves of the clause, and one is therefore tempted to render literally. As this will not make sense, however, we are forced either to render as the Authorized Version, or to suppose that the text is not accurately preserved. The parallel passage has a different but not a more intelligible reading. Ewald omits "and" in both halves of the clause, which slightly diminishes the awkwardness. And I will make thee to pass, etc. The natural rendering of the Hebrew is, "And I will make thine enemies to pass," etc; which clearly cannot be the prophet’s meaning. The parallel passage (Jeremiah 17:4) has, "And I will make thee to serve thine enemies," etc.; and so the Septuagint, the Syriac, the Targum, and many manuscripts here. For a fire is kindled in mine anger; a reminiscence of Deu 32:22, suggesting that the judgment described in the Song of Moses is about to fall upon Judah. Jeremiah 15:15 O Lord, thou knowest, etc. The prophet renews his complaints. God’s omniscience is the thought which comforts him (comp. Jeremiah 17:6; Jeremiah 18:23; Psalms 69:19). But he desires some visible proof of God’s continued care for his servant. Visit me, equivalent to "be attentive to my wants "-an anthropomorphic expression for the operation of Providence. Take me not away in thy long-suffering; i.e. "suffer not my persecutors to destroy me through the long-suffering which thou displayest towards them." "Take away," viz. my life (comp. Ezekiel 33:4, "If the sword come and take him away"). Rebuke; rather, reproach; cutup. Psalms 69:7 (Psalms 69:1-36. is in the style of Jeremiah, and, as Delitzsch remarks, suits his circumstances better than those of David). Jeremiah 15:16 Thy words were found. Jeremiah here describes his first reception of a Divine revelation. Truth is like "treasure hid in a field;" he alone who seeks it with an unprejudiced mind can "find" it. But there are some things which no "searching" of the intellect can "find" (Job 11:7; Job 37:23; Ecclesiastes 3:11; Ecclesiastes 8:17); yet by a special revelation they may be "found" by God’s "spokesmen," or prophets. This is the train of thought which underlies Jeremiah’s expression here. The "words," or revelations, of Jehovah are regarded as having an objective existence in the ideal world of which God is the light, and as "descending" from thence (comp. Isaiah 9:8) into the consciousness of the prophet. So Ezekiel 3:1, "Eat that thou findest." I did eat them; I assimilated them, as it were (comp. Ezekiel 2:8; Ezekiel 3:3). I am called by thy name; literally, thy name hath been (or, had been) called upon me; i.e. I have (or, had) been specially dedicated to thy service. The phrase is often used of Israel (see on Jeremiah 14:9), and, as here applied, intimates that a faithful prophet was, as it were, the embodied ideal of an Israelite. Jeremiah 15:17 In the assembly of the mockers; rather, of the laughers. The serious thoughts arising out of his sacred office restrained him from taking part in the festive meetings to which his youth would naturally incline him (cutup. on Jeremiah 16:2). Because of thy hand. The Hand of Jehovah is a figurative expression for the self-revealing and irresistible power of Jehovah; it is, therefore, equivalent to the Arm of Jehovah (Isaiah 53:1), but is used in preference with regard to the divinely ordained actions and words of the prophets. Thus we are told, in the accounts of Elijah and Elisha, that "the hand of the Lord came upon" them (1 Kings 18:46; 2 Kings 3:15). Such a phrase was probably at first descriptive of a completely passive ecstatic state, and was retained when ecstasies had become rare, with a somewhat laxer meaning. Isaiah uses a similar expression but once (Isaiah 8:11); Ezekiel, however, who appears to have been unusually rifled with the overpowering thought of the supernatural world, is constantly mentioning "the hand of Jehovah" (see Ezekiel 1:3; Ezekiel 3:22; Ezekiel 37:1; and especially Ezekiel 3:14; Ezekiel 8:3). We may infer from this variation in the practice of inspired writers that, though symbolical, anthropomorphic language is not always equally necessary in speaking of Divine things, yet it cannot be entirely dispensed with, even by the most gifted and spiritual teachers. Thou hast filled me with indignation; rather, thou hadst filled me. Jeremiah was too full of his Divine message to indulge in impracticable sentimentalities. There was no thought of self when Jeremiah received his mission, nor any bitterness towards those who up-posed him. His "indignation" was that of Jehovah, whose simple instrument he was (comp. Jeremiah 6:11, "I am full of the fury of the Lord"). Jeremiah 15:18 Why is my pain perpetual? One who could honestly speak of himself in terms such as those of Jer 15:16, Jeremiah 15:17, seemed to have a special claim on the Divine protection. But Jeremiah’s hopes have been disappointed. His vexation is perpetual, and his wounded spirit finds no comfort. As a liar; rather, as a deceitful stream. The word "stream" has to be understood as in Micah 1:14. Many of the water courses of Palestine are filled with a rushing torrent in the winter, but dry in summer. Hence the pathetic complaint of Job (Job 6:15). The opposite phrase to that used by Jeremiah is "a perennial stream" (Amos 5:24). The force of the passage is increased if we read it in the light of Dr. Gratz’s hypothesis. Jeremiah 15:19 If thou return, etc. Most commentators regard these words as containing a gentle rebuke to Jeremiah for his doubts respecting God’s care of him. It may be questioned, however, whether such passing doubts could be described as a turning away from Jehovah. If the word "return" is to be interpreted in a spiritual sense, we must surely conclude that the people is addressed (comp. Jeremiah 3:12; Jeremiah 4:1). But this does not agree with the context. Hence Gratz’s view seems very plausible, that the reference is to the proposal that Jeremiah should place himself under the protection of Gedaliah (comp. Jeremiah 40:5, "Go back also to Gedaliah," etc.). Then will I bring thee again; viz. into the right relation to me, so as to be my minister (Keil). But by altering one of the vowel-points (which form no part of the text), on the authority of the Septuagint, we get a more satisfactory sense, I will give thee a settled place. The verb must in any case be coupled with the following one. Jeremiah longs for a quiet home, only as supplying the conditions of prophetic activity. Thou shalt stand before me. The phrase is taken from the wont of slaves to stand in their masters’ presence, waiting for commands. It is also applied to courtiers (Proverbs 22:29) and royal councilors (1 Kings 12:6), to angels (Luke 1:19) and to prophets (1 Kings 17:1; 2 Kings 3:14). Jeremiah was by God’s will to find a new and important mission to the Jews with Gedaliah. If thou take forth the precious from the vile, etc. The metaphor is derived from metallurgy (comp. Jeremiah 6:27-30). The prophet is compared to a smelter. By the fervor of his inspired exhortations, he seeks to draw away from the mass of unbelievers all those who are spiritually capable of better things. The "vine-dressers and husbandmen," whom Nebuzar-adan had left after the capture of Jerusalem, though outwardly "the poor of the laud," might yet be ennobled by the word and example of Jeremiah. [Some explain "the precious" and "the vile" differently, taking the former to be the pure Word of God (comp. Psalms 12:6; Proverbs 30:5), the latter the base, human elements which are apt to be mixed with the Divine message (comp. Jeremiah 23:28). But was it not the very fidelity of Jeremiah which exposed him to the persecutions of which he has been complaining? Others suppose an inward purification of Jeremiah himself to be intended, "the vile" being those human infirmities of which he had just given evidence, as opposed to "the precious," i.e. the spiritual impulses which come from above. But is not such an explanation too evangelical, too Pauline, for this context?] Thou shalt be as my mouth. For devoting himself to this possible "mustard seed" of a better and holier people, the prophet should be rewarded (1) by close prophetic intercourse with his God, and (2), as the next clause states, by a moral victory over his opponents. "Mouth" for "prophet," as Exodus 4:16 (comp. Exodus 7:1). Let them return unto thee, etc.; rather, they shall return unto thee, but thou shalt not return unto them. They shall come over to thy side, and thou shalt not need to make humiliating advances to them. Jeremiah 15:20 And I will make thee, etc.; a solemn confirmation of the promises in Jeremiah 1:18, Jeremiah 1:19. Jeremiah 15:21 Out of the hand of the wicked, etc. The "wicked" (literally, evil) and the "terrible" may be the banditti, composed of desperate patriots, who ultimately assassinated Gedaliah (Jeremiah 41:1-3). Various destinies of punishment. I. WILL BE AS A DESTINY. It is not casual. It cannot be evaded. It is decidedly appointed and inflexibly executed. The destiny it involves, though not original but a consequence of voluntary actions, is as certain as if it were in accordance with a primary law of nature (Galatians 6:7, Galatians 6:8). II. WILL BE IN A VARIETY OF . All the wicked will not suffer alike. There will be various forms of penalty and various degrees of suffering. Some are appointed to the painful death of the plague, some to the sudden death of the sword, some not to death at all but to exile. Punishment will be various, (1) because men’s constitutions, capacities, and susceptibilities are various, so that the form of suffering which is suitable for one may not be suitable for another; and (2) because guilt varies in degree (Luke 12:47, Luke 12:48). III. WILL BE TO ALL THE GUILTY WITHOUT . They may be numerous, yet some penalty will be found for all. The variety of destinies might suggest that among them some would find a way of escape, but, alas! they are all penal. This variety will ever secure the punishment of all. They who escape one form of punishment will only fall into another. Some hope to elude justice because their case is very exceptional. But exceptional punishment is found for exceptional crime. IV. WILL BE SEVERE IN ALL CASES. There is a choice of destinies, but the list is given with somewhat of irony. How terrible is the mildest fate! All future punishment must be inexpressibly awful (Hebrews 10:31). Therefore let us not delude ourselves with hoping that ours will be of the milder kind, but seek deliverance from the certain fearful doom of sin in the forgiving mercy of God in Christ. God weary of repenting. I. GOD OFTEN APPEARS TO REPENT. He seems to repent of his merciful intentions when the conduct of men has called forth his righteous indignation—even repenting that he had ever made men (Genesis 6:6), and to repent of his wrathful intentions when his children repent of their sins (e.g. Exodus 32:14). Absolutely it cannot be said that God repents (1 Samuel 15:29). He never does wrong, never errs, is never moved from reason by passion, knows the end from the beginning, and therefore never sees a new thing to modify his thoughts. Yet he acts as if he repented, i.e. he grieves for the sorrow he has righteously brought, and desires that it may cease as soon as possible; and he changes his action towards his children as they change their conduct towards him. This fact is not inconsistent with the essential Divine immutability. The sun does not vary in itself because, after developing a flower in moist weather, it withers it in drought. A government does not change its policy if it enters into amicable arrangements with a loyal dependency, though it was carrying out warlike measures so long as the province was in revolt. So God does not change in his own nature because his action is varied according to the varied requirements of his people. Such variation is rather a result of his essential changelessness. Righteousness, which requires the punishment of the guilty, approves of the forgiveness of the penitent; so that if the action of God did not change from wrath to mercy with the change of the guilty person to penitence, it would seem as though the nature of God had been turned aside from its essential righteousness. Because the sun is stationary it appears to rise and set as the earth revolves; if it did not so appear it must be moving too; and because God is eternally good it must seem to us, who are constantly giving occasion for differences of treatment from the hand of God, that he repents. We can only speak of God after the manner of men; therefore we say he repents. II. GOD MAY BE WEARY OF . Here is a second anthropomorphic expression, which corresponds to a great and terrible fact. 1. We may cease to repent of our sin; then God will cease to repent of his wrath. 2. We may sin so deeply and so persistently that he may no longer find it possible to withhold his threatened punishment. God is long-suffering; he waits for the return of his children. Though the recompense of evil-doing is due, it is deferred; God spares the guilty for the sake of the intercession of the righteous. But this cannot be forever. We may sin away the grace of God. Though God’s mercy endureth forever the enjoyment of it by the impenitent cannot be perpetual. Eternal mercy may have to give place to eternal justice. . Consider (1) the wonderful love of God in repeatedly "repenting" of his wrathful intentions, showing that he does not desire the woe of his children, but does all that is possible to avert it; (2) the great sin of persisting in impenitence after God has shown so wonderful a love; and (3) the danger that God may be weary with repenting, and therefore the folly and presumption of relying upon our present immunity for future safety. Sunset at noon. A premature ending of any human affairs may be compared to sunset at noon. I. THIS IS A COMMON . A nation suddenly collapses; a sovereign is overthrown in the height of his power; a life is cut off in middle age. How often do we see these things? II. THIS IS AN . No such event could occur in the physical world. Therefore it proves that the human world is deranged. III. THIS IS A . National modifications may be both peaceful and profitable. Empires are slowly welded together, colonies gradually assume powers and rights of independence, internal reforms are quietly effacing the old order. To the individual natural death in old age is painless. It is the violent and premature end that causes disaster. IV. THIS IS AN FROM ERROR OR . We cannot say that the cause is always to be traced immediately to the sufferers. With nations it may be generally so, but not with individuals. But still a law of morality, of social order of nature, has been broken, if not by the sufferers still by some agent. V. THIS IS AN THAT MAY COME AS AN ACT OF DIVINE . It is not universally so, particularly in regard to individuals. But it often is the case. Thus it was with the Jews, with Rome, in the dark ages, etc. Therefore let us beware of presuming on the apparent distance of the day of judgment. The prayer of the persecuted. I. THE GROUNDS OF HIS PLEA. 1. A confessor’s fidelity. Jeremiah was suffering for God’s sake. This plea implies (1) innocence; (2) a special claim for God’s help. He who can urge such a plea is the heir of one of the great beatitudes (Matthew 5:10). It is important to note that the promise of Christ rests, not on the mere fact of persecution, nor even on unjust persecution, but on persecution for righteousness’ sake. The martyr is honored, not for his suffering, but for his fidelity. 2. The knowledge of God. "O Lord, thou knowest." When men misjudge, God knows all. They who are cruelly maligned by men may take refuge in the fact that God knows their innocence. It is better to have his approval in face of a world’s scorn and hate, than the flattery of the world for false merits together with the anger of the all-seeing God. How happy to be in such a case that we can fearlessly appeal to God’s knowledge of our fidelity in suffering! Too often trouble is consciously deserved. 3. The long-suffering of God. The best man can but ask for God’s mercy. Often has that been sought in the past. Yet God is not weary of hearing his helpless children’s repeated cries. "His mercy endureth forever." II. THE OBJECTS OF HIS PRAYER. 1. To be remembered by God. It is something to know that God thinks of us. His sympathy is a great consolation. The traveler in the desert is not utterly alone when he calls to mind those dear ones at home, in whose memory he is constantly cherished, and who are therefore with him in spirit, while the unfortunate man who is buried in a crowded city, neglected and forgotten by his old friends, is essentially lonely and desolate. God’s remembrance of us is the prelude to his active help. He remembers" for good." If Christ remembered the dying malefactor when he came into his kingdom, that fact carried with it the assurance that the poor man should be with Christ in paradise (Luke 23:42, Luke 23:43). 2. To be visited by God. Our consolation is not in a pitying though absent God, but in an abiding presence and a close communion. If God visits he will come in power to save. 3. To be avenged of his enemies. This was a natural desire, considering that (1) the prophet was in the midst of his distresses,—it is easy to judge coolly from the outside when we are not feeling the oppression of cruel persecution; (2) he lived in Old Testament times; and (3) he did not desire to execute vengeance himself but appealed only to the great Judge. For us Christians the right prayer is, not for harm to come upon our enemies, but for their forgiveness, as Christ and Stephen prayed. Still, we may rightly seek for the overthrow of wicked powers, the frustration of iniquitous schemes, and the just and necessary punishment of persistent evildoers. 4. For life to be spared. Jeremiah does not ask for triumph, for comfort and ease, for liberation from his arduous lifelong task, but simply for life. The love of life is natural. Men have work to do, a mission to fulfill, and it is right to desire to have time to complete this. Others were benefited by the life of Jeremiah. He was the prophet of his age, and a voice speaking for all ages. It is our duty to seek to escape persecution if we can do so honorably, that we may continue to serve God and work for the good of mankind (Matthew 10:23). Courting a martyr’s death is practically equivalent to committing suicide out of personal vanity, and much the same thing as falling under the second of Christ’s temptations. Yet if martyrdom is unavoidable without unfaithfulness, we may honor God and benefit me-more by our death than by our life. The words of God found and eaten. I. THE WORDS OF GOD REQUIRE TO BE FOUND. They are not emblazoned on the face of the world that the most careless may fret miss them. They are hidden treasures to be dug for, pearls of great price to be sought after. Divine truth in nature is only discoverable after thoughtful observation and reflection. The prophets were especially commissioned to toil in deep mines of spiritual thought. Revelation was born in them with labor, fasting, watching, praying. But the words of God are not so hidden that they cannot be discovered by the earnest and prayerful seeker after truth. He that seeks shall find (Matthew 7:8). Many honest, earnest men pass through a season of doubt, but few such remain hopeless skeptics all their lives. Of those who never find the light probably some are suffering from some moral or intellectual perversity which distorts their vision, and others are not content to trust to the measure of light that has been given to them, and remain restless and questioning because they desire satisfaction in a ’direction wherein it cannot yet be afforded. But so long as all such men do not convert doubt into settled unbelief, and are not satisfied with doubt, we may be assured that ultimately the Father of lights will dispel the darkness that now troubles their souls. II. THE WORDS OF GOD ARE FOOD. Truth is food for the soul. Christ, the "Word made flesh," is the "Bread of life." Truth is not simply revealed to amuse our curiosity; it is intended to feed our starving souls. The object of revelation is practical The result of rightly using revelation is seen in an increase of spiritual vitality, ’in refreshment, heightened energy and growth in the inner life. If the words of God have not attained this end, they have failed of their object. They are food because they are not empty breath but the vehicles of vital truths—of spirit and life (John 6:63). God is in his own words. They are inspired words. With the spoken words we receive the life-giving Spirit. III. THE WORDS OF GOD MUST BE EATEN TO PROFIT US. It is not enough that they are spoken, heard, understood, believed, remembered, admired; they must be eaten. 1. We must apply them to ourselves. The starving man gains nothing by looking at food through a shop-window. The external intellectual study of truth is profitless to the soul. We must bring it to bear upon our own circumstances—hear the voice of God speaking directly to us and in regard to our immediate conduct. 2. We must meditate over the words of God. Food must be masticated and digested. Truth must be analyzed, ideas separated and compared, "inwardly digested," hidden in the soul and quietly thought over. Our common habit is to treat it too superficially and hastily. 3. We must abstract the vital ideas from the dry husk of words. Words are not profitable so long as they are regarded from the outside as mere language. We must break the shell and get at the kernel, casting aside the flesh that profiteth nothing and assimilating the spirit that quickeneth. IV. THE WORDS OF GOD BRING JOY WHEN THEY ARE FOUND AND EATEN. To some they appear to be dull sayings, to some stern utterances of law, to some harsh messages of judgment. This is because they are not properly applied. They must first be truly found and eaten—applied, meditated on, spiritually assimilated. Then they lead to joy, for: 1. All truth is essentially noble, beautiful, and glorious. 2. Even the darker truth is wholesome as a warning, like nauseous medicine that cures pain and restores the serenity of health. 3. The highest truth is a revelation of the love of God—a gospel of good will to men. V. THE SECRET OF THE JOY AND PROFIT OF GOD’S WORDS IS IN THE OF THE SOUL TO GOD. Jeremiah is called by the Name of Jehovah, the God of hosts. If we are strangers to God, his words will seem distant and of little interest. We prize the words of those we love. God speaks helpful and comforting words to his own reconciled children. The sadness and solitude of a prophet. I. A PROPHET’S WITH GOD DOES NOT EARTHLY SADNESS AND . Jeremiah was not plunged into grief through any unfaithfulness; he was under no shadow in regard to heavenly communications; yet he was sad and solitary. 1. Consider the sadness. While we am in this world we suffer with it and from its action upon us, even though we may be living very near to God. Christ was a man of sorrows; he sighed and wept and groaned in spirit. It is not sinful to grieve. It is not a proof of unbelief. Faith should engender patience, resignation, peace, and hope; but it cannot destroy natural sorrow. It would not be pious but simply unnatural for the Christian mother not to be wrung with grief at the death of her child. 2. Consider the solitude. A good man will not be wrapped up in himself, for out of the love of God springs naturally the love of man. Godliness rouses human sympathy, and this inclines to sociability. So Christ was remarkable for his social habits. Yet there may be an inevitable solitude, and a solitude which is good both for self and for others. The more a good man sympathizes for his brother men the less can he sympathize with them when their conduct is wicked. II. A PROPHET’S WITH GOD MAY LEAD TO EARTHLY SADNESS AND . Jeremiah was sad and solitary because he was filled with Divine indignation. His was no atrabiliar moroseness, no theatrical Byronic self-pity. The prophet’s sorrow and solitude were reflections of the grief of God for his people’s sin and the aloofness of God produced by their wanderings from fidelity. 1. A prophet’s communion with God will induce sorrow for the world’s sin and wretchedness. Jeremiah was a young man. The scenes of mirth which he shunned may have been pure, innocent, and naturally attractive; but his vision of the thought and heart of God made him look behind this superficial joy to the wretchedness it sought to cover, and then it Seemed but a mockery to him. 2. This will lead to a separation from the world. It will cause a perpetual separation from the spirit of the world as far as that is earthly and sensual, and at times a complete withdrawal to solitude. The Christian is to live in the world as its salt, its light, its leaven of righteousness, and not to flee to the wilderness, selfishly cultivating his own soul for heaven, while he leaves his task undone and his fellow-men in hopeless sin and ruin. But he will meet with occasions for solitude and scenes from which he must withdraw himself, and sometimes feel an inner sense of loneliness as he moves among the gay crowds, since he is a pilgrim and stranger, a citizen of another country, possessed by thoughts and swayed by motives quite outside those of worldly life. Thus Christ, in character and outward habit the most social of men, was in inner life and in secret thought the most lonely. The Christian has a life which is "hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). A wide recognition of the good without compromise with the evil. Jeremiah is bidden to return from his solitude to his mission among his people when he will owned and encouraged by God if he will see the goodness that still lingers among them- and yet not enter into any unrighteous compromise with the wicked ways of the multitude of them. I. WE SHOULD A WIDE OF THE GOOD IN ALL THINGS—take out the precious from the vile. The gold-washer may find but a grain of gold in a ton of gavel; yet he will search diligently for it, and treasure it when he finds it. Carelessness and uncharitableness lead to an unjust, wholesale repudiation of what is no doubt largely corrupt. But it is not right to judge of things thus "in the lump." 1. Apply the principle to persons. Because ninety-nine men out of a company of a hundred are guilty, it is grossly iniquitous to condemn the whole hundred—the one innocent man with the rest. Jeremiah was directed to look out for the pious remnant among the mass of the unfaithful people. We are too ready to ignore the existence of the seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Goodness should be recognized in bad society, in heathen nations, in corrupt Christian communities, in questionable avocations. We should beware of sweeping condemnations of a whole class; e.g. of actors, of publicans, etc. 2. Apply the principle to religious systems. Few are wholly good; but few are wholly bad. The dross and precious metal are mixed, though in varying degrees, in all of them. The various Church systems of Christendom partake of this mixed character. Most Churches have some peculiarly precious ideas to which it seems to be their mission each severally to testify. It is well if we have the insight to seize on these, and the charity to begrudge none of their value because of the error, the superstition, or the perversion with which they may be associated. Thus, not by an amorphous eclecticism which can minister to no deep, organic unity of life, but by a genuine assimilating power, we should learn to gather from all sources the good of spiritual thought. The same process should be observed in dealing with non-Christian religions. Beneath a vast heap of the vile a few glittering gems of precious merit may be found in the Talmud, and also in the Zeud-Avesta, in the Koran, in the religious writings of Greece, India, China, etc. 3. Apply the principle to life generally. Take the precious from the vile in literature, in conversation, in social usage, in recreation, in politics. Discriminate in all these things. Do not reject the whole of any of them, even if the larger part may be bad, but select the pure and good and reject the evil. II. WE SHOULD A STOUT REFUSAL TO WITH THE EVIL IN . Jeremiah is not to sacrifice principle for the sake of any advantage. He is not to embrace the vile for the sake of the precious, but to separate the two. He is not to yield his position of truth and right for the sake of winning the friendship of his neighbors, but patiently to expect them to come over to him. It is the very love of truth that should make us welcome it in the most unlikely quarters; but if we go on to receive the error that is closely associated with it, we at once become unfaithful to the very motive of our search. The silver is useless so long as the dross is preserved with it. The largest charity cannot sanction any compromise with evil. Compromise belongs to the region of expediency, not to that of truth and righteousness. It is a mistake to conciliate our enemies by yielding up our fortress. If we abandon the essential mysteries of Christianity for the sake of winning over our opponents, we are really only giving them the victory. Should we come to terms, this is at best on their grounds, and the peace we ratify is no record of a victory for Christ. In the end the policy of compromise fails. It indicates weakness and leaves no decided position about which to rally. We must dare to be firm to our principles, and wait patiently till the world comes round to them. This was how Christ acted. If we eagerly recognize the good in everything and earnestly desire to take forth the precious from the vile, we shall find our uncompromising fidelity to principle resting on a firmer and safer basis than if we are narrowly jealous of all good outside our own little circle of notions and habits. BY A.F. MUIR Sins for which saintly intercession cannot avail. Moses is spoken of as an intercessor in Exodus 17:11; Exodus 32:11; Numbers 14:13; Psalms 106:23: Samuel in 1 Samuel 7:1-17; 1 Samuel 8:1-22; 1 Samuel 8:6; 1 Samuel 12:16-23; 1 Samuel 15:11; Psalms 99:6. Noah, Daniel, and Job are mentioned similarly (Ezekiel 14:14). It is, then, in their special intercessory character that these fathers are referred to. At the time when their intercessions took place they were the leaders and representatives of Israel, and because of their saintliness they had favor with God. But the sins for which Judah and Jerusalem are now to be punished are by this reference declared of a more heinous description than any that took place in those days, It is a mere supposition which is made, evidently no description of the normal relation of glorified saints to Jehovah, but simply a hypothetical statement as to what they, in their earthly capacity, would have failed to do. I. THE OF MEN AVAIL MUCH. Many a time in the wilderness had Moses stayed the impending wrath of God because of murmuring and disobedience; and this not simply because he was the civil leader of the people, but through his own saintly, high-priestly character. This is a principle of God’s dealings with men. "The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much;" and one of the chief occupations of the Church is represented as praying for the salvation of the world and the coming of the kingdom of God. It is because such men represent the future hope of the race, being a kind of firstfruits of them that shall be saved, that they have this power. In themselves too, because of what they are, they are pleasing to God, who delights in their prayers and praises. There is something very striking and touching in this spectacle of one standing for many, and we have to think of how great has been the blessing which has been thus secured to the world through its saints. But they all appear trifling compared with that which Christ has secured through the intercession of his prayers, obedience, and sacrifice. In his case (what could scarcely be said of any saint) his intercession has a solid objective worth because of what it is in itself, and avails as a consideration with God for the cleansing of all who identify themselves with him through faith. II. BUT THERE ARE WHICH DESTROY THE OF SUCH . Their influence is but partial and imperfect, depending as it does upon their own inadequate fulfillment of the Law and will of God. If it were a question of strict account, they themselves would not be able to stand in his presence. It is of his grace that, even for a moment, they may be said to have influence for others. And it may be said that their intercession is but provisional, and, if not followed up By the obedience of those for whom they pray, it will be followed with the more condign punishment upon the transgressors. It is a great tribute to the vicarious power possible to saints that even the most eminent of them should be quoted in such a connection. But it shows how inadequate such a mediatorship would be for the general sin of man. We may do much, each of us, to avert just judgments, to secure opportunities of salvation, and to bring the grace of God to bear upon the hearts of others; but we cannot save them by any communication of our own acceptance with God to them. They must stand or fall according to their own relation to the will of God and the person of his Son. And there are degrees of guilt which far surpass any intercession of this kind. The sin of unbelief especially, if it be unrepented of, will prevent any benefit being received. The permanent position of our souls with respect to Divine grace will depend, therefore, upon their own action or belief. Even Christ cannot save if we do not believe in his Name and obey him.—M. The offense of faithful preaching. That the preaching of the gospel should stir up the evil passions of men would at first appear strange. It is the declaration of good news to them that are perishing, and an effort to restore men to happiness and peace. But that it has been accompanied with such manifestations of ill will from the beginning is sufficiently well known. The preaching of the cross has in every age been resisted and resented by the world. It is "to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness; but to them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:23). 1. WITH WHAT THE HIMSELF. Jeremiah says that he might have been a brawler, a dishonest debtor, or a usurer to have stirred up the strife and hatred which he experienced. As has been said, lending and borrowing cause most lawsuits. "’I have not lent nor borrowed.’ My dear Jeremiah! Thou mightest have done that; that is according to the custom of the country; there would be no such noise about that" (Zinzendorf). Elijah was reproached by Ahab, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel?’ (1 Kings 19:17). St. Paul was persecuted. Even Christ himself was accused of stirring up sedition, and the preaching of the Word has often been accompanied by demonstrations of violence. II. To WHAT THIS MAY BE . It is due chiefly to the dislike of men to the truth itself, in whatever shape presented. The natural heart is enmity against God and his Word. Care must be taken to distinguish between accidental and essential provocations of this spirit. The manner of the preacher should never be such as of itself to dispose men unfavorably towards his message. The greatest care ought to be taken to conciliate and to win. But the original hatred of men to truth must not be ignored. It exists, and will have to be reckoned with in one form or another. One man will object to it in toto; another to the degree of obedience which it exacts. With some the idea will be pleasing but the practice irksome. If men hated Christ, we need not suppose that they will be more amiable towards us if we are faithful. III. . These troubles need not afflict us if we remember, with respect to our hearers, that it is not theirs but them we desire. The worst enemies have been reconciled and the fiercest natures subdued by the power of the Word. It is well too in the midst of suffering to have the testimony of a good conscience. To him also who is faithful in the midst of opposition and hatred is that beatitude, Matthew 5:11. But perhaps the strongest consolation of all is in the fellowship of him for whose sake the opposition is experienced.—M. Thou knowest it. There is One to whom the true prophet and saint must stand or fall. He is anxious, therefore, for his approval. He labors ever as in the great Taskmasters eye. "Thou God seest me," which is the terror of the sinner, is the chief reward and comfort of the saint. The prophet here consoles himself— I. BY AN APPEAL TO THE OF GOD. In this connection it is as if conscience itself had been invoked. And yet, better still, if conscience should vacillate God would remain the same. In this way it is well for the best of men to test their motives by continual reference to God. There is no better way of self-examination. II. BY A TO THE OF GOD. The mere fact that the all-knowing One was constantly regarding his sufferings for his sake, that he had put his tears in his bottle, and that he was able to appreciate his motives, was a comfort to the prophet. If possible, this source of consolation is deepened and enlarged by the greater nearness of God in Christ. The fellow-feeling of our great High Priest and Elder Brother is real and can be depended upon from moment to moment. It is a well of salvation from which we can draw inexhaustible supplies. III. BY IT TO THE DIVINE . it was in God’s hands because it was in God’s knowledge. It was not for the prophet to trouble himself as to means of retaliation. He could commit his cause to his Father. The wider issues of it, nay, even its mightiest results, were beyond his own power. What he had to do was to be faithful and trusting and diligent.—M. God’s words a heartfelt joy. In the midst of the prophet’s sorrow this passage occurs as a relieving feature—a memory of spiritual joy. At the same time it is recalled as a consideration that will weigh with him to whom he addresses himself. It defines his entire relation to God and to Israel, and describes his claim. I. THE WORDS OF GOD TEST AND EXHIBIT THE INWARD LOYALTY OF THE SAINT. It is not merely that a certain feeling has been excited in the mind, but that a welcome has been given to God’s revelation. A profound difference is thereby instituted between the prophet and those who were opposed to him. As the psalmist cries, "Thy word have I hid in my heart, m proof of his earnestness and his love of truth, so the prophet would commend himself to God by the attitude he had assumed to the message when it was revealed to him. It is as if he had said, "I have never resisted thy Word, but ever held myself ready to utter and obey it." The test which they apply to the spiritual nature is full of dread to the unworthy; but to those whose hearts are right with God it is a satisfaction and a source of confidence. "The thoughts and intents of the heart" thereby disclosed are seen to be right and good. II. THEY REFRESH AND HIM FOR AND DUTY. It is as if the prophet were drawing comfort from recollection because his present circumstances are so troublous. But many a time the Word of God comes in a time of perplexity and darkness, bringing with it comforting light. It is greedily welcomed at such seasons and is devoured as by one who has long fasted. It penetrates thereby more deeply into the spiritual nature and more radically influences the springs and motives of conduct. It comes as a distinctly supernatural aid and makes men masters of what had previously overpowered them. III. THEY BIND HIM MORE CLOSELY TO THE AUTHOR. The nature which has been so affected by the words of God cannot be nor regard itself as in the same position with others. Its whole character and destiny are altered. The life is leavened by that which supports and nourishes it. The indwelling Word is a consecrating influence and withdraws men from the pursuits and fellowship of the world. In this way the saint becomes identified with his Lord; a child of grace; a worker in the same great cause; a subject of like hatred and opposition, and an heir of the same kingdom. By producing the character of holiness they inscribe the Divine Name upon the heart, and link the life and destiny of the saint with the cause of God.—M. Jeremiah 15:19-21 The preacher’s weakness and strength. I. HUMAN MOTIVES OFTEN LEAD HIM ASIDE FROM THE PATH OF DUTY ETC. The prophet is a man like other men and subject to the same passions. It is difficult for him to maintain the attitude of continual spiritual loyalty. Flesh and blood will fail and he will fall into temptations peculiar to his office. Of these he must be especially jealous, and a stricter standard of holiness should govern his conduct. Unfaithfulness in such a position will produce an exaggerated effect upon those whom he influences. His influence itself will cease to be purely spiritual, his love less certain, and his conduct less irreproachable. Deflection like this should be at once corrected, and he who tries the reins is especially watchful over those who have to deliver his message and represent his cause. "If thou return." How instant and yet how gentle the reproof! II. WILL BE WITH AND . 1. Mediatorship—to "stand before me." 2. Infallibility—"As my mouth." 3. Irresistible power—a "brazen wall;" "but not prevail over thee." 4. The presence and protection of God.—M. BY S. CONWAY Fearful aspects of the Divine character. These verses and this whole discourse reveal to us an implacable God. He will not turn away from his wrath nor be moved: 1. By the spectacle of misery presented (Jeremiah 14:1-22.). 2. By the remembrance of former love (Jeremiah 14:8). 3. By the earnest prayers of his faithful servant (Jeremiah 15:1). 4. By the prospect of more terrible miseries yet to come (Jeremiah 14:17—15:9). Therefore— I. INQUIRE. Why is God thus? The answer is, he will not change, because the sinner will not. "To the froward he will ever show himself froward." II. LEARN. That while God’s mercy is infinite to those who turn to him, for those who refuse there is no mercy at all.—C. The limits of intercessory prayer. "Though Moses and Samuel," etc. 1. This verse seems at first sight to be in contradiction to the many Scriptures which assure us that the "effectual fervent prayers of righteous men avail much." The Bible teems with promises that God will hear when we call upon him. But here is a decided declaration that let even the holiest and the most eminent for their intercessions stand before God in prayer, they should not avail to secure what was denied. 2. And were there only this verse, the difficulty would not be so great. But experience is continually supplying us with fresh instances in which bleatings earnestly sought have yet beer denied. 3. And this also in regard to spiritual things. Were it only temporal blessings God refused to give although we asked him for them, we could readily understand that, though they seemed so good in our eyes, in his they might be seen to be hurtful. We know that in such things we do not know what is best. But the refusal of prayer is found in regard to things that we know are good and well pleasing to God—in regard to things spiritual and eternal, e.g. in the prayers of parents for the conversion of their children, of teachers and pastors for those committed to their charge. 4. Hence from this verse and from such experience of rejected prayer, the sad conclusion has been drawn that, in spite of the most earnest intercession, the souls we pray for may be lost, our intercession be of no avail. For does it not say even to Jeremiah, who himself was an eminent intercessor with God, that there were yet greater than he—such as Moses and Samuel—but that if even they, etc. (cf. references for instances of their intercession). 5. And some have tried to escape the difficulty by drawing a sharp contrast between the intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ and that of these men of God. They have said, had Jesus interceded, it would have been otherwise. But this is not true, for our Lord would not have interceded as Jeremiah did. He also foretold great calamities as overhanging Jerusalem and her people, but we have no record of his ever having prayed that they might not come. He sought unceasingly their eternal salvation, but he did not pray against the destruction of Jerusalem. It is not permissible, therefore, to account for the failure of such intercession as that of Jeremiah, on the ground that it is only human intercession and not that of the Son of God. 6. But before we certainly conclude that intercession for the eternal spiritual well-being of others may after all be in vain, though the intercession have been such as that of the great servants of God here spoken of, who touched the utmost limits of intercessory prayer, let us note (1) That it was not for spiritual blessings that. Jeremiah was interceding. His piteous entreaties were "concerning the dearth" (Jeremiah 14:1), that that might be removed. It was strictly a prayer for temporal mercies and deliverances. It is, therefore, unjust to conclude that intercession for things spiritual and eternal may fail because, as we well know, it may fail for things material and temporal. Note also (2) That the utmost limits of intercession had been reached. The prophet himself had offered no scant or insincere petition, and the intercession of these great saints of God spoken of was, we know, of the mightiest order. Before, then, we conclude that such intercession in regard to spiritual things can be of no avail, let us be sure that such intercession has been tried. Is our own such? There may be customary and too often formal prayers offered by parents) pastors, teachers, for the spiritual good of those about them. But can we say that such prayers are mighty intercessions, like those of Moses and Samuel? If we know they have not been such, let us pause before we conclude that such intercession avails not. But in order to ascertain if our intercession has been real, let us note if we are in earnest about our own soul’s salvation. If we care not for our own acceptance before God, how can we be solicitous for that of others? And are our prayers followed up by practical effort in the direction of our prayers? Do the lead us to see what can be clone to secure the ends for which we pray? Or are they substitutes for such endeavor? Hence it may very often be that we ask and have not, because we ask amiss. We do not intercede in that real, believing, earnest way which alone has a right to expect the blessing it seeks. It is by no means intercession such as that of Moses and Samuel 7. But if intercession have been such as theirs, then, though answer may be delayed, we are to believe that it will yet come. Delay is not denial. 8. Neither this verse nor experience sets aside the many promises which encourage such intercession. 9. And experience proves its worth. The Church of today is in the main the product of the intercession of the Church that has passed into the heavens. Instead of the fathers have risen up the children. 10. Learn, therefore, (1) if God refuse us temporal blessings, it is because he knows better than we do what is best; (2) how best to deal with transgressors God alone knows, and what his wisdom determines none may set aside; (3) that intercession for souls is well pleasing to God and full of hope, since the beloved of God have been ever distinguished for such intercession, and, above all, God’s well-beloved Son.—C. Great intercessors. I. SUCH ARE HERE. Moses, Samuel, etc. (cf. Exodus 17:11; Exodus 32:11; Numbers 14:13; Psalms 106:23; 1 Samuel 7:8; 1 Samuel 8:6; 1 Samuel 12:16-23; 1 Samuel 15:11; Psalms 90:6; Ecclesiasticus 46:6). Noah, Daniel, and Job are mentioned in similar way (Ezekiel 14:14), and Jeremiah himself (2 Macc. 15:14). And there have been such oftentimes granted to nations, Churches, families. And who has not known such intercessors in connection with Christian Churches—men and women whose prayers were amongst the main supports of the life, joy, and strength of those for whom they were offered? II. THEIR VALUE IS . Cf. Abraham praying for Sodom. Though the cities of the plain were destroyed, yet what an amount of sin God was ready to pardon in answer to his prayer, if but the conditions which should have been so easy to fulfill had been forthcoming! And "the few names even in Sardis" (Revelation 2:1-29.), who can doubt that they, as all such do, warded off for long periods those visitations of God’s anger which otherwise would have come upon that Church? And it is not only the evils from which they defend a Church, but the positive good they confer. Such power with God is ever accompanied by a consistency and sanctity of character which is blessedly attractive, inspiring, contagious; and as a magnet they gather round them a band of kindred souls, like as our Lord gathered his disciples round himself. And thus a hallowed influence is sent throughout a whole community. III. THEIR . This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ With this chapter should be taken the first eighteen verses of Jer 17:1-27. The heading of the Authorized Version well expresses the contents of Jer 17:1-9, provided that "the types" are understood to be typical actions of the prophet himself. "The prophet, under the types of abstaining from marriage, from houses of mourning and feasting, foreshoweth the utter ruin of the Jews." To the inquiry, why these calamities should come upon them, the old and well-known answer is to be given (Jeremiah 17:10-12), accompanied by a definite prediction of captivity (Jeremiah 17:13). Then, to relieve the picture, a glimpse of a happier future is introduced (Jeremiah 17:14, Jeremiah 17:15); but only a glimpse, for already the Chaldeans, like so many fishermen and hunters, are on the track of the Jews, for a "double" retribution must precede the Messianic promise (Jeremiah 17:16-18). Strange contrast—the heathen coming to the truth and the Jews (those of the present, not of the future time) deserting it (Jeremiah 17:19-21)! We will take up the thread of thought again at the opening of the next chapter.—The date of this prophecy would appear to be nearly the same as that of the preceding one, the circumstances of which are similar. The latter part of it will enable us to fix it more precisely (see on Jeremiah 17:1-18). Jeremiah 16:2 Thou shalt not take thee a wife. So St. Paul, "I think therefore that this is good by reason of the present distress, namely, that it is good for a man to be as he is (1 Corinthians 7:26, Revised Version); and Hosea has already drawn an awful picture of "Ephraim bringing forth his children to the murderer" (Hosea 9:9). In ordinary times it was a kind of unwritten law among the Israelites to marry and beget children. Most of the prophets (e.g. Isaiah) appear to have been married. In this place; i.e. in the land of Judah. A Jeremianic phrase (comp. Jeremiah 7:3). Jeremiah 16:4 Grievous deaths; literally, deaths of sicknesses; i.e. all kinds of painful deaths, including (as Jeremiah 14:18 shows) death by starvation. They shall not be lamented. The absence of sepulture has already been pointed to several times as a feature of the horror of the times (Jeremiah 8:2; Jeremiah 14:16; comp. Jeremiah 7:33), but this is a new and affecting touch. Dr. Payne Smith aptly refers to the plagues of Athens and London, in which the gentler elements of human nature were for the time almost extinguished. Jeremiah 16:5 Compare this prohibition with that given to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 24:15-27), The house of mourning; literally, of. screaming (an uncommon word, only occurring again—of banqueters—in Amos 6:7). It is, no doubt, the wail of mourning relatives which is meant. Jeremiah 16:6 Nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald. Both practices are forbidden in the Law (Deuteronomy 14:1; Leviticus 19:28; Deuteronomy 21:5), but the prohibition was at any rate unknown to the masses (see, for the former, Jeremiah 41:5; Jeremiah 47:5; and for the latter, Jeremiah 47:5; Isaiah 22:12, "The Lord Jehovah called … to baldness;" Amos 8:10; Micah 1:16; Ezekiel 7:18). St. Jerome remarks, and incidentally gives a valuable evidence of the tenacity of primitive customs, "Mos hic fuit apud veteres, et usque hodie in quibusdam permanet Judaerum, ut in luctibus incidant lacertos," etc. Jeremiah 16:7 Tear themselves for them. The verb is used in Isaiah 58:7 of breaking bread (the accusative is there expressed), and there is no doubt that this is the meaning here. The only question is whether lahem, for them, should not rather be lekhem, bread. St. Jerome sees here an allusion to the funeral feasts (comp. the parentalia), and surely he is right. The Jews had a conception of the nature of the life of the other world only less distinct than that of their Egyptian neighbors. The funeral feast was not merely for the living, but for the dead. Indeed, it was primarily intended for the spiritual nourish-merit of those who had gone before to the unseen world. Chardin, the old traveler, asserts that "the Oriental Christians still make banquets of this kind by a custom derived from the Jews." The cup of consolation. It would seem as if the funeral feasts had dwindled among the Jews into little more than a refection for the benefit of the mourners. Jeremiah 16:9 The voice of mirth, etc.; a striking deaf, on, repeated from Jeremiah 7:34. Jeremiah 16:12 Imagination; rather, stubbornness (Jeremiah 3:17). Jeremiah 16:13 A grim irony. In me foreign land ye shall serve your idols to your hearts’ content, day and night if ye will, "because, [not, where] I will not have mercy upon you" (by delivering you, and so calling you from your idols). Jeremiah 16:14, Jeremiah 16:15 The text of these verses occurs in a more characteristic form and in a bettor connection in Jeremiah 23:7, Jeremiah 23:8. The connection here would be improved by insorting the passage before Jeremiah 23:18; and as displacements are not unfamiliar phenomena in manuscripts, this would not be a violent act. The difficulty is not m the therefore introducing the promise, which frequently occurs in prophecies immediately after threatenings (e.g. Isaiah 10:23, Isaiah 10:24), as if to say, "Things being in such a miserable plight, your God will interpose to help you;" but in the position of Jer 23:18. How can the prophet say, "And first I will recompense their iniquity double," when Jeremiah 23:16, Jeremiah 23:17 contain a description of this very double recompense? Jeremiah 16:16, Jeremiah 16:17 I will send for should rather be, I will send. Fishers and hunters, by a divinely given impulse, shall "fish" and "hunt" the unhappy fugitives from their lurking-places. There may, perhaps, be an allusion to the cruel ancient practice of "sweeping the country with a drag-net" (Herod, 3.149), and then destroying the male population: Samos, e.g. was thus "netted" and depopulated by the Persians. Habakkuk may also refer to this when he says (Habakkuk 1:15), "They catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag." Jeremiah 16:18 First—i.e. before "I bring them back again into their land"—I will recompense … double; i.e. amply, in full measure (comp. Jeremiah 17:18; Isaiah 40:2; Revelation 18:6). With the carcasses, etc. The idols, which "defile the consciences" of those who worship them, are compared to the most unclean and loathsome objects. Jeremiah 16:19 O Lord, my strength, and my fortress, etc. Jeremiah falls into the tone of the psalmists (Psalms 18:2; Psalms 28:8; Psalms 59:17). All that is choicest and most permanent in Old Testament religion finds its adequate lyric expression in the Book of Psalms. The Gentiles shall some unto thee. The article, however, is not expressed. "Nations." i.e. a crowd of peoples, hitherto ignorant of the true God, shall hasten to the scene of Jehovah’s great interposition; they have been convinced by Israel’s unlooked-for restoration of the unique divinity of Jehovah. Jeremiah 16:20 But the Jews of this generation, in spite of the manifold proofs of the true religion which have been vouchsafed to them, are deserting the real divinity for the unreal. In a tone of surprise the prophet exclaims, Shall a man make gods unto himself, etc.? Jeremiah 16:21 The final answer of Jehovah. There will be no further grace-time. I will this once cause them to know; rather, I will this time (comp. on Jeremiah 10:18) cause them to acknowledge. The judgment which Jeremiah has had the sad duty of announcing will prove to the blinded Jews that Jehovah alone is true God, alone can strike and heal. Forbidding to marry. I. IS NOT A VIRTUE. Marriage is a Divine institution. It is natural, and God is the Author of nature; it is recognized and regulated by inspired teaching and blessed by Christ; it is a means of human welfare. II. MAY BE WISELY IN OF TROUBLE. Such were the circumstances of Judah in the clays of Jeremiah; such, in the opinion of St. Paul, were the circumstances of his own time (1 Corinthians 7:26). Those were not times for wedding festivities; the married would be encumbered and hindered from doing their best for the public weal, and children born then would be born only to a heritage of misery. Similar circumstances may recur. III. MAY BE WISELY BY MEN WHO ARE TASKS OF DANGER OR . There are risks that a man may encounter for himself which he should avoid if others would be seriously involved in his fate. There is work which precludes the enjoyment of domestic life. It is not right to undertake obligations to another that cannot be fulfilled. The pioneer of dangerous travel, the John the Baptist of wilderness missions, is better unmarried. IV. IS A DUTY FOR ALL UNTIL THEY ARE ABLE TO PROVIDE A FOR A FAMILY. It is not heroic but selfish to bring a family into a life of certain hardship and misery. The principle which applied to the public circumstances of distress in Jeremiah’s age applies to the private circumstances of distress which are met with in every age. Worse than your fathers. I. EACH SHOULD BE BETTER THAN THAT WHICH IT. The natural movement of all mankind should be onward and upward. We have the lessons of past history to warn and to inspire us; the continued, increasing, long-suffering mercy of God to urge us to serve him more faithfully; and the growing light of slowly accumulating knowledge to guide us into better paths. Later generations have more aids of Divine revelation than were vouchsafed to the earlier. The Jews under the prophets had more light, more Divine inducements to fidelity, than the Jews under Moses; and Christians have a much clearer light and much more powerful motives in the revelations of God’s will and of God’s love in Christ. To go back when we ought to go forward is doubly inexcusable. Christians are bad indeed if they fall lower than the men of Old Testament ages, and Protestants of modern times if they do not live up to the attainments of the Mediaeval Church. II. EVIL TO GROW WORSE FROM TO . Men ought to improve; but if they begin a course of evil they deteriorate in it. Nothing in the world is stationary. Nations are either progressing or retrograding. Each generation is either better or worse than its predecessor. Evil has a contagious property, and if it is unchecked it is certain to spread like an epidemic. It is a leaven that, left to itself, will surely leaven the whole mass. We should, therefore, seek to stamp out a sin in its earlier stages. We must not trust to any necessary law of progress, any idea of the inherent goodness of human nature, any thought of the temporary character of evil, but seek at once to resist and overthrow the sin. Here is a warning to parents. Evil tendencies are hereditary. The vice, which seems to do little harm in our own day, taking root and spreading, will break out into worse fruits in our children’s time. How sad to leave only a bad example for our children to be referred to! III. IF EVIL IS TO BE IT MUST BE BY SOME METHOD. The natural laws of progress fail here. Depravity unchecked grows more depraved. Innumerable practical reforms, new systems of morality, draconian codes, etc; have been tried, and all in vain. Josiah made the experiment with his violent reformation, but it failed of anything but superficial good. Some are now trusting to sanitary improvements, to industrial progress, to popular education; but these too will not touch the root of the sore. The history of sin furnishes the greatest proof of the need of a Divine redemption if the world is ever to be saved. For this Christ came, and now the highest progress of the world is to be traced to that new influence of life which he introduced to turn the current of history from deepening depravity to growing truth and righteousness. The greatest gratitude for the latest blessings. The circumstances of the Jews are illustrative of those of all of us in the fact that we all have occasion to feel most thankful for the most recent gifts of God’s goodness. The reasons for this are manifold, viz.— I. THE LATEST ARE MOST . A present impression is stronger than a memory. Even if the good things we are now enjoying are not equal to those we formerly possessed, the immediate good we derive from them is greater than that which we derive from a mere recollection of better times. Thanksgiving tends to become formal and conventional—the empty repetition of phrases which had a deep signification when they were the spontaneous response of the soul to fresh tokens of God’s love, but which have become almost meaningless after the occasion for them has fallen into the past. To be real, gratitude must refer to the real mercies which we are now enjoying. II. THE LATEST ARE PROOFS OF THE OF GOD. We should "sing a new song" as we see new manifestations of Divine love. We have more to be thankful for when we have received two gifts than we had when we were only possessors of one of them. God is constantly adding to the vast pile of his favors to us. The latest stands highest, is so to speak, mounted on all that precede; and therefore this calls for the strongest expression of gratitude. Inasmuch as the longer we live the more we have to be thankful for, so also the more deeply should our hearts be stirred with gratitude. The restoration of the Jews is an additional mercy following that of the Exodus. One such stupendous deliverance should call forth never-failing songs of praise, but a second should intensify the volume of those songs. III. THE LATEST ARE ALSO THE . The restoration is referred to as containing grander blessings than those of the Exodus. Gratitude should be proportionate to favors. This is often not the case, because the best things are least appreciated. Their merits are not superficial nor discernible at first. The spiritual blessings are the highest; yet to unspiritual men they are the least valued. Thus the chief elements of the Messianic promises of restoration were spiritual, and therefore not so acceptable to the mass of the people as the material blessings promised to the Jews in the first possession of the "land flowing with milk and honey." We are too ready to complain of the present and regret the lost past, ungratefully selecting the troubles of our own time for notice and ignoring its bright features, while we forget the hardships of the past and remember only its last pleasant features, like the Jews, who forgot the rigors of the slavery from which they had escaped, but remembered with regret the flesh-pots of Egypt (Exodus 16:3). The Bible favors no sentimental regrets for "the good old times;" it teaches us that God’s goodness is increasingly manifest. The latter times are better than the former, the Gospel age than the Old Testament era, the later years of Christendom than the earlier. The best is not yet revealed. The songs of the future should be sweeter than those of the past, since God has greater mercies in store for us than any we have yet enjoyed. Already God has favored us more highly than our fathers. We need not search the musty annals of antiquity for proofs of the goodness of God. This is a present goodness, and the richest fruits of it are the latest. IV. THE LATEST ARE GIVEN IN SPITE OF OUR ILL DESERT. We have added to the tale of our sins while God has been adding to the tale of his mercies. As his goodness has increased with many, their sin has also increased. The Egyptian bondage overtook the innocent; the Babylonian captivity was a punishment to the guilty. Deliverance from the latter was an act of forgiving mercy. It was a proof of God’s forbearance that he continued to be gracious, and of his pardoning love that he forgave the sinful people. Our greatest reason for praise is in God’s latest mercy of redemption, restoring us after our falls into sin. Jeremiah 16:16-18 Fishers and hunters. I. THE CHASE. The guilty will be sought after for punishment. If they do not seek God in penitence he will seek them in judgment. However far we may flee from obedience we cannot flee from responsibility. Jonah fled "from the presence of the Lord "(Jonah 1:3), but he was overtaken by a Divine judgment. If God s present long-suffering makes him appear indifferent, the day will come when his wrath will be swift, searching, and far-reaching. Then none of the impenitent can escape. None can hide from the approaching doom; hunters "shall hunt them from every mountain, and from every hill, and out of the holes of the rocks." It will be useless then to "call on the hills to cover us," etc. None will be overlooked. Fishers will come with their drag-net, gathering all classes as fish of all kinds and of all sizes are collected in the sea. Rank counts for nothing when kings are hunted like foxes; intellectual ingenuity can then find no covert of sophistry beneath which to elude the keen scent of the bloodhounds of justice; exceptional originality can secure no position beyond the reach of the broad sweeping net of a general judgment. II. THE REASON FOR A FATAL RESULT TO THE CHASE. God undertakes the direction of it (verse 17). He knows all; he is ever watching every one of his children, for their joy if they are obedient and submissive, for their shame if they are rebellious and impenitent. 1. God’s eyes are upon their ways. He does not depend upon hearsay evidence, upon the testimony of his emissaries. Hence (1) none can elude his searching gaze, and (2) we shall not be convicted on false evidence. 2. God’s eyes are upon their ways. He notes conduct, action, behavior. 3. God’s eyes are upon all their ways. The most secret do not escape his notice. Little faults are observed; hidden sins are known; all is fairly weighed and compared. God does not select conduct for judgment; he observes both the good and the bad, and judges of the whole. 4. Iniquity is not hidden. God looks beneath the ways to the iniquities which prompt them; he reads the heart, and judges of conduct by motive. Who can escape such a searching ordeal? III. THE FATAL END TO THE CHASE. (Verse 18.) After conviction follows the sentence. 1. This is a recompense. It is earned and it is fairly proportionate to guilt. None of us dare ask for the simple reward of our conduct. "Consider this— That in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy." 2. It increases in severity with the increase of sin. The successive sieges of Jerusalem were successively more terrible; so were the repeated raids upon Rome. The longer we treasure up wrath for the day of wrath the greater must be the weight of it that will ultimately burst on our heads. 3. It is justly required by great sin. This was (1) great moral and religious corruption; (2) practiced in "the holy land "—in God’s inheritance, and therefore a sacrilegious defilement of Divine things; and (3) an abuse of God’s blessings in the land God had given the people. The sin of those who enjoy Divine privileges and hold positions in the Church by means of which they can glorify or dishonor the Name of God is, on these accounts, especially culpable. Jeremiah 16:19-21 God revealed to the heathen by his judgment on his people. I. GOD IS IN . Blessings reveal God’s love; judgments, his righteous power. They who ignore the perennial tokens of God’s loving-kindness may be roused by startling manifestations of his justice. The judgments which fall on the professed people of God are the most striking proofs of his unflinching and impartial justice. II. THE HEATHEN MAY LEARN THE LESSONS WHICH ARE LOST TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD. The heathen seem to be here described as returning to God before the Jews. Nothing is so blinding as sin against light. The publican repents before the Pharisee. Worldly men are more ready to receive religious impressions than people who were once religious and have fallen away. III. THE OF GOD TO THE -MINDED IS HIGHER THAN THE MADE TO THE HEATHEN IN . The latter is grand and striking, but it does not open up the choicer stores of the knowledge of God. Jeremiah prizes these. To him God is a Strength, Fortress, and Refuge. God is not a mere Judge. He is a gracious Father, and this is his chief character. He is a strength—actively saving and inspiring energy; a Fortress—protecting us when attacked in the hard battle of life; and a Refuge in the clay of affliction, affording solace to his sorrowing children. God’s people enjoy personal relations with him very different from those of men who simply recognize the terrible presence of God in judgment. Thus Jeremiah says, "My Strength," etc. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 16:1-4 Celibacy as an obligation of the minister of God. This passage has been quoted in support of the Romish doctrine of the celibacy of the clergy. Like other favorite references of the advocates of this regulation, however, it only requires to be examined to show that its bearing is quite of an opposite character. Its terms are not by any means absolute or universal. Not even the whole lifetime of the prophet nor his entire ministry are within the scope of the prohibition. It was a special revelation for exceptional circumstances, and must not be converted into a general rule. I. THE IMPOSED UPON THE PROPHET, AND THEIR REASONS. 1. The Command related to: (1) The prophet himself. It was in the second person singular. A matter affecting himself alone. (2) The holy land—"in this place." Should circumstances lead him elsewhere, the inference is that the restriction would be withdrawn. (3) The period of time elapsing between the delivery of the special "word of Jehovah" and its fulfillment. 2. That Jeremiah himself was alone required to observe this restriction might at first appear strange were it not for his exceptional position. (1) As a symbol of the Divine attitude and intention towards Judah. Not only special actions, such as the hiding of the girdle, were to be of this character, but the whole personality of the prophet. He was representative both of God and the ideal Israel. Therefore he represents the mind of God towards those who usurped the place of the latter. The conditions of the then present relations of God and Judah were not such as warranted an assumption of responsibilities implying for their happy fulfillment the Divine acceptance and favor. In the midst of a luxurious people his celibacy would be impressive. (2) As an example to others. The inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah, whatever they might experience in the future, would not be able to say they had been entrapped or deceived into a false security. The self-restraint and serious, sad aspect he presented were intended to influence the action of the people at that juncture. The calamities foretold would not come upon those who had been unwarned. II. THE BEARING OF THESE UPON THE OF THE " OF THE CLERGY." It is obvious that, as there were many other ministers of God in Judah and Jerusalem at that time to whom the command was not given, it was intended for one occupying an exceptional position. Further, there is no necessary permanent obligation attaching to it. A certain contingency is regarded—a time of distress and bloodshed—and the conduct of the prophet is directed with regard to that. But the celibacy of the clergy is a permanent institution with those who uphold it. No regard is paid to special circumstances or times. And the office of the Christian minister is not to be considered as occupied for a season of short-lived, delusive peace, but instituted and maintained in a world which is being reconciled to God; in which the Holy Spirit is given to them that ask it for direction and comfort; and whose institutions are more and more influenced by the laws of the kingdom of God. So in St. Paul’s day it was the "present distress’ which gave rise to the injunction. The world was conceived of as approaching a grand climateric; a sudden and overwhelming calamity was to inaugurate Christ’s reign amongst men. Much will depend upon this, viz. Is the minister of the gospel a prophet of evil or a preacher of peace and glad tidings? If the latter, it can hardly be necessary that he should assume the bearing of Jeremiah. And the influence of a celibate clergy upon the general institutions of marriage has been found to be pernicious, lowering its relative sacredness and violating the law of nature, which is its greatest safeguard. III. OF GENERAL . The duties and restraints here imposed upon the prophet are not rightly apprehended when supposed entirely peculiar to office and position. They are not wholly those of a class or a special individual, but rather the generally obligatory principles of the spiritual life intensified and specialized. Every Christian ought to hold himself ready to sacrifice and to adapt himself as the duties imposed upon him under given circumstances may require. 1. The responsibilities of marriage. One’s own happiness merely is not to be consulted m marrying, but the probabilities of comfort and right upbringing of children that may be born. A season of calamity such as that now foretold was a sufficient reason against contracting marriage, as by that means its effects would only be the more widely extended. 2. Consciousness of God’s displeasure ought to exert a restraining influence upon men. The marriage feast and the usual rejoicings that take place on such occasions show that they are regarded as of a joyous nature, and not amongst the sterner duties. It was but fitting, therefore, that it should be refrained from in view of what was about to take place. It would have shown a heedlessness of God’s anger provoking the more signal punishment. The "marrying and giving in marriage" of the antediluvians was a sign of their godlessness and unbelief. 3. The responsibility of example is here presented in an extreme form. What would have applied to the case of a private person thus forewarned was of greater force in that of one occupying an exceptional position and necessarily of great public influence. If the declarer of the Divine message had himself exhibited no sign of restraint or chastened severity of life, how could others be expected to believe him? The life of the preacher is the best illustration of his doctrine, and it naturally is regarded by others with special and critical attention.—M. Jeremiah 16:10-13 The destiny of sinners a self-created one. I. AS IT IS IN ITSELF. It is a fearful prospect which is here held out to the unbelieving Jews. They are to experience a complete change of condition. The land of promise, national independence and honor, family purity and happiness, and the institution and ordinances of true religion are to be forfeited. The land to which they are to be exiled is unfamiliar to them—full of strange scenes and customs; a scene of bondage and tyranny. This is but an illustration of the eternal destiny of sinners. Much must necessarily be vague in their conceptions of it, but it will be a greater change from their present circumstances and experiences than can be imagined. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus teaches that there will be a complete reversal of relations and conditions. How impossible for the lost to reconcile themselves to circumstances so different from those to which they have been accustomed! Their nature will be wholly enslaved, and the best service they can render will be exacted for objects unworthy of it and known to be so. Hell, so far as Scripture allusion to it can be understood, is represented as abnormal, unnatural, a state in which the soul shall be filled with fruitless reset, and sink into lower and still lower deeps of degradation and misery. It is depicted as a strange and sunless land, irradiated by no celestial smile and no sunrise of hope. II. AS THE SINNER REGARDS IT. The picture drawn by Jeremiah is vague and yet terribly suggestive. It is so foreign to the experience and expectation of his hearers that they look upon it with incredulity and astonishment. Instead of evoking from them expressions of repentance and fear concerning the way in which they are walking, it provokes questions that exhibit the callous indifference and self-deception of hardened hearts. They cannot conceive of such a fate awaiting them. What have they done? Is it just that their conduct should be so dealt with? If any offence had been committed, surely it was out of all proportion to such a judgment, and so on. Is not this the attitude of the sinner today? The more awful the future predicted for him the more secure he feels in himself now. He fails to trace the definite line of connection between the germ and the fruit of his sin. It is a part of his infatuation to misapprehend the law of the Divine reward and punishment, and even the real outlines and proportions of the Divine character. 1. A destiny in his view so disproportionate to his offence becomes incredible. And just as the Jew could not conceive of the features and characteristics of the life upon which he was to enter when this prophecy should be fulfilled, the transgressor now fails to realize the position he must occupy when circumstance will depend only upon character. Passing consequences may be seen and partly estimated, but the final outcome of it all is, because of its very nature and extent, unreal to him. 2. The future of the sinner is strange and unreal to him, and therefore fails to impress him as it ought. III. AS BY GOD. This is one of the main purposes of revelation, viz. to connect the present with the future and to interpret their relations. Whilst it is true that every sinner already contains within himself the elements of his future punishment, it is also true that of himself he could not forecast the actual extent or nature of the destiny he is working out. It is necessary, therefore, both for emphasis and enlightenment, to supplement experience with revelation. 1. Their punishment was but the natural development of their sin. The latter was of old date. Their fathers forsook Jehovah, did not keep his Law, and went after other gods. The tendency was inherited by themselves, and in aggravated degree: "Ye have done worse than your fathers." They now paid more attention and honor to idols than to Jehovah, and when this is the case it cannot last long. The veil of decency will be cast aside; the real character will betray itself, and shame will cease. They became more and more "sold under sin." The vices of a false religion weakened their character and made them a ready prey to the ambition and rapacity of their neighbors. The same law is apparent in spiritual destiny. Let the sinner be warned. He may be sure his sin will find him out. 2. It was but right that they should be so punished, as they had added to their ancestral offence an intolerable personal aggravation. The terms of the covenant were flagrantly violated, and they had forfeited the land by their moral unfitness to occupy it. If an earthly country could be so hallowed as not to admit of being occupied by unclean idolaters, how much less possible must it be for confirmed sinners to stand in the presence of God amidst the multitudes of redeemed! Heaven would be bell to such persons. 3. The spiritual condition that was so dealt with presented no ground for consideration. God said, "I will show you no favor." It was a deliberate sin, and there were no signs of repentance. The day of grace, however, was with them whilst the prophet spoke. So is it represented to be with the preaching of the gospel. Whilst God calls to us his mercy still continues. "Now is the accepted time; … now is the day of salvation." But in that day present obstinacy will be the worst condemnation. "I called, and ye refused," etc.—M. Sin a tyrannous and exhaustive service. I. THAT WHICH WAS AT FIRST A FREE CHOICE WILL IN TIME BECOME A SERVICE. The waywardness and capricious eclecticism of the idolatrous Jews was to be sternly visited upon them. They had toyed and compromised with idols; soon it would be discovered that that dalliance could not be prolonged. 1. Jehovah will not continue to accept a half-hearted service. It was only his forbearance that had suffered it so long. Whilst it might appear possible that Judah would repent, the imperfection of its service was overlooked; but when that imperfection seemed likely to be stereotyped, or when it was increasing with the growth of idolatrous practices, it was no longer to be endured. A mixed worship is dishonoring to God. He refuses to accept half a heart. It is impossible to serve him aright with divided attention and interest. Permission to worship and know him even in part is a privilege which may be withdrawn. The "idolater" would not always be able to walk on the heights of critical spiritual eclecticism. The time would come when what he thought so irksome would be taken away. God would send upon him "strong delusion to believe a lie." And this is rather to be looked upon as a repudiation of Judah by God than as a departure from Jehovah permitted by him to his own hurt. Spiritual power and hallowed circumstance would alike be forfeited, and God would cast off the idolaters. For: 2. Sinful tendency, when let alone, confirms and strengthens itself. Daily contact with the obligations and influence of the Law and the temple was a real benefit to the Israelites. It kept them from settling down utterly into idolatrous habits. That religious observance which is so wearisome to the sinner is his safeguard; it keeps him from complete abandonment to the inner depravity of his nature. He is alarmed, warned, disturbed, whenever he is inclined to more than ordinary license; and even his ordinary lax and sinful life is constantly judged and corrected by the truth which he hears. The Spirit of God continues to plead and wrestle with him, and although he does not wholly yield himself to its influence, he is prevented from wandering quite beyond recall. But let this restraining influence of grace once be withdrawn, the natural impulse to evil, all unchecked, will begin to develop and gradually overmaster the entire nature. This is the explanation of many a life that seems to linger long upon the debatable line between duty and sinful inclination—it is the Spirit of God that has not ceased to strive with it, and not the mere power of the man over his own desires and habits. 3. The circumstances and opportunities of Divine worship, if persistently neglected and abused, will be withdrawn. Palestine under the theocracy was a breathing-space for the spiritual aspirations of man. It was a school of purest affection and the most exalted righteousness. Divine power outside of, and also working within, Israel had defended it against the most tremendous invading forces. Let that power be withdrawn, the possibility of every man worshipping God under his own vine and fig tree would be taken away. The Jews would be overpowered by the laws and customs of the idolatrous nations amongst whom they would be dispersed. How much do we owe to the political, social, and personal influences that make for righteousness around us! How slowly and at what infinite cost have they been acquired! And they depend upon unceasing effort for their support and advancement. Civilization is the product of long, manifold, and harmonious effort and growth. It is a gossamer fabric which a day might destroy. Yet is it but an outwork and coarse expression of religion. The latter is the breath and inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Let that breath be withdrawn, and it ceases to live; and its most characteristic and essential institutions gradually become obsolete and sink into a mockery and a snare. We shall probably never know how much we owe to the mere circumstance of religion that surrounds us. Freedom to worship God, encouragement to obey him, and sustaining power to give effect to our spiritual desires, all result from the favorable position in which we are placed. Let us, therefore, seek to foster the institutions and increase the social and political influence of Christianity in the world. Without its presence amongst men, and the hallowed institutions, customs, and observances that embody its spirit, we should find it infinitely more difficult to serve God with conscientious and honest service. II. THIS SERVICE WILL AFFORD NO REAL OR PEACE. The exhaustive and absorbing devotion which idolatry entails is not the sign of spontaneous enthusiasm. It arises from the nature of the idols, as senseless, helpless blocks. They, indeed, must cry loudly who would be heard by such gods. In proportion as ritual is more laborious than righteousness, so is idolatry more exacting than true religion. But "the idol is nothing," only the representative of the lusts and ignorance of its worshippers. It is in reality the latter that receive and demand the service. All sin is idolatry in some form or other, and will prove as exacting of the attention and labor of the sinner. Who is not willing to admit that sin is a hard taskmaster? And yet, what are its rewards? The poor soul, hurried and driven by its own overmastering lusts and passions, has no rest, and no solid residuum of comfort is secured; nay, rather a sense of deepening gloom, indefinite, unquenchable craving, and a foreboding of the final wrath of him whom it has insulted and disobeyed. To the victims of wicked habit, etc; as to the devotees of a false religion, the words of Christ are addressed, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden," etc.—M. The old deliverance forgotten in the new. I. THE GREATER AND MORE THE , THE GREATER WILL BE THE . It was not to be supposed that the past judgments of God, however great, were all that he could or would do. He has many ways of bringing transgressors to their senses; and it is impossible to conceive a limit to his power of imposing penalty. His stern, uncompromising attitude to sin has been witnessed to by many an awful judgment and destruction, even where previous calamities might seem to have exhausted his anger or his invention. II. THE PROMISE OF GOD APPEARS SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE FIRST OF HIS . Even in the way in which it is threatened there is encouragement and hope. It will be an awful experience, but God will redeem his people. So in the beginning of the curse our first parents received an anticipatory evangel. The failures of God’s people in social and political experiment were the occasion of the most glorious predictions of Messianic times. This shows the real purpose of God’s threatenings. They are intended to produce repentance, and yet there is reality enough in them if that repentance be not forthcoming. Fear is appealed to, but freedom of choice is preserved, and spiritual power called into responsible action. III. THE POWER OF GOD WILL BE MORE IN EVERY NEW WHICH HIS PEOPLE BRING UPON . The captivity of which the prophet speaks will but give occasion for a grand deliverance, in comparison with which the Exodus from Egypt will sink into insignificance. The judgments of God, however great they may appear, are limited with the strictest exactness, and are within his control. There is reason, therefore, to expect his interference whenever the folly or unbelief of his people imperils his cause. He will preserve a people to praise him, and raise up a generation to call him blessed. So with the backslider from gospel privileges and obligations. He whom Christ has washed in his blood will not be suffered wholly to pass into spiritual death. Grander exhibitions of the Divine grace and power will be afforded. The good Shepherd will go over the dark mountains to recover the wanderer. Those who have been entangled again in the yoke of bondage will be redelivered if they but turn with new obedience and faith to their Savior. They will be saved, if" as by fire."—M. The heathen turning to the true God. The prophet, disappointed and broken-hearted, is driven to Jehovah for his own comfort and support. We see here how much it cost him to speak the words he had to utter. Every true minister of Christ must feel in the same manner when he has to deal with hardened sinners, and to become the mouthpiece of Divine warnings and threats. The soul that stands up for righteousness will often find itself without sympathy and alone amongst unbelieving men. Prayer is the refuge that is ever open in such hours. An extremity like this is of all others God’s opportunity. Like Elijah in the wilderness, he will receive unexpected succor. He will live, not on bread, but on words and revelations of God. To Jeremiah was given this vision. I. WHILST JEHOVAH IS BY HIS OWN PEOPLE THE HEATHEN WILL SEEK HIM. There is a law of displacement visible in God’s dealings with his Church from age to age. Like the man in the parable, who prepared the feast and bade many, he is determined that his house shall be filled. 1. In this way God shows his people that he does not specially need them. His favor depends upon their faithfulness; if they fail he has others to supply, their place. His election is no blind favoritism or arbitrary distinction, but proceeds upon spiritual conditions. 2. Apostasy from God is due to imperfectly understanding him; but the heathen who turn to him do so with full experience of the effects of their idolatry. The vanity and nothingness of idols drives them in despair to the true God. Henceforth for them idolatry can have no power. It has been, as the Law was to Saul, a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. Lessons acquired in so stern a school are not soon forgotten; and the haft-hearted disciple, led away of his own lusts and enticed, is supplanted by a steadfast and faithful convert. So every day is the Church of Christ being recruited from the ranks of those who have been the "chief of sinners." We cannot tell in what depths of degradation those may now be sunk who are to shine as stars in the eternal firmament. Let the individual Christian strive, therefore, to make his calling and his election sure. Let the Church see that iris candlestick be not removed. II. IS A SYSTEM WHICH REFUTES ITSELF. 1. It disappoints the expectations which it has awakened. 2. The conscience at last revolts against the excesses to which it leads. 3. By-and-by the evident truism, that what man makes cannot be his god, is realized and acted upon. This process is going on today in the great seats of idolatrous worship, and the fiercest iconoclasts are to be found amongst those who have been brought up in heathenism. A similar process to this goes on in the lives of good men as they are gradually freed from the illusions of life and the ensnaring influences of worldly ideas and aims. The disappointments of life are so many waves casting us upon the shore of a heavenly life, and the general drift of earthly experience is in many and many an instance bringing men surely to God. III. FAILING A BETTER , THE OF JEHOVAH UPON HIS OWN PEOPLE WILL SHOW THE HEATHEN THAT HE IS THE ONLY REAL GOD. This is not the way in which God would prefer to show men his glory and his power. It is by his saving grace he would commend himself to them. And the saints are the appointed teachers of the world. They could tell of his power and his grace, of their own deliverance. They could exhibit the blessings of a people whose trust is Jehovah. But, failing this, they would be made examples. The justice of God will take the place of his mercy, which has been abused. In its exceptional severity, its evident connection with and suggestion of supernatural agency, etc; it will attract attention and arouse curiosity. Israel, therefore, even in its calamity and suffering, will serve God. A vicarious virtue will lurk in its captivity, its desolation, and its persecution. God is dealing thus with the unfaithful branches of his Church today. The perplexities, entanglements, and griefs that are due to worldly alliance and secular ambitions and desires are well enough understood even by worldly men. Not from Eden, but from the wilderness to which she has banished herself, will the bride, the Lamb’s wife, be brought for her new espousals, and with her shall come, as virgins in her train, many who have been taught by her judgments and disciplines.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 16:1-9 Commands countermanded. There are three such in this section. I. THE COMMAND TO MARRY. 1. In every way whereby the will of God can be expressed—by his Word, his providence, his laws, written, moral, social, physical, God has commanded that "a man shall leave his father and mother," etc. "A good wife is from the Lord," her companionship is the most blessed in the world. All artificial hindrances to marriage are, therefore, to be condemned. The same enemy that destroys such myriads of souls for eternity, ruins their happiness, oftentimes, in this life also. For it is the world which frowns upon marriages, unexceptionable in other respects, in which a certain style cannot be maintained or a certain amount of income be secured; and all superstitious teachings that inculcate celibacy as a state more pleasing to God, are equally guilty both in regard to God and man. Disobedience to this command involves such frightful consequences as in themselves to clearly manifest the Divine will, that u it is not good for man to be alone." 2. But here in these verses the prophet is distinctly forbidden to marry. (Jeremiah 16:1, etc.) And the reasons were probably that, by his abstaining from marriage, he might more powerfully confirm his words as to the coming calamities. It would show his own belief in what he had foretold when it was seen that he would not make for himself a home under such circumstances. It would leave him more free for the arduous duty which he had to discharge. It would save him great sorrow when the evil days should come. And so now there are special eases in which God’s will seems to be that a man should not marry. The poverty-stricken ministers of religion, of whom there are so many; the missionary exposed to daily peril of climate, pestilence, savage heathendom; or any to whom it is evident that by their marriage more evil than good will result;—then, just as we may be called upon to do without many other great earthly advantages, so we may be called upon to deny ourselves this. And there may be physical conditions forbidding marriage. No man has a right to transmit to others hereditary disease, whether of body or mind. And there are spiritual hindrances. A man ought to marry only "in the Lord." But all these exceptions are rare; God’s general rule is that men should marry. II. THE COMMAND TO "WEEP WITH THEM THAT WEEP." That there would be no stint of sorrow, no lack of mourners, the awful declarations of this section plainly show. And generally God’s will, shown in a thousand ways, is that we should, by sympathy and condolence, "bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the Law of Christ." But here such sympathy and "weeping with them that weep" is prohibited (Jeremiah 16:5). This does seem a stern command, and no doubt it is so. But we do not feel called on to condole with criminals on account of the penalties they have to bear; were any to do so, we should regard it as misplaced and mischievous sympathy, calculated only to do harm. And whilst those to whom the prophet was sent were hardened in their sin, sympathy with them on account of their punishment would be also mischievous and wrong. We have continually to be on our guard—for many never are—lest our sympathy for the sinner’s suffering should make us forget or think lightly of the sinner’s sin. No matter how glaring the crime, there are always some who are ready to agitate for a mitigation of the penalty. Now, it is this hurtful sympathy which God here forbids the prophet to show. III. THE COMMAND TO "REJOICE WITH THEM THAT DO REJOICE." This also is a constant injunction of the Divine Word, as it is an instinct of the benevolent and Christian heart. Jesus was as ready to go to the marriage festival as to the graveside. And so should we be. But here again the command is countermanded (Jeremiah 16:8). And the reason is manifest. God would not suffer his prophet to be in any wise a solace to sinful men. Too many professed Christians are. Nothing is a greater "comfort to Sodom" than the sight of the serenity and joviality of men who profess to believe that sinners are on their way to everlasting woe. The sinner argues—and it is an argument very difficult to refute—that Christians do not believe this, no matter what they say, and hence they, the ungodly, are in no such awful peril after all. The prophet of God was commanded to abstain from all festivity and all outward joy, and no doubt the reason was, lest by any sharing therein, he should throw doubt on the awful message he was charged to deliver. Are the ministers of God bound to do the like now? Our Lord did not. His apostles did not. Nowhere are we bidden to abstain from all earthly joy. Rather are we assured that God has "given us all things richly to enjoy." And the unbeliever’s objection on the ground of the inconsistency of our calmness, and yet more of our gladness, notwithstanding the awful peril of ungodly souls, may be met by the reply that we cannot say of those whom yet we would fain see drawn much nearer to God than they to our eyes are, that they are, as those whom Jeremiah addressed, absolutely doomed. We are not forbidden to pray for them, as Jeremiah was; nor to hope that even yet they may turn to God and find mercy. The prophet had no hope; we have much, and it is on the ground of that hope which we cherish that our calmer, brighter moods are justified. Still, one shrinks from saying aught that would seem to sanction the terrible indifference we all too much manifest in regard to the spiritual condition of the world around us. But yet we may say that that condition is not such as to demand—even were it possible, which it is not, to comply with the demand—that we should all cease from joy, and clothe ourselves unceasingly in sackcloth and ashes. We cannot do that; we are not bidden to do that, nor would it be of use were we to do so. We have a gospel to proclaim, a living Savior to hope in, and a Holy Spirit’s energies to second all our prayers and endeavors to win men to God. But at the same time, the believer in God and in his righteous Law cannot and ought not to find pleasure in the rejoicings of the ungodly, or to give any countenance to their defiance of God. No; we are not to go "in the way of sinners," not to sit "in the seat of scorners," though it may be a scene of festivity and mirth. From all such we must turn away. We cannot rejoice with them when they rejoice; in their gladness we cannot share, but only mourn that they do not mourn. Let them turn to God, and we will dwell among them, and in their joy and in their sorrow we will gladly share. But until they do, for us as for God’s prophet, his ordinary commands as to sympathy with them are countermanded, and we must stand aside. Light cannot have fellowship with darkness, nor the children of God with the children of the wicked one.—C. Conscience dead. Conscience is given us of God, to serve as a faithful sentry, warning of the approach of sin and summoning the energies of our souls to resist and reject the intruder. Or as a just judge to unhesitatingly condemn sin, let it be wrapped up in what specious disguise it may. It is the Ithuriel’s spear which, the moment it touches any moral action, compels such action to reveal itself of what sort it is. Oh, the unspeakable blessing of an enlightened, healthful conscience that will not suffer sin, any sin, even the least, without prompt and powerful protest! God help us all diligently to guard, profoundly to reverence and faithfully to obey this inward monitor, this true bearer of "the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." But these verses reveal a condition of things in which conscience is dead. It has lost all power of perception, its voice is hushed, or rather, what is worse, it sees and speaks falsely. It is a mockery of life, which would be grotesque were it not so profoundly sad. A caricature and parody of what it once was, its powers utterly perverted, bent, warped, so that they "call evil good, and good evil." Note— I. THE FACT. How else can such a question as this of Jer 16:10 be accounted for? Was not their sin clear as the sun at noonday? Had it not been for years crying aloud to God for vengeance? Had it not been condemned by all the servants of God, by the written Law of God, by all the voices of God in long succession? And yet these people are asking, "Wherefore hath the Lord pronounced all this great evil against us." It is as if the convicts in our prisons were to begin to ask why they were so treated, and to profess ignorance of their having done aught amiss. But in such ease we should say they were playing the hypocrite, pretending an innocence to which they well knew they had no claim. In this case, however, there is no hypocrisy. The question, monstrous as it seems to us, is asked in all good faith. The prophet of God is bidden to give it a serious answer, not to denounce those who ask it as a set of conscious hypocrites. Just as in Matthew 25:44, which is a portentous parallel indeed, the condemned there are heard asking when they had been guilty of the sins laid to their charge. It is evident in that case and in this, not that they were consciously liars, but that conscience was simply dead within them. The writer knew also of one who had cruelly defrauded a large number of people, who, believing him to be an eminently religious man, had entrusted to him their hard-earned savings, with all of which he had made away; but, when brought to justice, condemned, and imprisoned, he could not be got to confess that he had done wrong, but would keep quoting, in regard to himself, texts which tell of the afflictions of the righteous, and how "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." II. THE CAUSE. Conscience is starved by neglect of that seeking of God’s grace which is its nutriment and strength. And it is stunned by repeated acts of sin. Men can and do nibble, if we may so speak, at conscience, and gradually rid themselves of it. The clamor of sin drowns the still, small voice, and its protests, perpetually unheeded, are at last withdrawn. So that at length men find themselves able to do evil and think nothing of it; the little rift that sin first made has widened and widened until the whole torrent of waters bursts through, for the faithful dyke that held them back has been gradually destroyed, and so now the whole nature of the man is overwhelmed, submerged beneath the deluge of sin. And, what is most sad, the man feels, no more than do the sunken cities and towns that tie at the bottom of the Zuyder Zee, the rush of the waves that for centuries have rolled over them. III. THE CURE. Thank God there is one. The sharp surgery of God’s judgments arouse the deadened conscience. The rags, the hunger, the degradation of the prodigal woke up his conscience and brought him "to himself." And so it was with the Jewish people. God’s judgments made them hate and abhor, as they have done ever since, the idolatries which brought those judgments upon them. It would be dreadful to think that God had no resources whereby, in full harmony with its freedom, he could bring into due subjection and order "the unruly wills of sinful men." Can we conceive of God having created a force greater than himself, which can forever defy him, and ever maintain, as Milton’s Satan in hell, a rebellious though wretched rule? God knew how to convert Israel, Saul, the penitent thief, ourselves, and we may trust him to find means whereby at length to Jesus every knee shall be made to bow. Matthew 25:14 and Matthew 25:15 contemplate a converted Israel (cf. also Isaiah 30:18; Matthew 27:33-39). But let a man tremble at the thought of compelling God to deal with him thus. Let him beware how he wastes his conscience, lest it turn against him and suffer him to sin unrestrained.—C. Great mercies the forerunners of greater still. At first reading of these verses their truth is hardly apparent to the ordinary reader of the Bible. The deliverance from Egypt was so magnificent an event, accompanied by such manifestations of the Divine glory, that the quiet return of but a comparatively few of the exiles from Babylon pales into insignificance. Hence it is the latter event that seems not worthy to be spoken of in comparison with the former, and not the former in comparison with the latter. The second temple was so greatly inferior to the first that old men who had seen the first wept when they thought of those glories which to the second were quite unattainable; and so the return from Babylon seems to fall far short in glory of the redemption from Egypt. But these verses affirm that the glory of the return from Babylon was to be far the greater. Now, how could this be? It may be said: 1. That in this return there was a display of the moral power of God rather than his physical might. That which was needed to bring this about was the exercise of the Divine power on men’s hearts rather than any material force. It was by mighty miracles that Israel was brought out of Egypt; it was by the action of God’s Spirit on his people’s hearts that those who returned from Babylon were induced so to do. For their lot was happy, prosperous, peaceful, so far as this world was concerned. The Books of Esther, Nehemiah, and Daniel show this. Hence it was a strong religious yearning that led to the return of those who returned. The mass of the nation were content to remain, and did remain, and formed "those of the Dispersion," of whom in so many ways we hear in after ages. Hence, as Zechariah says (Zechariah 4:6), it was "not by might, nor by power, but," etc. 2. Then, also, in this return there was a display of God’s pardoning love. Israel was a forgiven people. They had received at the Lord’s hand double for all their sins. But God is ever more glorified in the display of pardoning love than in any manifestations of mere power. 3. And there was in it such a fulfillment of prophecy, such a demonstration of the overruling power of God in and through all the movements of different nations and ages, as proclaimed God’s glory more than power alone could ever do. For these reasons the return of the exiles was a more glorious event than the deliverance from Egypt. 4. And this will be seen yet more if we take the verses as pointing on to the ultimate restoration of Israel. Zechariah (Zechariah 13:1-9; Zechariah 14:1-21.) speaks of this, as do many other Scriptures. It was the "hope of Israel" of which Paul told, and he places it in connection with the second advent and the resurrection. 5. And still more if we understand by Israel the spiritual Israel, and regard all these promises as predicting the triumph of the Church. Thus regarded, the deliverance from Egypt was by comparison a very little thing. But when that great triumph comes, where shall we be? God grant that it be amongst those whom on that day he will confess before his Father and the holy angels. But this notable instance in which past mercies promise greater ones to come is only one out of many more. Apply the principle declared— I. TO THE CHURCH AT LARGE. What mercies in the past, what deliverances, the Church has enjoyed: from persecutors, "grievous wolves" superstition, infidelity, etc.! But all these are to be regarded as pledges of yet greater ones when they shall be needed. II. TO MEMBERS OF THAT CHURCH. Who of us cannot recount, in the course of our lives, temporal deliverances: from sickness, poverty, perplexity, sorrow, death, etc.? We are to take them all as reasons to anticipate greater things still, more to follow. And especially spiritual deliverances: from living on in disregard of God, from the power of the world, temptation, sorrow. But there are greater ones still. The Church in its full redemption shall prove the truth of this, and so shall separate members of the Church. All shall confess that the Lord hath "kept the good wine until now." . 1. Be not dismayed at the troubles of the present; do not think God’s grace is exhausted. 2. See to it that you share in the first deliverance—that from guilt and sin. Unless we have known the first, we cannot know the second and greater—that final deliverance from all guilt, all sin, all sorrow, all death, in the presence of God forever.—C. Jeremiah 16:16-21 Sin found out. The striking imagery of these verses teaches us that there shall be no hiding-place, whether by sea or land, where God will not find those whom his vengeance pursues. The sinner may be sure that his sin will find him out. I. MEN DOUBT THIS. Reasons are: 1. Long impunity has made them bold. 2. Such findings of them out as have taken place, in defilement of conscience, hardening of the heart, loss of peace with God, etc; they do not care for. They only care for public exposure and punishment. 3. They see others go on in sin unpunished. 4. The power which we all have to believe what we wish to believe. 5. The direct agency of the devil in fostering such false belief. II. BUT THE OF GOD ON THIS MATTER IS TRUE. 1. The Scriptures affirm it (cf. all those which teach the omniscience and omnipresence of God). 2. Conscience attests it. 3. There is nothing in sin to show wherefore it should not be. 4. The revelation of the future life distinctly provides for it. 5. And even now it is continually being proved true. A man’s sin finds him out in many ways—in body, mind, estate, reputation, etc. And in one or more of these sin does ever find a man out, even now. 6. The apparent exceptions are accounted for on the ground of (1) God’s long-suffering to the sinful; (2) God’s purpose to test and exercise the faith of his own people. III. A DEEP AND ABIDING OF THIS TO BE GREATLY DESIRED. 1. What restraint it would exercise on the will! (cf. "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?"). 2. How exceeding sinful it would make sin appear! 3. What force it would lend to all endeavors after the reclamation and reformation of the sinful! IV. AND SUCH MAY BE HAD. It is the sacred and salutary power of prayer thus to make God real to us. In prayer we look to him and we see him looking upon us; we speak to him and he speaks to us; by aid of it we walk with him and he walks with us. He who thus lives in daily fellowship with God can never be without the conviction spoken of. V. BECAUSE SIN IS SURE TO FIND US, LET US AT ONCE SEEK AND FIND CHRIST.—C. Jeremiah 17:3 The accusers of the ungodly. The prophet appeals to— I. THE OF THE HEATHEN. Jeremiah 17:19, "The Gentiles shall come," etc. These heathen peoples will declare the vanity of those idols in which Judah is now trusting (cf. Matthew 11:20-24). II. . Their sin was "written as with," etc; "on the table of their heart," (Jeremiah 17:1). Nothing could erase the memories they all had of their own grievous sin. It was written as if in rock, and as with a pen of iron and a point of diamond (allusion, probably, to the inscriptions on rocks, so frequent in the East,). What a witness is conscience! It cannot be silenced nor sophisticated. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Jeremiah 17:1-18 are closely connected with the preceding chapter. We have just been pointed to the striking contrast between the conduct of the heathen and that of the backsliding men of Judah. The inspired orator’s indignation swells as he thinks of the inveterateness and indelibleness of Judah’s sin. Then he passes to a subject immediately suggested by the policy of the court, viz. the true source of safety in dangerous times. Trust in man brings a curse; trust in Jehovah a blessing (Jeremiah 17:5-13). From this portion of the prophecy we can venture to fix the date of the whole. Jeremiah 17:11 is, in fact, a shorter form of the denunciation in Jeremiah 22:13-19, which is directly addressed to Jehoiakim; and the most natural view of Jer 22:5-10 is to regard them as a warning against the negotiations with Egypt entered into by Jehoiakim after his revolt from Nebuchadnezzar (see Ewald, ’History of Israel,’ 4.261). The emphasis on the deceitfulness of the heart, in Jeremiah 22:9, is readily intelligible in this connection; it reminds us of the woe pronounced by Isaiah against those who "seek deep to hide their counsel from Jehovah" (Isaiah 29:15), and which undoubtedly refers to a projected Egyptian alliance. Jeremiah 17:1 The sin of Judah, etc. "Judah’s sin" is not merely their tendency to sin, but their sinful practices—their idolatry. This is said to be graven upon the table of their heart, for it is no mere form, but carried on with passionate earnestness, and as indelible as if engraved with an iron pen. How unlike, however, is this record to that of which the same expression is used in Job 19:24! With the point of a diamond; or, with a point of adamant (harder than flint, as Ezekiel 3:9 says). Fragments of adamant, says Pliny (’Hist. Nat.,’ 37.15), are sought out by engravers and enclosed in iron; they easily overcome every hardness. Upon the horns of your altars. First of all, what altars are referred to? Those erected for the worship of idols or the two in the temple of Jehovah, which had been defiled by idolatry? And why is the sin of Judah said to be engraved upon the horns of the altars? Probably because the "horns," i.e. the projections at the four upper corners (Exodus 28:2) were smeared with the blood of the victims. The direction in Exodus 29:12 and Le Exodus 4:7 was doubtless not peculiar to the ritual of the Law. Jeremiah 17:2 Whilst their children remember, etc. The connection of this with the preceding verse is rather obscure. Probably it is intended as an exemplification of the "sin of Judah," the inveterateness of which is shown by their thoughts spontaneously turning to the altars and symbols of the false gods whenever they are near a leafy tree or a high hill. To make "their sons" the accusative (with Hitzig and Keil), rendering, "As they remember their children, [even so they remember their altars]," seems unnatural; why should "children" and "altars" be associated in idea? Groves; rather, idols of Asherah, the Canaanitish goddess. Jeremiah 17:3 O my mountain in the field; a still more obscure passage. The question is whether "my mountain in the field" is a vocative or an accusative dependent on "I will give." If the former, then the phrase will mean Jerusalem (comp. "rock of the plain," Jeremiah 21:13). This, however, does not suit with the second half of the verse ("thy high places," etch), and still less with Jeremiah 17:4, which evidently refers to the people of Judah. Added to this, if Jerusalem were here addressed we should certainly expect feminine suffixes. It remains to take "my mountain," etc; as an accusative. It describes, not Jerusalem, but Mount Zion as the site of the temple, the mountain of the house of Jehovah (Isaiah 2:3; Zechariah 8:3; Psalms 24:3). Render, therefore, my mountain in the field will I give. The prophet magnifies Zion into a mountain with a widely extended prospect (comp. Jeremiah 17:12 and Jeremiah 21:13). Thy substance and all thy treasures; i.e. these of the people. The part of the verse which begins here is almost the same as Jeremiah 15:13 (see note). And thy high places for sin. Keil explains, Jehovah declares that he will, on account of the sinful practices upon them, deliver up the high places throughout the land. Gesenius, "He will deliver up the high places with the sin attaching to them;" Hitzig, "as a sin offering." There is a question, however, whether there is not a corruption in the text, and whether we should not read, with Ewald, "without price for thy sins" (as in the parallel passage, Jeremiah 15:13). Jeremiah 17:4 (Comp. Jeremiah 15:14.) Even thyself; literally, even with thyself, i.e. with thy bare life (if the text, which is here evidently rather out of order, is correct). Shalt discontinue. The word involves an allusion to the Law in Exodus 23:11 and (especially) Deuteronomy 15:2 (see the Hebrew). The latter passage suggests a correction of the difficult "even with thyself," just preceding, into "thy hand." Thus we get for the opening of this verse, "And thou shalt let loose thy hand" (i.e. as Authorized Version, "shalt discontinue"). Jeremiah 17:5-11 In the higher gnomic or proverbial style. God and man, flesh and spirit, are natural antitheses (comp. Isaiah 31:3; Psalms 56:4). The prayer of the believer is, "Be thou (O Jehovah) their arm every morning;" not Egypt, not Assyria, not any "arm of flesh." Jeremiah 17:6 Like the heath in the desert; as forlorn as some well-known desert plant. But which plant? St. Jerome explains, "Et erit quasi myrice [’tamarisk’], quae Hebraice dicitur Aroer (?) sire, at interpretatus est Syrus, lignum infructuosum." The versions agree in supposing the comparison to be to a plant; and a very similar word in Arabic (ghargar) means the mountain juniper; Tristram, the dwarf juniper. Most, however, take the word to be an adjective equivalent to "destitute." Dr. Thomson tells a story of a poor destitute woman he found in the desert (comp. Jeremiah 48:6—the form there is Aroer, here it is ‛ar‛ār; Psalms 102:18). Shall not see; i.e. shall not perceive, or feel any evil consequences (comp. Isaiah 44:16, "I have seen the fire," equivalent to "feel the flame"). A salt land; i.e. one entirely barren (comp. Deuteronomy 29:23). Jeremiah 17:8 Shall not see; rather, shall not fear—this is the reading of the Hebrew text, and of the Septuagint, Peshito, and Vulgate. The Authorized Version represents that of the margin, which is conformed to Jeremiah 17:6, but is against the parallelisms. Jeremiah 17:9, Jeremiah 17:10 The crocked devices of the human heart, which is characterized as deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, or rather, desperately sick (see Jeremiah 15:18, where it is explained by the words, "which refuseth to be healed"). The Septuagint reads this verse differently, "The heart is deep above all things, and it is a man." Jeremiah 17:11 As the partridge … hatcheth them not; rather, as the partridge sitteth on eggs which it hath not laid; a proverbial illustration of the Divine retributive justice. The prophet assumes the truth of a popular belief respecting the partridge (still a common bird in Judaea), that it brooded upon eggs which it had not laid. As the young birds soon leave the false mother, so unjustly acquired riches soon forsake their possessors. [Canon Tristram rejects this explanation, on the ground that the statement is not true to natural history; the partridge neither steals the broods of others nor needs to do so, as it lays a very large number of eggs. But grammar requires us to translate as suggested above, and consequently excludes any other explanation-May not the unusually large number of the eggs laid by the partridge have led to the fancy that they could not be all its own?] Jeremiah 17:12, Jeremiah 17:13 An address to Jehovah in two parts, the first specially referring to the temple regarded as the sacramental symbol of the Divine presence (comp. Psalms 5:7), the second to Jehovah himself. It seems to us, no doubt, singular thus practically to identify, Jehovah and his temple; but the prophet s meaning is that God can only be addressed in so far as he has revealed himself. The temple was not, strictly speaking, the "Name or revelation of God, but it was "the place of the Name of Jehovah," and in the language of strong feeling might be addressed as if it were really the Divine Name. The disciples of the incarnate Name were familiar with the idea that their Master was in some sense the antitype of the temple (Matthew 12:6; John 2:19). In proposing this explanation, it has been tacitly assumed that the Authorized Version, A glorious high throne … is the place of our sanctuary, is wrong. Grammatically, indeed, it is not indefensible; but it is a weak rendering in such a context. Render, therefore, Thou throne of glory, a height from the beginning, thou place of our sanctuary, thou hope of Israel, Jehovah. The temple is called "the throne of thy glory" in Jeremiah 14:21; "height" is a common synonym for heaven (Psalms 7:8, Hebrew; Isaiah 57:15, Hebrew), but is also applied to Mount Zion (Ezekiel 17:23; Ezekiel 20:40, quoted by Keil), which is also in Isaiah 60:13 called, "the place of my sanctuary." By adding the concluding words of the address (at the opening of Isa 60:13), the prophet prevents the suspicion that he attached importance to the mere outward buildings of the temple, like those formalist Jews, whose words are quoted in Jeremiah 7:4. Jeremiah 17:13 They that depart from me. The abrupt change of person is extremely harsh; the Vulgate, followed by Ewald and Olshausen, supposes that a final caph has dropped out, rendering, "they that depart from thee." Shall be written in the earth; a contrast to that which is recorded for all time "with a pen of iron" (Jeremiah 17:1). The fountain, etc.; a favorite phrase of our prophet (see Jeremiah 2:13). Jeremiah 17:14-18 A prayer of the prophet in this his hour of need. He who makes his boast of Jehovah may reckon upon his help. This is Jeremiah’s principle. He prays for healing, Heal me … and I shall be—rather, that I may be—healed. He is one of those "broken in heart," whom Jehovah alone can "heal" (Psalms 147:3). Jeremiah 17:15 The occasion of this prayer is the hostility of his neighbors, and their mocking question, Where is the word of the Lord? The prophecy seems to be floating as it were in mid-air, unable to alight (Isaiah 9:8) and fulfill itself, so that Jeremiah could be plausibly treated as a false prophet (Deuteronomy 18:22). Hence, as Keil remarks, the discourse of which this forms the conclusion must have been spoken before the first Babylonian invasion of Judah. Jeremiah 17:16 I have not hastened from being a pastor to follow thee; i.e. I have not eagerly withdrawn from following thee as a shepherd (or prophet). The prophet does not follow his own vague inclinations; he is but an under-shepherd, and waits on the will of his superior. He is, as Hosea calls him (Hosea 9:7, Hebrew), "the man of the Spirit." If God leads any one, whether people or individuals, it is through the agency of the Spirit (Isaiah 63:11, Isaiah 63:12); and it is the characteristic of the typical prophet that his ear is "wakened morning by morning" to receive his daily lesson. Only by thus "following" the Divine Leader, can a prophet act as pastor to his people. [The construction is, however, rather simplified by the rendering—a perfectly legitimate one … from following thee as a companion.] The woeful day. The word for "woeful" is the same rendered "desperately wicked" (verse 9); the "day" of Judah’s calamity is metaphorically "sick," like the heart of man. So, other words being used, Isaiah 17:11 (end). Was right before thee; rather (since some adjective must be supplied), was manifest before thee. He appeals to the all-seeing Eye as a witness to his fidelity to his mission. Jeremiah 17:17 Jeremiah reckons on Jehovah’s protection; he therefore entreats that his God will not bring him to shame by leaving his prophecies unfulfilled. A terror is a weak rendering; a consternation would be better. Jeremiah 17:18 (On this terrible execration, with reference to Jeremiah’s character, see the general Introduction.) Destroy them with double destruction. "Double" here means "amply sufficient" (comp. Revelation 18:6, and see on Jeremiah 16:18). Jeremiah 17:19-27 An exhortation to a more strict observance of the Sabbath. The reward held out is Jerusalem’s continuance in all its old pomp, both temporal and spiritual, and the penalty the destruction of the city by fire. This passage stands in absolutely no connection with the preceding and the following prophecies; and we have just the same sense of suspicion in meeting with it here, in the midst of perfectly general exhortations, as in reading the parallel exhortations to Sabbath-keeping in Isaiah 56:1-12. and 58; surrounded as they are by the moving and almost evangelical rhetoric of the second part of Isaiah. Geiger and Dr. Rowland Williams have hence been led to conjecture that this section (or part of it) was introduced into the roll of Jeremiah’s prophecies to assist the reforming movement of Ezra and Nehemiah. Certainly the regard for the Sabbath, so conspicuous in the later Judaism, dates, so far as we can see, from the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (see Nehemiah 13:1-31.), though it is credible enough that the perception of the high importance of this holy day (comp. Heine’s ’Prinecssin Sabbath’) began to acquire greater distinctness as the other parts of the social and religions organization were seen to be fading away (comp. art. "Sabbath" in Smith’s ’Bible Dictionary’). Jeremiah 17:19 In the gate of the children of the people. It is uncertain which of the gates of Jerusalem is meant, and not perfectly clear what is the meaning of the title. Does it mean Israelites as opposed to foreigners, or laymen as distinguished from priests? Whereby the kings of Judah come in. Jeremiah appears to use the phrase "kings of Judah" in a particular sense (see on verse 20). He may, no doubt, simply mean to say that those who are from time to time sovereigns of Judah enter by this gate. But once grant that the prophet does sometimes use the phrase in a sense of his own, and that in the very next verse, and it is very difficult to avoid interpreting it so in this passage. Jeremiah 17:20 Jeremiah addresses himself first of all to the kings of Judah. As it would be very unnatural for a public orator to appeal to the yet unborn members of the reigning dynasty, and as there are several indications that the "house of David" was able at this period, as also in that of Isaiah, to exercise a decisive political and civil influence, even, as appears from Jeremiah 21:11, Jeremiah 21:12, monopolizing the judicial functions, it is natural to suppose that "kings of Judah" is here used in a very special sense, via. of the members of the various branches of the royal family ("The sons of the king," Zephaniah 1:8; comp. Jeremiah 36:26, "Jerahmeel, a king’s son"), and their descendants, who received the royal title by courtesy (parallels for this will be found in Gesenius’s ’Hebrew Thesaurus,’ s.v. me’lek). The queen-mother was probably the leader of this plan; "the mistress," as she was called (see on Jeremiah 13:18), and the royal princes (among whom the "house of Nathan," Zechariah 12:12, would doubtless be reckoned), constituted in fact a body almost as numerous as they did (according to Brugsch Bey) in Egypt, and politically much more influential; so much so indeed that only a king of unusual force of character, like Hezekiah or Josiah, could venture, and that timidly, to oppose them. The weak-principled Zedekiah seems to have been entirely dominated by this powerful caste, and to have been little more than a maire du palais (the same sense of the phrase is required in Jeremiah 19:8, and probably in Jeremiah 25:18). Jeremiah 17:21 Take heed to yourselves; rather, Take heed heartily, conscientiously; literally, in your souls. So in Malachi (Malachi 2:15, Malachi 2:16), "Take heed in your spirit" (not, "to your spirit," as Authorized Version). Jeremiah 17:22 Neither do ye any work; according to the fourth commandment (Exodus 20:10; Deuteronomy 5:14). Jeremiah 17:23 This verse is modeled on Jeremiah 7:26, Jeremiah 7:28. Jeremiah 17:25 Parallel passage, Jeremiah 22:4, where, however, we simply meet with "kings sitting upon the throne o f David," not, as hero, "kings and princes." Has the latter word come in by accident, owing to the frequent combination of kings and princes in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:18; Jeremiah 2:26; Jeremiah 25:18; Jeremiah 32:32; Jeremiah 44:17, Jeremiah 44:21)? Shall remain forever; rather, shall be inhabited forever. Jeremiah 17:26 Parallel passage for the catalogue of the districts of Judah, Jeremiah 32:44. Three divisions are mentioned. (1) The neighborhood of Jerusalem (including the "cities of Judah"); (2) the land of Benjamin, i.e. the northern part of the kingdom; and (3) the tribe of Judah, with its three subdivisions—the Shefela or lowland country by the Mediterranean Sea, the hill country, and the Negeb or "dry" south country (comp. Joshua 15:21-62). The sacrifices are described with equal explicitness; they fall into two classes, the bloody (burnt offerings and other sacrifices) and the unbloody (the vegetable offering or minkhah, and the incense which was strewed upon the minkhah, Le Jeremiah 2:1). And bringing sacrifices of praise. This was, no doubt, the title of a particular variety of sacrifices (Le Jeremiah 7:12; Jeremiah 22:29); here, however, it seems as if all the preceding sacrifices were summed up under this designation. St. Paul says, "In everything give thanks;" and this seems to have been the prophet’s ideal of the sacrifices of the future. Engraved sin. I. SIN LEAVES A RECORD OF ITSELF. It is not an isolated act. It begets consequences—plants memories, creates guilt. The record remains even if we do not read it. God still notes it, and will some day confront us with it. Hence it is not enough to amend our ways for the future. We need to have past transgressions blotted out if we are to be restored to peace with God. II. THE RECORD OF SIN IS ON HEART OF THE SINNER. 1. It is written on the memory. Men who have forsaken the scenes of their evil deeds cannot shake off the clinging burden of the memory of them. The criminal is haunted by his crimes. They people his dreams with horrors; they overshadow his waking hours with gloom. Even when sin is put out of mind it is probably buried in the secret chamber of memory, to be ultimately brought to the light of consciousness. The experience of those who have been recovered from drowning and from delirium suggests the idea that forgotten memories can be revived, and that probably the whole of the soul’s experience is indelibly written upon the memory. No other recording-angel may be wanted. The soul carries its own indictment in the record it bears of its own conduct. 2. This is also written on the affections. Sin begets the passion for sin. Vice springs from the heart, and it corrupts the heart. That which is first committed under the stress of temptation comes at length to be sought with the hunger of a natural appetite. III. THE RECORD OF SIN IS ON THE ALTAR OF . Judah desecrated the altar of Jehovah with idolatrous rites. We desecrate Divine things by sinful conduct. 1. We cannot leave our guilt behind us when we enter the temple of worship. If it is not repented of it will vitiate the worship. The sin of the week-day renders worthless the offerings of the Sunday. 2. Sin directly connected with religion is peculiarly wicked. The altar is defiled. Thus the offering of gifts from base motives, deceit, and unholiness in worship, stamps our sins with peculiar guilt on the altar of God. IV. THIS RECORD OF SIN IS . It is graven with an adamant. 1. It is, therefore, useless to ignorant. 2. It is vain to try to wash it away by any effort of our own. 3. It is foolish to expect peace with God till this terrible hindrance has been removed out of the way. 4. We have every motive to seek in penitence and in faith that God should blot out our sin, not only from his book of remembrance, but also from our hearts, even though it is so deeply written there that nothing short of the creation of a new heart will remove it (Psalms 51:10). Jeremiah 17:5-8 The desert shrub and the flourishing tree. I. THE DESERT SHRUB THE CURSE OF WORLDLY . 1. Note the character of worldly confidence. (1) Trust in man. There is a trust in man that is natural and right. The foolish and wrong confidence is when man takes the place of God, when the highest trust is in man, when the power of the prince, the skill of the physician, or the astuteness of the lawyer are thought to be sufficient to secure us against the greatest dangers. (2) Reliance on the arm of flesh. This illustrates the ultimate ground of such confidence as trust in man. It turns to the flesh rather than to the spirit, i.e. to worldly influences rather than to principles of truth, to the mortal rather than to the Divine, to the man who will perish rather than to the God who is eternal. (3) The departure of the heart from God. We cannot have a true confidence in God together with a supreme worldly confidence. The one excludes the other. The tree cannot be growing both in the desert and by the water-course. This departure is of the heart. In the heart we trust. Outwardly we may still seem near to God, but if faith has gone the heart has forsaken God. 2. Consider the curse of this worldly confidence. It makes one like a desert shrub. (1) Dwarfed and stunted in growth—a shrub, not a tree—a miserable shrub of the desert. Though departure from God does not involve sudden destruction, it lowers the spiritual energies, dwarfs the whole life. (2) Not even benefited by blessings received. The shrub "shall not see when good cometh." The breath of spring, which brings fresh bloom and growth to other plants, passes over it with no more fruitful effects than the chill blasts of autumn produce. He who has departed from God and lives only in worldly confidence derives no real benefit from the blessings that God still sends him. (3) Suffering from lack of the chief good. The shrub is in a parched land, is withered for lack of water (see Jeremiah 2:13). (4) Lonely. "In a salt land and not inhabited." The soul that is separated from God is essentially solitary, deserted, destitute though immersed in the tumult of worldly society. II. THE TREE THE OF TRUST IN GOD. 1. Note the character of trust in God. (1) It is intelligent. It is trust in God revealed as Jehovah, as supreme, self-existent, eternal, known in the past for merciful helpfulness. (2) It is whole-hearted. It is a simple trust in God, not divided by partial worldly confidence. (3) It is hopeful. "Whose hope the Lord is." The strongest faith rises into hope. 2. Consider the blessedness of this trust in God. (1) Full and flourishing life—a tree, not a shrub. He who trusts in God is not only endowed with external blessings, he is enlarged and developed in his own life. (2) Nourished and refreshed. The tree is planted by the waters, etc. Trust is God brings and plants us near to the "river of life." (3) Secured against trouble. "And shall not see when heat cometh," etc. While the shrub derives no benefit from the most favorable weather, the tree planted by the water does not suffer from the most trying. Trust in God does not prevent the approach of trouble, but it fortifies us against suffering real harm from it. Hidden sources supply the Christian with spiritual nourishment when outwardly the heavens are as brass and the earth as iron. (4) Perpetual fruitfulness. "Neither shall cease from yielding fruit." Fruitfulness is a sign of health, perpetual fruitfulness of unbroken health. Fruitfulness is a blessing. The Christian is most blessed in being able to work for good, and to distribute blessings to others as the chief glory of the tree is its fruit-bearing. The evil heart searched and judged. I. THE EVIL OF THE HEART. 1. The most important question concerning a man is as to the state of his heart—his thoughts, affections, intentions. In the heart we find the true man. The outer life is but the clothing and may be the mask of the man. From the heart spring all the actions of life. The character of the fountain determines that of the stream (Matthew 15:18, Matthew 15:19). 2. The root of the evil of the heart is self-will. It is rugged above all things, proud, not compliant with God’s will, wrapped up in self. 3. The character of the evil of the heart is desperate sickness. (1) Sickness, for sin is a disease of the soul, though one for which we are responsible, and it results in suffering, general derangement of life, and finally death; (2) desperate sickness, for sin is no simple scratch on the skin of life, no mere temporary functional disorder, but heart-disease, an organic constitutional disease, terrible in its present condition, alarming in its future prospects. 4. The evil of the heart is inscrutable to man. "Who can know it?" This is the case, (1) because we cannot read the hearts of our fellow-men, but only judge from external conduct, which is often deceptive; (2) because we are blinded to our own sin by pride, prejudice, and self-admiration; (3) because there is an intricacy and subtlety about all wickedness which makes it difficult to trace it out, a shamefacedness that seeks concealment, and an essential falseness that belies its own nature; and (4) because the disease has made so great progress, has penetrated so deeply, ramified so far, and infected every function of the soul so completely, that it is beyond all measure. II. THE DIVINE SEARCH AND . The heart is difficult to understand, but God thoroughly searches it. "Who can know it?" "I the Lord." 1. God searches and tries, (1) by his own silent, all-penetrating gaze that detects the darkest secrets; and (2) by the outward action of providence in events which test a man’s nature and reveal it to the world, for the judgment of God is ultimately open and with a fair trial, that all may see and acquiesce in the righteousness of the sentence. 2. God knows the heart. The search is effectual. The trial is fruitful. God knows us, while the world is deceived. How foolish, then, to play the hypocrite! For it matters little what men think of us, but God’s thoughts concerning us are of infinite moment. God will judge justly and reasonably, for he knows all. 3. God will administer judgment according to the character of men’s actions revealed by his searching and trying. God’s knowledge is followed by his action. He is not simply a great contemplative Being. He has an arm to make bare for action as well as eyes to see the evil and the good. Judgment will be for our actions, but according as these are read in the light of the state of our heart. God searches and gives to men according to their ways. This judgment is universal—"to every man," discriminating—to each "according to his ways," and natural—"according to the fruit of his doings, according to their natural products, each in its own kind, so that men shall reap what they sow as by a law of nature. Partridge-nests. I. ILL-GOTTEN RICHES BETOKEN AN Of SOCIETY. It is not natural that strange eggs should be found in a partridge-nest. Violence and fraud and more subtle sharp-practice are proofs of a disorganized state of society. II. ILL-GOTTEN RICHES MAY BE MINGLED WITH JUST GAINS. It may not be that all the eggs are strange. The business man who is dishonest in some transactions may be honest in others; but his very correctness may be only a cloak for his fraud. III. ILL-GOTTEN RICHES MAY PROSPER FOR A TIME. The eggs are hatched. Schemes of fraud succeed. The wicked prosper. IV. ILL-GOTTEN RICHES WILL BE LOST. How often does the ablest device of dishonesty fail of ultimate success! The swindler is taken at the height of his prosperity. If he is not discovered he cannot take his wealth with him when he dies. V. ILL-GOTTEN RICHES LEAVE THE OF THEM OF FOLLY. He thinks himself supremely clever, and smiles with contempt on his credulous victims. But he is really the greatest dupe of his own devices, since in the end all his labor is wasted and his ultimate condition ruinous (Luke 12:20, Luke 12:21). "Honesty is the best policy" in the long run, though, as has been shrewdly observed, no man is truly honest who only acts on this maxim. Jeremiah 17:12-14 The Hope of Israel. I. THE OF THE HOPE OF ISRAEL. 1. God is revealed as the Hope of his people; i.e. as the source (1) of their highest good—a "fear" at first (Genesis 31:42), but when better known a "hope;" (2) of a good not yet attained—a hope, not a full fruition; but (3) of a good assured for the future—a true hope resting on good promises, not a vain dream. 2. God is thus revealed in connection with the sanctuary, (1) because the worship of God enlarges the knowledge of God; (2) because the sanctuary is the center of religious instruction, either by symbolic service as that of the temple, or by direct teaching as that of the Christian Churches. God must be known to be loved and trusted. They who neglect the duty of public worship lose the privilege of receiving light on Divine truth which would be a comfort and help to them. 3. Experience confirms this revelation of God. The glorious character of God has been true of him "from the beginning." The antiquity of the temple was the proof of this to the Jew, the history of Christendom should be more so to the Christian. II. THE FOLLY OF THE HOPE OF ISRAEL. 1. It is foolish to forsake God. We know that it is wrong; we have to learn that it is also injurious to ourselves. The character of God should make this apparent. Such a character as has been above ascribed to him shows that he is "the Fountain of living waters," i.e. the one Source of pure, life-giving energy. Though no true roll on can be founded on low motives of self-interest, self-interest should at least show us the mistake of irreligion. 2. The results of forsaking God are shame and destruction: (1) shame, because the stay of confidence which was chosen in preference to God is seen at last to be a rotten reed, while God is manifested as worthy of all trust; and (2) destruction, for "they shall be written in the earth;" sin is graven as with a pen of iron upon a rock, but the life of the sinner is written in dust, to be dissipated and forgotten, a wasted career, with nothing solid and lasting about it. III. THE PRAYER OF IN THE HOPE OF ISRAEL. (Jeremiah 17:14.) 1. A prayer for healing. Though we hope in God we may suffer at present. We need not so much improved circumstances as a bettering of the condition of our own souls—not so much wealth as health. 2. A prayer for salvation. The prophet feels himself in danger. Dangers of various kinds wait on all of us. Salvation is a large word, meaning deliverance from all real harm. It is a large thing to ask for, but not too much for faith. 3. A prayer of assurance—"I shall be healed." What God does he does effectually. 4. A prayer of humble thankfulness—"For thou art my Praise." True faith rests, not on our merits, but on God’s mercy, and therefore all prayer should confess his goodness and all supplication be mingled with thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6). The Sabbath. As Gentiles we were never under the special regulations of the Jewish Law, and as Christians we are free from all formal laws of "ordinances," and called to free spiritual obedience. Like St. Paul, we may be able to see that no one day is more sacred than other days (Romans 14:5); and if we are unable to go so far as this, we must admit that there is, in the New Testament, no direct command to Christians to observe the first day of the week just as the Jews observed the seventh. Still, to him who is in sympathy with the thoughts of God and desires to do the will of God rather than to seize excuses for liberty only to exercise his own serf-will, there is much in the Old Testament Sabbath requirements which must command the reverence of his conscience as springing out of Eternal Divine counsels, and representing what is inherently good and profitable. I. IN WHAT THE OF THE SABBATH . 1. Rest. "Bear no burden." Work is holy, but so also is rest, and if work usurp the place of rest it becomes unholy, as anything does which is in the wrong place. Men bear burdens on their minds. If the shop is shut but the mind of the tradesman continues devoted to business cares on the Sunday, he is making no more Sabbath of the day than if he were openly buying and selling. The rest needed for refreshment is rest from the toils and anxieties of the mind, quite as much as a cessation of manual labor. 2. Hallowing the day. The Jew treated the Sabbath day as essentially holy. We may have freer notions. But we, too, can hallow the day if we devote it to sacred uses. We should remember that it is not the day that hallows the conduct, but the conduct that hallows the day. Sacred days, like sacred places, are not endowed with a mystical consecration, which transfers its grace to whatever is done in them, but they are simply made sacred by the acts of goodness to which they are devoted. 3. Personal care to observe the rest and sanctity of the day. "Take heed in your souls;" "diligently hearken." The observance of the Sabbath was to the Jew a duty to be personally regarded and conscientiously executed. If we feel any corresponding duty, the example of the more lax conduct of others should not affect us, nor should we be content with the outward decorum which satisfies the world. II. THE TO KEEP THE SABBATH. 1. The Sabbath was instituted by the command of God. It was required by one of the ten commandments, and thus exalted to a position of peculiar sanctity. To the Jew who felt that this law of God was binding on him, the duty of implicit obedience was imperative. When once we know God’s will no valid excuse can be found for neglecting it. Though the letter of the Mosaic Law was limited and temporal, the spirit of its obligations is eternal, since they spring from the changeless character of God. It is for us to discover the eternal Divine principle which led to the institution of the Sabbath, and see that this is obeyed. 2. It corresponded to the constitution of nature. Changes in nature are recurrent. Rest and labor alternate in the physical world. 3. It was designed to benefit men. (Mark 2:27.) The wealthy might not have felt the requirement, but the burden-bearers and hand-laborers did, and must have enjoyed the repose it afforded them. Do we need this? If in quieter times such a rest was necessary, is it needless in the rush and roar of our wearing modern life? If seasons set apart for religious observances were ever profitable, are they useless amid the pressing claims and innumerable distractions of the age we live in? III. THE OF THE SABBATH. The Jews had premises of blessing to the court, the city, the country, and the Church (see Matthew Henry, in loc.). 1. This might be expected as the reward of obedience. It is always blessed to do the will of God, though the first doing of it is often painful. 2. This might also be expected, because the Sabbath was made for man. It was a beneficent institution. It is found by experience that the observance of a weekly day of rest is conducive to the prosperity of a people. 3. Accordingly, the neglect of the Sabbath might be expected to bring disaster (Jeremiah 17:27). This was the case with the Jew, not because of the inherent sanctity of the day or of the essential immorality of working on it, but because the breach of the Sabbath was a breach of the Law, an act of overt rebellion against God. If we disobey what we believe to be the will of God, this must be to our own hurt. 4. The blessedness of the observance of the Jewish Sabbath teaches us all to avoid treating the day of rest as a gloomy day, and making children and dependants dislike it on account of the formalism or harshness of our behavior. The day of rest should be the brightest day of the week. To the Christian, Sunday is "the Lord’s day," the day of Easter gladness, commemorating the joy of the Resurrection. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 17:1, Jeremiah 17:2 Sin’s record. I. THE RECORD IS . This is contrary to the notions of very many. Sin, when it is committed, wears the aspect of insignificance and triflingness. It is the gratification of a momentary impulse, of a personal and individual character; and it is not supposed that any one else, or at any rate any large number of persons, can be affected by it. The sinner supposes that he himself will be able to condone it, and that, when the active prompting of which he is conscious retires into the background, he will be as he was before. All sins, e.g. idolatry, which deeply engage the affections and the highest capacities of men, have a lasting influence upon their character. And when they are systematized into a religion they exert a daily influence which at last fixes itself. But the same is true, in a very serious degree, with all sins. They are contradictions of conscience and the Law of God, and can only be repeated without scruple by inverting and hardening the moral nature. In this sense we are all guilty before God. Our every sin has had its influence upon us, and has left its indelible impress. Conscience stores the guilty memory in its archives; habit perpetuates the evil impulse in conduct; and our relations and associations are involved in the wicked practices which ensue. II. HOW USELESS, , TO ! This arrangement, by which sin leaves its impress upon the character and life, is of God. It is a law of nature, and cannot be set aside by private understanding. Even where it appears to be inoperative, its effects are only accumulating themselves in a more hidden manner, and some day they will be the more overwhelming in their manifestation. It is the common question of the sinner, when addressed by the ministers of God, "Wherein have we sinned?" But this only shows a dullness of spiritual self-knowledge and a general lowering of the moral standard. Others are not so oblivious to the fact. They have witnessed the excesses and been involved in the complications of their immorality. In this case the children whose companions had been sacrificed to Moloch looked on the horns of the altars with aversion and loathing. It was a memory of horrid cruelty never to be effaced. There is every reason to believe that the sin we commit does not cease its work when its immediate outward effects take place. An ever deepening and widening circle of influence results. And, just as now it is impossible for us to plead innocence with so many proofs of our guilt staring us in the face, in the great day of judgment the secret sins will be set in the light of God’s countenance, and the thoughts and intents of the heart revealed. Our character will be our condemnation, and many witnesses will rise on every side to swell its testimony. III. HOW , TOO, THAT THE OF SHOULD BE RADICAL AND . The sinner needs a saving power that can penetrate to his inmost nature, cleansing the conscience, rectifying the character, and making the weaknesses and defects created by sin a means of grace. And this is supplied by the gospel, which furnishes a new motive and principle to the character and a new law to the conduct. So profound is its effect that it may be said by the saved sinner, "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new," It is as a character-power that the "cross" asserts its preeminence over every other principle of reformation. There is nothing superficial, partial, or one-sided about it.—M. Heart mysteries and their Interpreter. The repudiation of his charges by Judah and Jerusalem leads the prophet to advert to the causes of this behavior. They not only declare their innocence when guilty, but pursue after unholy aims on the plea of serving God. How are such ignorance and infatuation produced? The reply is that the natural heart is deceitful and corrupt above everything else. I. THE MYSTERY OF THE HEART. 1. It is a "mystery of iniquity." The heart is affected by what it contains. It is itself the greatest dupe and sufferer. And, being so inextricably bound up with evil, it is involved in its danger and judgment. 2. Exceeding human diagnosis. No one is so ignorant of his own depravity as the sinner himself; and no earthly eye can read the true significance of the symptoms. 3. Preeminent in this respect. It is the source of it all The master is greater than his work. The center contains all the threads of connection. II. ITS . 1. Jehovah. Because (1) he made it; (2) he is related to it in its constitution and conscience; (3) "All things are naked and laid open before the eyes of him with whom we have to do." 2. This qualifies and authorizes him to judge. It is not his only qualification, nor is that the sole reason for his knowledge. But it is obvious that, as knowing man so intimately, he also is able to judge of his state. And he alone has the standard of perfect righteousness.—M. The saint’s Refuge. The construction Of the clauses of the twelfth verse is very difficult, and it is not easy to determine their exact relations. It may be better to take them as simple and independent exclamations, united in their being addressed to a common object rather than by any grammatical nexus: "O throne of glory, height from the beginning, place of our sanctuary!" But, taken by itself, this would have no particular sense. It is only as a preface to Jeremiah 17:13 that we can thoroughly understand its bearing. Jeremiah, full of anxiety and distress at the general depravity, looks instinctively upon Jerusalem, and reflects that only through that which it represents can the future of Israel be secured. There is a gradually ascending climax of spiritual reference, culminating in the words, "Hope of Israel, Jehovah." I. THE SAYING POWER OF THE HOLY CITY IS DERIVED FROM HIM OF WHOM IT IS THE SHRINE. It is obvious that the descriptions of Jerusalem are all relative to this, which gathers up and concentrates everything in a person. The series of epithets of verses 12 and 13 are cumulative, and express a gradually deepening spiritual insight. Through the material the prophet looks until his eye rests upon the spiritual. God is the center of attraction and the Savior of the worshipping soul. Everything in the ritual and teaching of the temple pointed to him. The glory of the temple was his. It was only as he condescended to use it that men could find therein the spiritual rest and safety they needed. And the same is true of the Church of Christ. It is not the institution which saves, but Christ working in and through it. There is danger of this being overlooked by non-spiritual men. Association connects the grace of salvation with the means or instrumentality, and ignores the original source. It is the virtue of the prophet’s insight that it penetrates the veil of rites and ordinances, and fastens itself upon God as the only saving power. 1. Spiritual men should examine themselves and see whether they rest upon this true spiritual foundation. The process of the prophet’s mind is one through which all true saints have to go. In many instances there will not be the eagle-like directness and happy immediacy of his discovery. There may be clouds and difficulties. But no true satisfaction can be attained until he be discovered and rested in. We are all prone to stay ourselves upon prescription, antiquity, authority, that are merely human. The doctrine, the rite, the priesthood, may intervene, not to unite, but to separate. 2. It behooves those who call themselves by God’s name to exalt and honor him. If there is danger of his being ignored or pushed into the background, the more need is there of a bold and frequent assertion of his power and grace. 3. It is only by a living, experimental, practical faith that this connection with God can be sustained. The sorrow and trouble of Jeremiah drive him inwards for comfort. His meditation was like a voyage of the soul through the straits and shallows of ceremonialism into the great ocean of the personal presence and love of God. II. THE CLAIM OF GOD’S CITY TO THE REGARD OF MEN. Jerusalem, as the seat of the theocracy, was: 1. The seat of authority and splendor. The power of Israel amongst and against the nations consisted in the spiritual influence emanating from Jerusalem and its temple. The house of God, as the center of all rule and influence, is a throne. It is its own protection, and its authority is self-sustained and self-commended. It is a refuge for the oppressed and a place of justice for the wronged. "Go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks;’ for this city is our city, and "this God is our God forever and ever." "Because thou hast made the Almighty … thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." And this power to enforce its mandates and its authority brought with it the glory of security, honor, and respect. Its whole history had been one of growing luster and renown, and its influence had ever "made for righteousness." The saved sinner breathed freely within its precincts, and the victories of Divine love were celebrated within its courts. Those who believe in Christ constitute a Church which is his abode and "the praise of his glory." The distinction and eternal glory of God is that he is "just, and yet the Justifier of the ungodly." 2. It is chosen from eternity. Although only for a few centuries the actual center of Divine rule in the earth, it was not by accident it had become so. From the beginning it was foreseen in God’s thought: "It was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the world was." This was a conviction deeply fixed in the hearts of all true Israelites. The eternal purpose of God had not only determined upon Jerusalem as his dwelling-place, but, through Jerusalem, that purpose was being carried out in the redemption of mankind. And the Church of Christ must be regarded in like manner as the abode of God’s Spirit, chosen from eternity. It is a new dignity for the saints that they had been set apart for this long ere sin had desolated the world. It links the Church with celestial and eternal institutions, and precludes the possibility of its ever having originated in accident or human contrivance.—M. Divine prophecy and human impatience. I. THE CREDIT OF THE PROPHET IS BOUND UP WITH HIS MESSAGE. He is conscious that this is the case. It is the test laid down by the Law (Deuteronomy 18:21, Deuteronomy 18:22), and that it should be so is beneficial. This is the universal law for all who declare the will of God. It is tried by human experience, by spiritual results. The prophet is expected to "heal." II. MEN TRY HIM BY A SPEEDY . Just as in nature men, as Bacon says, would anticipate, so in grace. There is a lack of patience, or impatience is made a mask for unbelief. In either sign it is a lack of faith. So men manufacture tests for prayer, for reality of conscience. III. HE FINDS REFUGE AND COMFORT. 1. In the answer of a good conscience toward God. It was not idleness, love of filthy lucre, or eagerness for pre-eminence that led him to the work, but a consciousness that he was speaking God’s own word, no man’s fancy or device. 2. In earnest prayer that God will make good his word. There are elements in this prayer from which we shrink. But should we? The fulfilling of evil prophecy may sometimes be a national benefit. 3. In the unshaken faith that what God willeth will be. He appears to be sore distressed. Perhaps personal perplexity enters into his grief. But there is no sign of lack of faith in its ultimate fulfillment. What a support is that to him who foretells or does the will of God! "In due season we shall reap if we faint not." "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away."—M. The Sabbath and its obligation. I. IT WAS OF . The prophet was to stand in "the gate of the children of the people" and "all the gates" to proclaim its sanctity. The laity and the priests, the princes and the people, were all bound to observe it, as one of the patriarchal and Mosaic institutions. It is expressly enjoined in one of the "ten words," and without reservation of any class. II. HOW IT SHOULD BE . 1. By rest. Labor was to cease as far as practicable. The body was to be set at liberty from its burden. Traffic was to cease. The constant stream which flowed out and in the gates of the temple might still go on, but for a different purpose. Care and worry were to be laid aside. The mind was to abstain from business. 2. By religious exercises. (Jeremiah 17:26.) It is worthy of remark that this portion of the command is not spoken of as a binding duty like the other, or a merely negative one. It is referred to as part of the blessing that would ensue on thorough Sabbath observances; that they should have sacrifices to give, and be willing and eager to offer them. With the cessation of secular traffic the religious instincts of the people would recover themselves, and their natural channel would be filled. The true rest of man consists, not in mere abstinence from labor, but in the free play of his higher faculties—a change of occupation and interest. And the real wealth and success of man will show itself in his religious gifts. They are poor who have nothing to spare for God. Their conception of life is such that the true riches exist not for them, however they may have succeeded in accumulating material resources. The chief end of man is thus to be secured in the increase of Divine service and the hearty dedication of himself and his substance to Jehovah. III. THE THAT WOULD ATTEND UPON SABBATH . 1. National perpetuity. Jerusalem, the center of the theocracy, should remain forever. This indicates the essential and fundamental position occupied by the Sabbath amongst Mosaic institutions. It was in this way that the idea and authority of Jehovah were to be impressed upon the heart of Israel But to the preservation of this primitive revelation was due the strength of Israel within herself and against the heathen. 2. National prosperity. It is a goodly spectacle that is presented in this promise. There is no lack of gifts nor of willingness to give. Only a time of profound peace and of abounding harvests could furnish such a demonstration. 3. National unity. Jerusalem is the convergent point of many pilgrim trains: "from the places about … from the land of Benjamin, and from the plain, and from the mountains, and from the south." In this way the brotherhood and the solidarity of the people would be sealed. 4. National piety. This is the natural outcome even of rudimental religious observances. It is the tendency of true religion to increase upon itself. It cannot remain stationary. Therefore this outburst of enthusiasm and Divine service. IV. HOW IT IS IN TIMES. So far as it was a physical requirement for the health and efficiency of man, it must still be observed. This is a question for comparative physiology. But the essence of the Sabbath is rather in its religious observance. What becomes of that? The spirit of it is still preserved in the Lord’s day, although under new associations and under other obligations.—M. BY S. CONWAY The sin of Judah. That which the prophet has to say concerning it in this part of his prophecy is in answer to the question of Jer 16:10, Jeremiah 16:11, where Judah inquires what their sin is. In reply, the prophet— I. RECITES THEIR . (Jeremiah 16:11, Jeremiah 16:12.) II. GOD’S . (Jeremiah 16:13-18.) III. CITES AGAINST THEM.—C. Jeremiah 17:12 The place of our sanctuary. Some four hundred years had passed between the date of these words and the marriage of Solomon with the daughter of the Egyptian king. But that remote event, fruitful of consequences as it was at the time, was fruitful also in results for generation after generation in the centuries to come. And it is to one of those results that this verse has reference, or rather was occasioned by it. Forever since that marriage there had been an Egyptian party in the court of Judah, which sought to sway the affairs of Judah in harmony with those of Egypt. On the other hand, there were the representatives of another near and mighty monarchy which sought to render Judah subservient to their interests. This was the Assyrian power. There was consequently a perpetual tendency on the part of Judah, when trouble came, to make alliance with one party or another. Now the Egyptian alliance was preferred, and now the Assyrian—Isaiah 30:1-33. and the history of the reign of Josiah and his death are instances in proof. But the prophets of God were ever against these alliances, and lifted up their voices, though in vain, in protest. These verses, 5-12, are one of those despised utterances, denouncing the false trust and exhorting to the true. This twelfth verse— I. SPEARS OF THE TEMPLE AT . 1. For that temple has a throne. It was the earthly throne of God. There was the mercy-seat and the cherubim bowing in profound homage over it, and between them was the visible presence of the glory of God, that Shechinah, that wondrous appearance so bright and awful that but one out of all Israel, and he only once a year, could look thereupon and live. "In Salem was his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Zion." 2. And it was a glorious throne. By reason of its external magnificence; but more especially of the glorious manifestations of God which had been seen in connection with it. 3. And a high as well as a glorious throne. Not only because Jerusalem was a mountain-city, the loftiest in the world, so high and lifted up was the "mountain of the Lord’s house," but also because of the spiritual glory—so far excelling all other—which belonged to it. The ancient psalmists and prophets were never tired of declaring and demonstrating how the Lord was "King above all gods." 4. Venerable also: "from the beginning," from the first days of their national life, God had chosen a place for his Name—beneath the rugged cliffs of Sinai then, and now in the magnificent temple, the place of their sanctuary. But— II. IS TO SUMMON GOD’S PEOPLE TO TRUST IN HIM. 1. For to assert that the place of their sanctuary was a "throne," was to assert that Jehovah was a King. Kings occupy thrones. The sovereignty of God is declared by the prophet’s words. And what a King! How glorious, let all the records of their race declare. How preeminent over all the gods of the nations, let the gods of Egypt, of Philistia, of Tyre, and others confess. And he was the eternal God. "From the beginning" his rule and majesty had been confessed. But the prophet reminds his countrymen of all this that they might see and own the folly of trusting in gods of the heathen as they were so prone to do. 2. And he reminds them of the nearness of God. For the place of their sanctuary was his court, his throne, his abode. Therefore to forsake such a God, and one so near, for idol-gods, and they afar off,—what folly, what ingratitude, what sin that! But the same memory cherished concerning God, his glorious sovereignty, his all-superintending power and his nearness to us,—how would this strengthen and cheer our hearts oftentimes! Our sins and sorrows, our faint-heartedness, our fears and dismay, are all largely owing to our forgetfulness of that glorious and precious truth which the prophet here declares. And— III. MAY BE TAKEN AS A SETTING FORTH OF WHAT OUR SHOULD BE. 1. For God should rule in them. A Christian Church, whether we speak of the fabric or the people, should be a throne of God. His Law supreme, his will the rule confessed of all. Human governance in any shape or form which will infringe on the Divine authority, is forbidden. Christ is the Head of the Church, and the "crown rights of the Redeemer" should be jealously maintained. "Let Caesar’s dues be ever paid To Caesar and his throne, But consciences and souls were made To be the Lord’s alone." 2. And if our churches be the Lord’s throne, he will make it "a glorious high throne." We should try to make our church buildings glorious outwardly, so far as we may, coveting what is splendid, majestic, beautiful, in architecture, music, adornment, to lay as a tribute at our Sovereign’s feet. Where, consistently with other claims, this may be done, it should be. But he himself will make our Churches his "glorious high throne,’: by coming into their midst. On how many a Sunday his people have known that he has been with them! "The King himself comes near And feasts his saints today." And by asserting his power over men’s hearts. This is his most glorious power—to sway the spirit, to lead the will, to bend the heart. And this, by his Spirit in connection with the proclamation of the Word of his grace, he will do, and so the Church will become "a glorious high throne" of the Lord. 3. And because of "the communion of saints," and the consequent union of the Church of today with the Church of all the ages past, therefore the Church is God’s throne which has been "from the beginning." The Church of today is in the honored succession of the Church of the first days, through its long line of patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, saints, and thus may claim to have been the "glorious high throne of the Lord from the beginning." Let us cherish and seek to hand on this succession, and thus justify our claim to the august title con-rained in these words. But most of all these words— IV. REMIND US OF CHRIST AND HIS CROSS, THE TRUE OF SOULS. The cross of the Lord Jesus Christ—type of all ignominy and shame, though it was—has become the Lord’s "glorious high throne." From it and by it he has wielded a sovereignty so glorious, so wide, so holy, so enduring, that, far more than the mercy-seat, its ancient symbol, it deserves thus to be described. Whether we consider the number of his subjects, their character, the means by which his rule over them has been won and is sustained, or the nature of his rule,—all justify the ascription to his cross and to him the supreme reference of these words. Let each one ask in conclusion—Is the cross of Christ the place of our sanctuary, the place where we worship, the beloved retreat of our souls? God grant it may be!—C. Be not a terror unto me. It is a common observation how all things are affected by the medium through which we view them. This is true in regard to the natural vision, but yet more true in regard to that which is mental and spiritual. Thus God, whom the prophet speaks of (Jeremiah 17:13) as "the Hope of Israel," the "Fountain of living waters," and as the alone true Healer, he now prays not to be "a terror" unto him. I. GOD IS SO TO THE UNGODLY. All his attributes are terrible to them. His holiness, for it condemns their sin. His justice, for it demands their punishment. His power, for it reveals the means whereby he can requite them. His love, for it makes their sin without excuse. His wisdom, for it renders them unable to deceive him. Hence it is that of the wicked it is said, "God is not in all his thoughts." They like not to retain God in their knowledge. To think steadily of them must be a terror to their souls. But— II. HE SEEMS SO AT TIMES EVEN TO THE GODLY, God is to them what in their happier moments they delight to call him—their Father, their Redeemer, their Strength, their Refuge (cf. Jeremiah 16:19). But at times he seems to be "a terror" unto them. The causes of this are sometimes: 1. Morbid state of health. 2. Lack of submission to the Divine will. 3. Backsliding. 4. False theological teaching. 5. Dwelling too much on the darker and more mysterious aspects of the Divine providence. 6. Depression of spirits. 7. Prolonged affliction. III. BUT TRUER AND OF GOD MAY BE . Various means may be suggested. 1. Dwelling resolutely on the mercies and loving-kindnesses of God. This is why St. Paul bids the "careful," those weighed down with care, to make known their requests to God, not only "by prayer and supplication," but "with thanksgiving" also. And elsewhere he bids us "in everything give thanks." For this compels us to, go over in our minds the happier circumstances of our lot, and when we do this we shall find- "Our cheerful cry will oftener be, ’See what the Lord hath done for me.’" 2. And, as the words of St. Paul teach, "prayer" will help us. We "Kneel and cast our load, E’en while we pray, upon our God, Then rise with lightened cheer." The public worship of God in his sanctuary, in union with his people,—how often, like Hannah, the soul has come to God’s house burdened but gone away "lightened!" 3. And "supplication." This tells of the more private, personal outpourings of the soul before God. Like the supplication in Gethsemane compared with the prayer—the Lord’s Prayer—given for the common united use of his people. Here, too, vast relief is found, and the cloud clears away between us and God, and his face shines upon us once more. 4. Careful conscientious obedience and perseverance therein. 5. Seeking to comfort others. We learn in teaching, and this is true of the love of God as well as of other truths. 6. Coming again to the cross of Christ as having nothing, but looking for all in him.—C. Sabbath sanctification. I. IN WHAT IT . Not in the mere Judaic strictness of the Old Testament Law, or of that set forth in these verses. All that might be, and yet in its true sense the Sabbath be flagrantly violated and its purpose destroyed. But in: 1. Rest. This to be both of body and mind. The student may no more pursue his studies than the laborer his toil. Rest both of body and mind from their ordinary pursuits; rest, not mere slothfulness, but such as will recreate the exhausted limbs or brain. 2. Worship. Not that it is to absolve other days from worship or to sanction their unhallowed use, but to lead to the more religious regard of all our days, the one day in seven is specially set apart. 3. Charity. In works of mercy and love to our fellow-men. Proclaiming the gospel, teaching the young, visiting the sick, relieving the poor. II. IT IS OF DIVINE COMMAND. It is coeval with the creation of man (Genesis 1:31; Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11). And its embodiment in the moral Law seems to denote its permanence and abiding obligation. III. ITS TO THE FIRST DAY OF THE WEEK DOES NOT ALTER ITS . Our Lord taught us "the Sabbath was made for man," and therefore, though for various reasons its observance was in substance transferred from the seventh day to the first, yet, because the need is permanent, the obligation is likewise. IV. ALL GOD’S LAWS—AS WELL AS HIS WRITTEN LAW— IT. Those that are: 1. Physical. The body requires it, is blessed by it, harmed if deprived of it. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ This chapter is the introduction of a group of prophecies (extending to Jeremiah 25:1-38.) of various dates; their sequence has evidently not been determined by chronological considerations. The prophet’s first object is, perhaps, to refute the scoffing inquiry (Jeremiah 17:15), "What has become of the [threatening] word of Jehovah?" and to justify the glorious premise given at the conclusion of the last chapter. The fulfillment of threatenings and promises alike is conditioned by the moral attitude of the people (comp. Ezekiel 33:11). God, as it were, holds them in either hand, and there is still time (contrast Jeremiah 16:21) to choose the sweet and reject the bitter by sincerely turning to their true Friend. Unhappily the people misuses its day of grace, and, instead of listening to God’s messenger, seeks to rid itself of him by persecution. Upon this, Jeremiah falls again into the tone of bitter complaint, and, so far from interceding for his people, does the very opposite; on which painful and mysterious phenomenon, see remarks in general Introduction. Jeremiah 18:1-6 The simple and familiar craft of the potter becomes a parable of religious truth (comp. Isaiah 29:16; Isaiah 45:9; Isaiah 64:8; Ecclesiasticus 33:13; Romans 9:20; and the account of man’s creation in Genesis 2:7, which has doubtless given rise to the figure). God has the sovereign right to do as he wills with his own handiwork; thus much can be expressed by the figure. But the moral element in Jeremiah’s teaching stands outside this, viz. that the Divine action is governed, not by mere caprice, but a regard for character. "The thought is not so much the arbitrariness as the patience of God, who will bring men to be what he would have them be in the end, as the potter eventually twists the clay to the shape he originally intended, stubborn as the clay may be." But whether Jeremiah meant the lesson which Mr. Maurice deduces from his words may be gravely doubted. It is not of individuals that the prophet is thinking, but of the nation, and not of the nation as destined to be all but certainly saved, but as placed before a serious and awful decision. (For different lessons derived from the same figure, see the ’ Rabbi Ben Ezra’ of Browning.) Egypt and Palestine were, as it seems, at one in the extreme simplicity of the potter’s art. Dr. Birch has given us an account of the Egyptian potter at his work, as he appears in the pictorial representations at Beni Hassan, and Dr. Thomson has described the procedure of a potter in modern Palestine. The chief difference between them seems to be that in Egypt the wheel was turned with the left hand, and the vase shaped with the right, while in modern Palestine the wheel is turned with the fool "Taking a lump in his hand," says Dr. Thomson, "he placed it on the top of the wheel (which revolves horizontally), and smoothed it into a low cone, like the upper end of a sugar-loaf; then thrusting his thumb into the top of it, he opened a hole down through the center, and this he constantly widened by pressing the edges of the revolving cone between his hands. As it enlarged and became thinner, he gave it whatever shape he pleased with the utmost ease and expedition." It should be observed that in verse 3 the "wheels," or rather "two wheels," spoken of are simply the two round plates which formed the horizontal lathe of the potter. Jeremiah 18:4 And the vessel that he made, etc.; rather, And whensoever the vessel … was marred in the hand of the potter, he made it again another vessel Jeremiah 18:7, Jeremiah 18:8 At what instant, etc.; rather, One instant I may speak … but if that nation, against which 1 have spoken, turn from their evil, I repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them. A similar rendering for the next verse. Jeremiah 18:12 And they said; rather, But they go on saying (comp. Ezekiel 33:17, Ezekiel 33:20). There is no hope. The rendering may be easily misunderstood. The speakers are not, as we might suppose, despondent about their state and prospects, but they seek to check the troublesome preacher by the warning that he has no chance of success (so Jeremiah 2:25). Imagination; rather, stubbornness (as constantly). Jeremiah 18:14 Will a man leave the anew of Lebanon, etc.? This passage is unusually obscure. Literally we must, it would seem, render, Doth the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field (or possibly, cease to flow from the rock unto the field)? This is explained as pointing a contrast to the infidelity of God’s people. "The snow never leaves the summit of Lebanon; the waters which take their rise therein never dry up; but my people have forgotten the law of their being, the source of their prosperity." The rendering of the first clause is, however, grammatically dubious (there is no example of this construction of ‛āzabh), and all the old versions point to (or at least favor) a reading, Shaddai (the Almighty) instead of sadai (the field). If we keep the text, we must explain "the rock of the field" on the analogy of "my mountain in the field" (Jeremiah 17:3), as meaning "the rock which commands a wide prospect over the open lowland country," i.e. Mount Lebanon. The cold flowing waters; i.e. the numerous "streams from Lebanon," referred to in Son 4:15. That come from another place; i.e. whoso sources are foreign. But as this does not suit the connection, it is better to take the Hebrew word (zārı̄m), usually rendered "foreign," in the sense of "pressing or hurrying along," with Ewald, Graf, and virtually Henderson. It thus becomes descriptive of these streams "as contracted within narrow channels while descending through the gorges and defiles of the rocks." Camp. "like an oppressing stream," Isaiah 59:19 (a cognate verb). Be forsaken. The Hebrew text has "be plucked up’ (i.e. destroyed?); but as this is unsuitable, we must transpose two letters (as in not a few other cases), and render, dry up. So Gesenius, Graf, Keil, Delitzsch, and Payne Smith. Jeremiah 18:15 Because my people hath forgotten me; rather, Surely, etc.; or better still, Yet surely. It is not uncommon for a particle of asseveration to acquire a contrasting force from the context; see e.g. Jeremiah 3:20; Isaiah 53:4; and, still more completely parallel, Isaiah 2:6; Jeremiah 9:1, where Authorized Version, with substantial correctness, has "nevertheless." Israel "forgot" Jehovah (as Jeremiah 2:32); no doubt he was responsible for so doing, but still it was not "of malice preponse." To vanity; i.e. to the unreal idol-gods. And they have caused them to stumble; viz. the idol-gods; these are responsible (.for they have a real existence in the consciousness of their worshippers) for this interruption of Israel’s spiritual progress. In their ways from the ancient paths. "From," however, is interpolated by the Authorized Version; the Hebrew places "the ancient paths" in apposition to "their ways," "Stand ye in the ways," Jeremiah cried at an earlier period, "and see, and ask for the old paths, which is the good way" (Jeremiah 6:16). These "old" or "ancient" paths were ideally "their ways," the ways appointed for the Jews to walk in. To walk in paths; rather, in tracks, footpaths leading up and down and often ending in nothing; or, in other terms, in a way not cast up (Isaiah 40:3, Isaiah 40:4, gives a graphic picture of the operation of "casting up a way"). Jeremiah 18:16 The effect of this is to make the land of the transgressors an object of horror and astonishment (so render rather than desolate). Jeremiah 18:17 As with an east wind. The east was a stormy wind (Psalms 48:7; Job 27:21). I wilt show them the back; as they have done to Jehovah (Jeremiah 2:27; Jeremiah 32:33). Jeremiah 18:18-23 A fresh conspiracy (comp. Jeremiah 11:18), called forth by the preceding discourse; Jeremiah’s prayer. Jeremiah 18:18 The law—or rather, direction, instruction, which was a special function of the priests (Deuteronomy 33:10; Deuteronomy 17:9-11)—shall not perish from the priest. The Jews were but obeying the Deuteronomic Law (on which Jeremiah, as we have seen, laid so much stress) in alluding to the priests. Unhappily, the priests in Jeremiah’s time (Jeremiah 2:26), as in Isaiah’s (Isaiah 28:7), were forgetful of their high mission. Nor counsel from the wise. The wise men formed an important order in Jewish society, the importance of which in the Divine education of Israel has not been sufficiently recognized. It was their custom to sit in public places, generally in the chambered recess in the city gate, and give advice on questions of moral practice to those who applied for it. But there were wise men and wise men. Some appear, to have "mocked" at the earnest preaching of the prophets (hence the solemn rebukes in the Book of Proverbs), others to have as it were prepared the way for the latter by a more or less distinct recognition of the religious foundation of morality, and of these we have ample monuments in the canonical Proverbs. There may also have been other shades and varieties of wise men, for their characteristic was not a faculty of intuition, but rather of reflectively applying fundamental moral principles. One highly esteemed branch of "wisdom" would, of course, be political, and this would be the most liable to perversion. It is of such (Proverbs 29:14). Nor the word from the prophet. "The word" is a general term for prophesying. Of course, the speakers take no account of the advance in prophecy from the time, at any rate, of Amos. They are satisfied with the lower order of prophets; but still they are afraid of Jeremiah, much as Balak was afraid of Balaam, when that soothsayer was blessing Israel (Numbers 23:25). Smite him with the tongue; i.e. by slanderous accusations. The same figure as in Jeremiah 9:3, Jeremiah 9:8. Jeremiah 18:19, Jeremiah 18:20 Them that contend with me. Shall evil, etc.? Compare the phraseology of Psa 35:1-12 (either Jeremiah imitated this psalm or vice versa); and for another point of contact with this psalm, see on Jeremiah 23:12. They have digged a pit, etc. Comp. Psalms 57:6. To speak good for them. See Jeremiah’s intercessions in Jeremiah 14:7-9, Jeremiah 14:19-22. Jeremiah 18:21 Pour out their blood by the force, etc.; rather, spill them into the hands of, etc. (see Psalms 63:10); a phrase akin to that in Isaiah 53:12. The sword is personified. Let their men he put to death; another personification, for the Hebrew has "slain of Death"—pestilence is referred to, as Jeremiah 15:2. Jeremiah 18:23 Let them be overthrown before thee; i.e. count them as those who have been brought to ruin. This explanation seems required by the parallelism, the companion clause meaning "do not regard their sin as cancelled." The ruin may be either spiritual or temporal; the parallelism favors the former (comp. Jeremiah 18:14; Hosea 14:1-9:10, where "fall" should be "stumble"). Deal thus with them. "Thus" is interpolated by the Authorized Version; "deal" should rather be deal terribly ("deal" is constantly used in a pregnant sense; see on Jeremiah 14:7). The potter and the day. The relations of the potter to his clay afford a familiar and apt illustration of the relations between God and his human family. At first sight this illustration suggests a harsh view of providence and a hopeless prospect for human endeavor. But on closer consideration, while it teaches lessons of humility and reverent submission on our part, it also throws light on the merciful goodness of God, and encourages us both to hope and to act for that which will lead to our highest blessedness. I. MEN ARE UNDER THE POWER OF GOD, LIKE CLAY IN THE HANDS OF THE POTTER. The potter has power to leave the clay untouched or to make out of it either a vessel of honor or a vessel of dishonor, a beautiful vase or an ugly piece of crockery, a dainty cup for a prince’s banquet or a coarse culinary utensil. God has absolute power over us. He is the Almighty. No man can eventually succeed in resisting the will of God. No Divine purpose can be eternally frustrated. God has also absolute authority over us. He has the ultimate right of supreme sovereignty to do as he will with his subjects. Yet there is nothing alarming in this fact, but rather an infinite consolation. For God is not a heartless, conscienceless despot, displaying arbitrary power by mere caprice; he is holy, and exercises his sovereignty according to principles of strict justice, truth, and right. He is gracious, and rules with purposes of love for the good of his creatures. Our dependence on God is, like that of the infant on its mother, the security of our own welfare. Those horrible applications of the doctrine of Divine sovereignty which attribute to it designs that would be accounted cruel in any responsible being are blasphemous insults to the impartial justice and love of God’s character. If God’s actions are not limited by any physical compulsion or constitutional law, they are governed by his regard to eternal righteousness and by the beneficence of his nature. II. MEN CAN NO MORE ATTAIN A WORTHY END IN LIFE WITHOUT GOD THAN THE CLAY CAN BECOME A SHAPELY VESSEL WITHOUT THE POTTER. There lies the clay—a dead, heavy, amorphous mass, with no possibility of spontaneously generating forms of beauty, with no secret principle of evolution to work it into something orderly. We are as clay. Except God wrought in us and upon us, we could simply lie helpless, only to waste away with the flux of circumstances. If we are more than clay, it is because God breathes his life into us and sustains us every moment by his indwelling Spirit. If we seem to effect anything actively, it is because he first works in us both to will and to do. III. GOD HAS A PURPOSE IN EVERY LIFE AS THE POTTER HAS WITH THE CLAY. There is a meaning for the strange discipline of providence. God is shaping us into that form which he deems most fitting. Every life has not the same purpose. The potter makes vessels of innumerable shapes. Yet each life is successful as its own particular purpose is fulfilled. The homely jug may be perfect, though it is very different from the graceful vase. A life is no failure because it is lowly and put only to lowly uses so long as it attains the end for which God designed it. It is important to note that God’s first work with us is in forming our own souls aright. The first question is not as to what we do, but as to what we are. The potter is making vessels: God is making characters, souls, lives. After this we may be put to some further end—used for good after we have been made right, as the vessel is of service after the potter has done his work with it. IV. GOD SHAPES OUR LIVES BY THE OF AS THE POTTER THE CLAY UPON HIS WHEELS. The wheel of time spins fast, but not carrying us away, changing but not destroying each separate individuality. In providence there are wheels within wheels. We do not understand their meaning. The clay is pressed now below into a solid base, now above into a dainty rim, but it is difficult to see what the final outcome will be till all is finished. So our lives are pressed on one side and on another—something which in our eyes is indispensable is taken away, something which to us seems needless is added. But out of the dizzy whirl, the rush and confusion of life, God is steadily working out his purpose. V. GOD WILL HIS PURPOSE IN US, THOUGH AT FIRST IT SEEMS TO FAIL. (Jeremiah 18:4.) The clay is refractory. It must be broken up and remodeled. Man is more than clay. He has free will, mysterious as may be the connection of this with the almighty sovereignty of God. In a much more terrible way he too is refractory, willfully and stubbornly. For this he must be broken. His life must be disturbed and shaken up, but only that God may begin again to fashion him for his destined end. Great disappointments, destructive events, the failure of a man’s work, the disruption of a Church, the revolution of a nation, may seem simply disastrous. But we see how that by means of these things God, in his infinite patience and gracious perseverance, will finally effect his own great purposes, and so secure the true blessedness of his creatures. Jeremiah 18:7-10 God’s action determined by man’s conduct. These verses may be read as balancing those that precede. The illustration of the potter at his work shows us simply the Divine side of life. The following verses take us round to the human side, and the human conditions in accordance with which God exercises the rights and power of his absolute sovereignty. I. GOD HIS ACTION TO THE CONDUCT OF MAN. He does not act blindly, inconsiderately, on. general principles alone, without regard to individual cases, nor with one changeless course irrespective of the changes in the behavior of his creatures. He takes note of these changes and modifies his treatment of men by their varying requirements. 1. This fact is not derogatory to the absolute sovereignty of God. A just sovereign considers his people. God acts according to his own will; but his will, though inflexible in moral principles, varies in the choice of particular actions according as the application of those principles varies with the circumstances of the world. 2. This fact is not inconsistent with the definiteness of the purposes of God. The potter has his definite design, yet he proceeds with his work to the conclusion or breaks up the clay and begins again, according as he finds it plastic or brittle. II. A CHANGE ON MAN’S PART FROM TO WILL BE MET BY A CHANGE ON GOD’S PART FROM WRATH TO MERCY. God’s threats are conditional. Forgiveness is the result of no after-thought, of no change in the "temper" of God. It is contemplated by God from the first, and promised on condition of repentance whenever repentance is genuinely experienced. Therefore there is every encouragement to repentance and hope. The darkest denunciations of judgment refer only to the impenitent. It is not too late to expect the forgiving mercy of God, so long as it is not too late for us to repent. This is reasonable, since the end of punishment is not vindictive but remedial. The mere paying of a penalty is of no good in itself. It might please a vain and vengeful despot, but not a merciful father. If the restoration of his child is effected without it the father will gladly acknowledge that it is needless. III. A CHANGE ON MAN’S PART FROM TO WILL BE MET BY A CHANGE ON GOD’S PART FROM MERCY TO WRATH. This is a necessary consequence of the preceding principles. God’s promises are as conditional as his threats. It would be neither just nor merciful to us for God to continue his favors unabated after we had departed from him. The removal of them is a wholesome warning to us. It springs naturally from the personal relation of God to his people, one which depends on reciprocal sympathy. Therefore it is vain to presume on our past experience of God’s goodness, for immunity from the consequences of our later sins, or to suppose that a happy condition of peace with God once attained can never be lost. We may lose it and be in a worse condition than if we had never had it (Hebrews 6:4-6). Rejectedly preaching. I. THE BEST MAY BE . Jeremiah was a true messenger of God and an able preacher, yet he was unpopular. Christ, who "spoke as never man spake," was "despised and rejected of men." No greater mistake can be made than to judge of the value of any preaching by the popularity of it. II. IT IS THE DUTY OF THE TO BEAR HIS EVEN IF IT BE . He must not be unfaithful to his mission in order to catch the ears of his audience, nor must he silence his voice because it is unheeded. His duty is to speak, whether men will hear or whether they will forbear. If he loyally discharges this duty his conscience is clear. III. THE OF THE OF TRUTH IS OFTEN TO BE TO THE PRIDE OF . People have their "own devices." Divine truth does not require the contradiction of intellect nor the suppression of it, but it requires the submission of intellect to well-grounded faith in a God who is worthy of trust, even when he requires our acceptance of dark and painful doctrines. IV. THE OF THE OF TRUTH IS OFTEN TO BE TO OF WILL. The Jews are represented as saying, "We will every one practice the stubbornness of his evil heart." The excuse of intellectual doubt may be sought as a cloak for moral aversion to Divine truth. Many who have no doubt of the truth of the message of the servant of God refuse to accept it from sheer opposition to its spiritual requirements. V. THE TRUTH IS NOT BY THE OF IT. If the word would be true when accepted it would remain tree when rejected. We cannot alter facts by closing our eyes. If we refuse to hear the words of faithful admonition, u e shall not escape the doom against which they warn us, but only the more surely run into it. We shall then simply rush blindfolded to meet our fate. VI. THE OF THE OF DIVINE TRUTH IS ITSELF A GREAT SIN. If the truth is recognized as Divine, rejection of this is rejection of the voice of God. ]t is an act of direct resistance to the will of God. It is sinning against light. It is refusing to accept offers of mercy, and returning insult for favors. Mountain snow. Any one who has found himself in the valley of Chamounix on a sultry summer afternoon must have felt the striking contrast between the eternal winter of the vast snow-fields of Mont Blanc, spread out in blazing sunlight high above his head, and the dust and heat of the parched land around. The permanence of this mountain snow is suggestive of spiritual lessons. I. SNOW IS AN EMBLEM OF LIFE IN THE MIDST OF WORLDLY SCENES. Mountain snow is found in the hottest countries. You need not travel to arctic regions for perpetual snow, it may be found in the tropics. Christians need not be transported to heaven in order to live a pure Divine life. The duty of the Christian is to preserve this fresh and holy in the midst of the world, not to flee from the world. By remaining in the world the Christian is a means of blessing it as the mountain snow descending in glaciers and streams refreshes and fertilizes the valley. But the Christian’s mission to the world is dependent on the preservation of his unworldly spirituality, as the refreshing streams that flow down the gorges of the mountain are dependent on the snows high above them. If the snow fails the stream is dried up. If the spirituality fails the Christian work becomes barren. II. SNOW IS AN EMBLEM OF LIFE IN THE MOST TRYING TIMES. The remarkable fact about the mountain snow is that it is perpetual. It is nothing that there is snow on the hills in winter; are not the plains then equally snow-clad? The Christian who only remains faithful under favorable circumstances is but superficially religious. The difficulty is to be true when all things are adverse, in the heat and burden of work, under the fierce onslaught of temptation, while the spirit of the age is against us, when Christianity is out of fashion, out of season. Yet we are to be instant out of season as well as in season (2 Timothy 4:2), to be independent of the weather, of the social atmosphere, in the changeless purity of a spiritual life. III. THE CAUSES OF THE OF SNOW ARE OF THE CAUSES OF THE OF THE AND PURITY OF THE LIFE. How is it that we find snow in the tropics, snow in summer? 1. Great elevation. A few thousand feet in height will produce climatic changes equal to those caused by a distance of many degrees of latitude. The Christian must find his fidelity preserved by elevation of life. He must live on high, a risen life, with affections above the earth, with a treasure in heaven, and his heart there also. By constant communion with heaven constant purity on earth may be maintained, as the silent solitudes of snow remain through the summer in the cool regions of their great elevation. 2. Constantly renewed supplies. The snows melt under the sun and send roaring torrents down the hillsides, and in course of time they would disappear unless they were renewed. But clouds gather round the mountain summits and descend in fresh snows, and winter on its return makes up for the partial loss of snow in summer. So the Christian must maintain his spiritual life, not only by the elevation of his own thoughts, but by receiving repeated supplies of heavenly grace. He may be thankful that he is favored by "times of refreshing" when the fierce heat of trial is abated, and strength is accumulated for the time of need. The opposition of officials. I. IT IS COMMON TO SEE PERSONS THE WORK OF GOOD AND GREAT MEN. The prophets usually met with this opposition, and it forced them to become nonconformists. Christ received the most bitter enmity from the official classes. This opposition may be traced (1) to pedantry—the official only believes in what comes in the regular way of officialism; (2) to jealousy—the official is jealous of the greater influence of the unauthorized teacher; (3) to conviction of unfaithfulness—the true prophet exposes the faults of his official contemporaries. The inevitable result is discredit and shame to them, rousing a spirit of revenge. II. THE OF FINDS EXCUSE IN . Have they not their appointed office? Are they not discharging their regular functions? They have been so accustomed to the unbroken routine that this seems to them part of the eternal order of things. They can believe in nothing better. They cannot conceive the possibility of any alteration in it. True, the spirit of the Law has evaporated from the service, but the droning of the letter of it shall not depart from the priest. The wisdom of spiritual insight is no longer enjoyed by the wise man, but there is no end to his casuistical pleading with old worn maxims. Prophecy in its higher flights is denied to the professional prophet, but there seems to be no abatement of the power to echo the cries of the day and win the popular favor by flattery and hollow rhetoric. Why, then, listen to the disturbing words of the new teacher? Thus officialism is always excusing its opposition to new good movements on the plea of its own self-sufficiency. III. THE OF IS FOR HARM. For how many scenes of martyrdom is it responsible! It was this that crucified Christ. It has peculiar weapons of its own. It carries the weight of prestige. It is very effectual with the thoughtless, who are ready to submit to the voice of the recognized authorities, partly out of indolence, partly out of fear, partly out of ignorance. It needs independence of thought and courage to recognize that this may be all wrong, and truth and right with the irregular minority—the peasant apostles rather than the haughty Sanhedrim, the plain German monk rather than the cardinals of Rome, the simple teachers of truth rather than the recognized masters of the world. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 18:1-10 The potter and the clay. The revelations of God are often given in unlikely places, and common circumstances and scenes may symbolize the divinest mysteries. The profoundest things in God’s universe are side by side with the simplest. If the mind be open and the spirit susceptible we shall see God in everything. Is there not a fitness in this ancient handicraft of the potter becoming the symbol of the eternal action of God? The potter’s clay suggests— I. THE OF GOD UPON HUMAN DESTINY. Some of the forms into which human life builds itself impress the imagination with the presence of a power greater than human, which conditions and determines them. The race, the nation, the Church, represent relations and affinities which are not of merely human origin. But even the individual life, if properly studied, will be found to be associated with the same mystery and full of the same suggestion of a Divine influence. In the case before us it is the Jewish nation which is suggested to the mind of the prophet. The hand of God is apparent in its formation and history. God’s influence upon these is felt to be (1) omnipotent, (2) sudden, (3) irresponsible, (4) to create or to destroy. II. IN HUMAN NATURE THAT AFFECT DESTINY. The clay in the hand of the potter was marred and had to he remolded. The allusion here was to the idolatrous practices of the Jews in Jeremiah’s own time. The causes at work, therefore, in the marring of the vessel are not mechanical or constitutional in their nature, but moral. The history of the same people has shown that external circumstances are of little account in this question. The chief hindrances to God s purposes with man in nations, institutions, and individuals arise from (1) original depravity and (2) willful disobedience. The free-will of man may thwart even the grace of God. III. THE PURPOSE OF GOD WITH REGARD TO MAN. This is essentially and persistently a creative one. The first effort of the petter is formative; and when, through the marring of the vessel, he has to reduce the clay into the lump again, there still remains an intention to form anew. The effects of sin are shown to be profound from the fact that the potter is obliged to remake what has been marred. The effort of restoring love succeeds upon another, and "where sin abounded grace did much more abound" (Romans 5:20). There is no nation which has not had many opportunities of recovering its position and influence forfeited by unfaithfulness and unbelief, and there is no sinner hardened in his sins who has not repeatedly rejected a heavenly voice. Each proclamation of God’s Word is a fresh opportunity which may avail for salvation to every one who will embrace it.—M. Jeremiah 18:11, Jeremiah 18:12 The fatalism of the wicked. The conception of God’s judicial omnipotence furnished in the parable of the potter is misinterpreted by the wicked. It is made a reason for continuing in their sin, they arguing that it is their fate, or needs be, to follow in the path they have chosen. I. IN THIS WE HAVE AN OF THE SOWER OF EVIL HABIT. Sin has acquired such influence over the nature that it becomes its ruler. A recklessness born of desperation takes the place of prudent and hopeful counsels. The inward indisposition colors the view that is taken of the possibilities of the situation. Instead of the sinner seeing that his condition is due to a continual withdrawal from God, he declares that he is "past feeling," that God’s grace cannot save him, and that it is "no use." But— II. IT IS NOT BY: 1. The condition of God’s opposition. It is the perverseness and unreality of man. He refuses to suffer. False religion God will not accept. 2. The circumstances of the simmer. So long as life continues there is hope. The repetition of the gospel’s appeal has the same significance. Are there any signs of relenting in his mind now? any stirrings of heavenly aspiration? any shame and sorrow for past sin? God’s Spirit has not ceased to strive with him, and he may yet be saved. 3. The means of salvation that offer themselves. Christ is both able and willing to save. His sacrifice on the cross is a finished work and a complete atonement for our sin. "The Spirit helpeth our infirmities." He is able to save "unto the uttermost," etc. III. IT IS A SUPREME OF AND WILL BE AS SUCH. Jeremiah 18:14, Jeremiah 18:15 Jehovah an unfailing Help to his people; or, the snow of Lebanon. One of the most striking scenes visible from a great distance is Hermon, with its snow and vapors. It is covered with white snow all the year round, and from its summits flow down cold, pent-up streams to the valley beneath. God asks why Israel has forsaken him; whether there was any failure of his grace and power. Has he not been constant and ever ready to help? How is it, then, that he is forsaken? The snow of Lebanon is, like the dew of Hermon, a symbol of the grace of God abiding upon Zion, from which the streams of grace flow forth in inexhaustible supply. I. THOSE WHO FORSAKE GOD DO SO BECAUSE OF THEIR OWN AND NOT BECAUSE OF GOD’S NEGLECT. "Is his arm shortened that it cannot save?" is a question we ought to ask ere we make up our minds to leave God. The secret of spiritual disaffection and apostasy is in ourselves and not in God. II. FROM GOD IS A OF . 1. The providences of God have been unceasing, manifold, and overflowing. They have come without effort of man. Yet the sinner has gone away and obstinately continues in his sin. 2. But in the grace of God there are elements that appeal to our deepest affection and trust. It is so rich, undeserved, and free. Why should he have chosen any one? How often has he healed the backslidings of his people! The cross of Christ is the grandest expression of love of which we know. It "passeth knowledge." III. WHEN SINNERS FORSAKE GOD IT IS TO THEIR OWN INJURY. 1. By their pursuit after sinful gratifications they forfeit the enjoyment of Divine mercy. Providential mercies may not always be withdrawn, but their beneficial effect is destroyed. The fellowship and presence of God are lost. His favor and help cannot be expected. 2. The sources of pleasure they apply themselves to are disappointing and fatal. Sinful pleasures soon pall. There is no enduring rapture in the gratification of sense, but an enduring sting remains. The constitution of the sinner is sapped and undermined by his excesses, and the general, social, and political life of the nation corrupted. There is no sorrow so profound and incurable as that which results from the abuse of religious privileges and the loss of the heavenly birthright; it "worketh death." But, in addition to all this, the anger of God is kindled, and who shall extinguish it? He himself can. With him is forgiveness that he may be feared, and plenteous redemption that he may be sought unto. "His mercy endureth forever." It is only needed that we change in heart and life to recover our lost estate and experience again more than our lost joy.—M. Ecclesiastical succession versus individual ministry. The spirit of these words is not hard to divine. "We have a succession of priests, teachers, and prophets assured to us by our traditional institutions; so there is no great loss if Jeremiah be discounted; and we need not fear the cessation of the Divine revelation,—is it not provided against by a sacred succession?" I. THERE ARE MANY WHO BELIEVE IN THE OFFICE OF THE AS AN SOURCE OF AND TRUTH. II. THIS IS ALLEGED IN EXCUSE FOR: 1. Refusing support to special religious effort. 2. Contempt and opposition of individual ministers. III. IN OF THIS ERROR MAY BE NOTED: 1. That it is not countenanced by God. 2. History has frequently shown its falsehood. 3. It is really a reliance upon the human and not the Divine. 4. God does his special work nearly always through individuals. 5. The dishonor done to the servant is done to his Master.—M. Jeremiah 18:18, Jeremiah 18:19 The preacher’s foes; or, false tongues and deaf ears. I. THESE OPPOSE MORE OR LESS EVERY TRUE . The persecutors of Stephen "stopped their ears and ran upon him." II. THEY ARE AN TO THE TRUTH AND OF THE MESSAGE . III. THEY MAY RETARD, BUT THEY CANNOT STIFLE, THE DIVINE MESSAGE. The slander can be lived down. The voice of just men done to death will speak when they are dead. Magna est veritas et prevalebit. IV. THERE IS A SILENT WITNESS WHO SHALL TAKE ACCOUNT OF ALL. 1. It is of less consequence to us that men approve and attend than that God should do so. The preacher addresses not only a visible, but an invisible, audience. Of every word that proceeds from his servants’ lips God takes note. 2. He will protect his servant until his work has been accomplished. 3. The slanders and indifference of those to whom the Word is spoken will be punished. (Matthew 12:36, Matthew 12:37.)—M. BY S. CONWAY The blessed parable of the potter and the clay. Few passages of Scripture have been more misread or with sadder results than this one. From St. Paul s reference to it in Romans 9:1-33 it has been thought that it taught the absolute sovereignty of God, his right to dispose of men as he pleases; that, in the exercise of that sovereignty, he makes some vessels unto destruction, and that the vessels so made have no ground of complaint whatsoever. Now, we affirm that, whilst there is much truth in these representations, they are not "the whole truth," still less are they" nothing but the truth." God is Sovereign, we cheerfully confess, and has right to dispose of us as he will. But that he exercises these rights in any arbitrary, or capricious, or cruel way, as is taught by this misreading, or that if he did the vessels made for destruction would have no ground of complaint, we altogether deny. Such teaching has clouded the face of God to many souls and made God our Father "a terror" to them. But blessed be his Name, this misreading is not the truth. Let us try to see what that truth is. In passing, we may note how the command to the prophet to go down to the potter’s workshop teaches us how workshops and our common work may have precious lessons about God to teach us if we be like as was the prophet, willing to learn them. The star-studying Magi were led by a star to Jesus. The centurion by his soldier-life gained true comprehension of Christ. The fishermen-apostles of how they were to be "fishers of men." Manifold are the ministers and ministries of God to attentive souls. "There is a book, who runs may read, Which heavenly truth imparts; And all the lore its scholars need, Pure eyes and Christian hearts." That is said of the book of nature, so it may be of the book of our lawful work. Now let us go down to the workshop told of here and learn what we may. And we are taught— I. THAT IT DOTH NOT YET APPEAR WHAT WE SHALL BE." We are the clay. But who can tell what is to be fashioned out of that mere mass of material? Every human soul is but as clay in process of formation into some designed result. II. GOD HAS WISE AND INTENT IN REGARD TO ALL. The meanest vessel that the potter makes is an advance in worth and excellence on the clay ere it was fashioned by him. How much more, then, in the case of the "vessels of honor!" III. BUT THE CLAY CAN FOR A WHILE MAR AND THE POTTER’S PURPOSE. The vessel the prophet saw was marred in the making. What innumerable instances there have been and are of this! Not Israel and Judah alone, but other nations, other churches, innumerable separate souls. And they have had to be broken up and set down from the place of honor for which they were at first intended. They have with shame to take a lower place. But— IV. THE MAKER’S WILL WILL BE DONE IN REGARD TO THEM. "So he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it." It is never "all the same" to a man if he sins against God. He may not be destroyed, but his will be "another" position and a worse one. V. AND ALL THIS IN HARMONY WITH THE NATURE OF THE WROUGHT UPON. As the potter’s work was in harmony with the clay out of which he fashioned his varied vessels, so God’s work will be in harmony with the mental and moral nature which he has given to us. It is to us an inexplicable problem—the harmony of the Divine sovereignty and human freedom. We cannot tell how it will be done, only that it will be done. VI. THE LESSONS OF THE WHOLE ARE. 1. Of inquiry. Are we, by obedience to the Divine will, furthering the work designed in us or by disobedience hindering? Romans 9:9 teaches that, however good and gracious a purpose God may cherish concerning us, if we "do evil" then God’s work will be marred. 2. Of admonitions. Seeing how terrible a process is the "making again" of the marred vessel—what was it not to Judah and Israel? and the process is not finished yet-let us repent of sin and turn to God now, and so be delivered from so great a woe. It has been said that the most terrible part of the road to heaven is that which the sinner goes over three times—once in his first following of Christ next when he by sin goes back that way, and the third time when in bitter repentance he travels over it again. 3. Of praise to God, that he has revealed so gracious a purpose concerning man, and that his will shall be done. 4. Of prayer, that we may be found not resisting but ever obedient to that will.—C. Jeremiah 18:8-12 A never-to-be-forgotten principle of interpretation. These verses plainly teach that all God’s threatenings, even the most terrible, and all God’s promises, even the most blessed, are conditional on the continuance of the moral character to which they were addressed. Now, this is— I. A CORDIAL AGAINST DESPAIR. When the convicted sinner—as the men of Nineveh—hear the awful denunciations of God’s judgment, all hope seems to be forbidden. The Ninevites, to encourage themselves in a forlorn hope, could only say, "Who can tell whether God will be gracious?" But this and the like Scriptures, confirmed by so many facts of experience, forbid all such despair. II. A CHECK TO . How many prate concerning final perseverance who are not persevering at all except in sin and worldliness? But they need to be reminded of this sure condition, one which the great adversary of souls is ever striving to make us forget. III. AN OF THE STERN WORDS OF . When one would give the alarm of fire he does not whisper the word. So when God would warn sinners he does not soften his words, but in most vivid manner sets before men the awful doom of the ungodly. Thus would God, by his terrors, scare men—if naught else will do—to "flee from the wrath to come," so that "he may repent of the evil he thought to do unto them." Such words are not the utterance of absolute decrees against any soul to whom they are addressed, but loving warnings to such soul to turn to God and live. IV. A REASON FOR ITS WORDS OF WARNING. These are found in varied form, addressed to disciples of Christ, to those to whom the most glorious promise had been made. See the sermon on the mount; how full of warnings! Therefore this conditionalness of God’s words speaks: 1. To the believer, and bids him" Be not high-minded, but fear." "If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee" 2. To the ungodly. See the sure end of thy way; how awful! But see, too, God’s earnest desire that thou shouldest forsake that way.—C. Despair, its causes, consequences, and cure. "And they said, There is no hope," etc. There is a show of humility about this word. The man has evidently no hope in himself, nor in any Church, nor in any. human help whatsoever. Now, this so far so good. To get men away from trusting m an arm of flesh is ever one of God’s purposes. And when a man is thus weaned from self and all human reliance it is a good sign. But such distrust at times goes beyond this, to belief that there is no hope anywhere, which is despair. Now, this a sore evil (cf. homily on Jeremiah 2:25, "A dread snare of the devil"). And to help in overcoming it we would speak— I. OF ITS CAUSES. They are of varied kinds, but a man is near to despair when he sees: 1. That his sin is inveterate. When year after year goes by and still there the sin is. 2. That it is continually successful in reducing his will to consent to it. 3. That his defenses are only those derived from considerations of the consequences and punishment of his sin. Motives of love to God and Christ, hatred of the sin itself, have ceased to rule him; it is only the fear of what may happen that holds him back, though, indeed, such defense is weak enough. 4. That his sin has rendered ineffectual many special dealings of God with him in relation to it. He has broken through all these gracious barriers one after another. All these are dreadful facts to contemplate, and tend to fill a man with the belief that "there is no hope." The good Lord forbid that we should ever have such facts to contemplate concerning ourselves. II. ITS . They are dreadful in the extreme. They produce sullen obstinacy in evil. "They said … but we will walk after our own devices." Also unrestrained license. The thought comes, "We can but be lost; we will have what enjoyment we may." This is a frightful fruit of despair. If, then, any considering these dread consequences of despair tremble lest they should yield to it, but yet by reason of such facts as those above named are sore tempted thereto, let them remember there is deliverance for them. Consider, therefore— III. ITS CURE. It can only be, it ought only to be, by good hope of deliverance from that which is the cause of thy despair—thy sin. But whence can come this deliverance? Wise and godly men have counseled after this manner. 1. Seek to gain and keep before the mind a deep sense: (1) Of the guilt of thy sin. You who have received such light and grace are involved in far deeper guilt and your sin is far more heinous than that of others. (2) Of the danger of it. The danger of being hardened by its deceitfulness. Of bringing down on thyself some great temporal judgment as God’s punishment of thy sin. Of losing thy peace with God and strength to serve him. Of eternal destruction. (3) Of the evils of it. It grieves the Holy Spirit of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is wounded afresh by it. All thy usefulness will be destroyed. God will neither bless thee nor make thee a blessing. 2. Wrestle in prayer. 3. Watch against occasions and advantages of sin. 4. Go again to the Lord Jesus Christ, especially to him as your dying, crucified Lord. Live near his cross, for "his blood cleanseth from all sin." Cleave to him and let thy faith fasten upon him. So—his Word assures and experience proves, for there is no instance to the contrary, but innumerable ones in proof—the chain of thy sin shall be broken, and the sight of this shall so cheer thy heart that the demon of despair shall spread its dark wings and depart and leave thy soul unclouded. (See on all this, Owen on the Mortification of Sin.)—C. Persecution. The cruel sufferings of God’s prophet which here and in other parts of his prophecy are recorded throw not a little light on all like persecution. For, though its rough and brutal forms have for the most part disappeared, still in others it yet lingers, and is the source of much distress. Note, then— I. ITS CAUSES. They are ever the same—hatred to the faithful Word which the persecuted one persists in preaching. Persecution, therefore, is inevitable where a faithful messenger of God comes into collision with those who hate and will not submit to his message. II. ITS . Zeal for the Church and for sacred institutions imperiled by the prophet’s preaching. We see them standing up for the priests and the Law and the prophetic order, all which, of Divine appointing, were wronged and injured by the prophet. Persecutors never will own, even to themselves, their own true motives. Those who sought to kill our Lord ever insisted on the highest motives for their conduct. Persecution is such an odious thing that, unless some fair disguise be thrown over it, no one would have anything to do with it. And no doubt some persecutors—like Saul of Tarsus—have been deceived by this disguise, and have sincerely thought they were doing God service. There is never any need for persecution, though our forefathers thought there was; for if any doctrine be of man only it will come to naught. The facts of life, the Word of God, reason and conscience, are all against falsehoods, and will expose and so extinguish them without persecution. For the nature of man is made for truth, and hence what is contrary to truth cannot long live. III. ITS INTENT. Revenge and the forcible silencing of an adversary. IV. ITS METHODS. 1. Defamation. "Let us smite him with the tongue." 2. Ostentatious disregard of his teaching. "Let us not give heed," etc. (Jeremiah 18:18). 3. Whatever "devices" will most of all tell against him. Sometimes open hostility is not safe. It was not against John the Baptist, nor our Lord, nor here (cf. Jeremiah 26:16). And then other devices have to be sought out, and the finding, when sought by the persecuting spirit, does not take long. V. ITS RELIEF. Not compromise. To give way where conscience commands steadfastness is to incur such spiritual shame and distress, such hiding of the face of God, as to be more intolerable than the fiercest persecution (Cf. the history of Cranmer and his piteous misery). But—as with Jeremiah—turning to the Lord in prayer. We cannot commend the spirit of his prayer, it is all unlike our Lord’s in regard to his enemies, and therefore not a pattern for us to follow; but it was right, and ever is so, when persecuted by man to turn to him "who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself." His grace will keep us from being wearied and faint in our minds. Patience, too, will greatly help. Persecutors soon tire when they find that their methods are of no avail. Prudence, likewise, should not be forgotten. Sometimes we may get out of its way, and at no time is there need to provoke persecution by imprudent, ill-timed, and ill-toned obtrusion of the distasteful theme. There are times when at all costs a man must stand to his pest and speak out, but there are other times, and more of them, when the quiet, consistent life will do more for God and his truth than the longest and loudest speech. But in such difficult circumstances it is well to keep near to God in constant prayer for counsel and direction how to bear one’s self wisely as he would have us. Relief also is found in contemplation of— VI. ITS SURE RESULTS if faithfully endured. It makes us have real fellowship with Christ. It wins for us a glorious recompense at his coming. Even now the soul is cheered by the communications of his approval and the clear vision of the shining of his countenance upon his faithful servant. And not seldom likewise by beholding the lion turned into the lamb, the persecutor becoming an apostle and preacher of the faith he once destroyed. These are consolations indeed. And confirmation in the truth for which we have suffered is gained by seeing the manifest displeasure of God against the persecutors. How it hardens them in their sin! How it fills up the cup of their iniquity! How sore the vengeance that befalls them! These considerations are derived from the contemplation of the persecution of the Lord’s servant Jeremiah. They will be all of them strengthened if we mark the sufferings of the Lord himself. Here, but there most vividly, are seen warnings most solemn against this great sin, and consolations most precious to all the "blessed" who endure.—C. Jeremiah 18:19-23 The prophet’s prayer for vengeance on his enemies. (Cf. homily on "Imprecatory prayers," Jeremiah 40:1-16:20-43.) BY J. WAITE Jeremiah 18:6 The analogy here instituted enshrines truths that are of universal application. They have their individual quite as much as their national beatings. Nowhere does the representative character of the house of Israel appear mere clearly than in this passage; nowhere do we get a more striking view of the general method of the Divine dealings with the human race. It suggests— I. GOD’S OVER THE BEING AND LIFE OF EVERY MAN. The figure of the potter and the clay is one of frequent occurrence in Holy Scripture (vide Job 10:9; Isaiah 64:8; Romans 9:10). It vividly represents the subjection of our nature and our personal history to the Divine control. The fact of our moral freedom, the mysterious prerogative that belongs to us of choosing and following our own way, must needs make the comparison defective. There is some point at which all such physical analogies fail duly to set forth the realities of moral and spiritual life. But it is deeply true as suggestive of the power God has over us to mold us as he pleases. Free as our will may be, is not our whole nature as plastic material in the hands of him who made us? Free as we may be to pursue our own chosen course of life, can we ever escape the "Divinity that shapes our ends?" There is a hidden power, whether we acknowledge it or not, the mastery of which over thought, feeling, purpose, and action is the deepest reality of our existence. II. HIS PURPOSE. Distinguish between a sovereign power and one that is arbitrary and capricious. Complete as the Divine mastery over us may be, it is not lawless or purposeless. It has always a definite end in view, and that end is wise and holy and good. As the potter seeks to fashion the clay into some beautiful or useful form that his own brain has first conceived, so God, by his providential and spiritual control, seeks to work out a Divine idea in our being and life, to body forth in us some archetype of moral beauty that exists in his own eternal mind. He would fain fashion us into a noble form and fit us for some noble use. In God’s "great house" there are many utilities. And even the vessel "unto dishonor" has its place and its purpose. Our faith in the infinitely wise and holy love that governs all leads us to rest in the thought— "That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroyed Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete." But he who formed us for himself would not have any of us to be content with an inferior position and a lower aim. He would so mold and fashion us that we shall be "vessels unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master’s use" (2 Timothy 2:21). III. HIS LONG- . When the potter’s work is marred, he presses the clay into a shapeless mass and casts it upon the wheel again. We are reminded of the various methods God employs in molding us to his will, and how if one fails he will often subject us to another. There are events that sometimes break up the whole form of a man’s life; old ties are severed, old associations pass away; he beans an altogether new career, with new responsibilities, new moral tests, new possibilities of good. There are afflictions that change the whole tenor of a man’s inward life; his spirit is crushed, wounded, softened, that it may the better receive Divine impressions. "God maketh my heart soft, etc. (Job 23:16). "My heart is like wax" (Psalms 22:14). Thus does God "humble us to prove us, to know what is in our heart, whether we will keep his commandments or not" (Deuteronomy 8:2). There may come a time when all these Divine methods fail and the soul is found to be reprobate. In Jeremiah 19:1-11 we have a figurative prophecy of the ultimate abandonment of the Jewish people to their fate. In this case the vessel has been baked in the fire; it is incapable of taking a new shape, and is broken so "that it cannot be made whole again." Such is the doom of the finally impenitent and intractable. But God’s patience is very wonderful. In this world at least the door of mercy is always open. There is always the possibility of a new and nobler life. He "is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).—W. BY D. YOUNG The clay in the potter’s hand. I. THE PURPOSE OF THIS . It is a practical illustration in the most suggestive sense of the word "practical." Jeremiah had not to go out of his way to produce a sufficiently impressive figure of what God was about to do. He had to go through a very peculiar and protracted experience to bring out the lesson of the marred girdle. But here he has only to go down to the potter at his wheel, a thing he could do at any time; and there is a lesson particularly plain and forcible, as coming out of the daily life, the simple and common life, of the people. Notice, then, that Jeremiah was not sent down to learn just what his own unaided observation might tell him concerning the potter and the clay. He might, indeed, have drawn out many important lessons, yet overlooked the one that was most important of all. God wished the prophet clearly to understand and then distinctly to impress upon the people this truth, that as the potter is to the clay, in respect of the control which he has over it as clay and in its plastic condition, so Jehovah is to Israel in respect of his control over its temporal destiny as a nation. Hence we have to look at the potter’s action upon the clay, positively and negatively. We have to recollect both what he can do and what be cannot do. Within certain limits his power is resistless; outside those limits he has no power at all. Give the potter a piece of moist plastic clay; he takes it up, designing to make from ira vessel of a certain shape and for a certain use. Suddenly he finds it desirable to change the shape, and because the clay is still moist and plastic he can do this with the rapidity, expertness, and success which come from long practice It is this particular power of the potter which God would have us to understand is his power over us. What the potter does is limited by the nature of that with which he works. He cannot turn clay into something else than clay. Clay it is when he first touches it: clay it remains when its shape is finally decided. Let the vessel be baked in the furnace and come out hard, its shape cannot then be altered. If it is thrown to the ground it will be broken, it may even be shivered "so that there shall not be found in the bursting of it a shard to take fire from the hearth, or to take water withal out of the pit" (Jeremiah 30:14). No volition or power of the potter will give to the clay vessel the qualities of a wooden vessel or one of metal. He may fashion it for a vessel of honor or dishonor, just as he pleases; but whatever its use its material is still of clay. And similarly we must recollect that, whatever God does with us, he does in harmony with our nature. He finds us, as to the affections and purposes of our hearts, free agents, and, however great the changes he may affect in our circumstances and our future, all must be done without touching this freedom. The Divine potter hero was changing the circumstances of the human clay, just because that clay was so stubborn in submitting to his will so clearly, so lovingly, so often expressed. If we refuse to be molded into the shape that means for us true peace, glory, and blessedness, then we must be molded into the shape which will secure at the least peace and blessedness in God’s kingdom, and manifest glory to his great Name. II. THE GREAT RESULT WHICH SHOULD BE BY OUR OF THIS . Too readily is it said by many, "If we are as clay in the hands of the potter, then we need not trouble ourselves. God will shape our destiny, whatever we do." But if we look honestly and humbly at this illustration, we shall see that what God would have us above all things to learn from it is that the shaping of our destiny lies practically with ourselves. In selfish and ignorant obstinacy we wish our life to take a certain mold. Strenuously, and heedless of all Divine counsel and warning, we try what self can do toward the shaping. Then at last our purpose comes to be broken off. All that we have been and all that we have done prove useless so far as our aims are concerned. But for all that we cannot be useless to God. God wishes to work in us a change which would make all our circumstances those of liberty. He wishes to renew our hearts and establish in them a holy love as the central principle. If we refuse this Divine appeal, then we must come under ever-narrowing constraints. We are asked to walk in the liberty of God’s children; if we refuse and confess ourselves the enemies of God, then we must be loaded with chains and put in the innermost dungeon. Our wisdom is to turn from our hardness and impenitent hearts, and allow God to lead us into the full μετάνοια (Romans 2:4). Then with understanding shall we address God, "We are the clay, and thou our potter" (Isaiah 64:8). If we by repentance come beck to God and make ourselves clay, such as will have in it a peculiar responsiveness to the touch of God, then we may leave ourselves to his loving-kindness. He will fashion us into just that shape whereby we shall be meet for the Master’s service. And if men say in their ignorance that we are turning out but vessels of dishonor, let us recollect that of honor and dishonor God alone is judge. If we only stoop from our pride to do the will of God, God will take care of our position. For is not God he who exalts the humble and abases the proud?—Y. Jeremiah’s enemies and his prayer against them. I. THE CAUSE OF HIS . His enemies have entered into a plot against him, and he has heard of the plot. He has to do, we may imagine, not only with the open threats of passionate men, face to face, but also with secret wiles. The language of intense provocation in which he speaks must be remembered in trying to estimate the extent, depth, and bitterness of the hostility against him. Who were they that thus proposed to join together in ruining the prophet? Doubtless the three classes embraced by the reference that is made, namely, priest, wise man, and prophet. The priest would go to the wise man and prophet, saying, "See how this fellow speaks against us all." A common hatred and a common peril swallow up for a time all jealousies amongst bad men, and constitute a strong bond of union, a strong incitement to all the ingenuity and designing powers of the mind. We are not left without means of judging as to the motives of these three classes of men and their methods of proceeding when we consider the similar conspiracies against Jesus himself. Men belonging to conspicuous classes of the community attacked him, and they are constantly mentioned as being joined together. This attack gives the strongest evidence, both of the appropriateness of Jeremiah’s message and his fidelity in delivering it. Such truth as a prophet has to speak must be met either with penitent friendliness or with bitter and active enmity. It must be reckoned no strange thing if the faithful proclaimer of truth is exposed, not only to reproaches, misrepresentations, and loss of old associates, but even to deep-laid conspiracies. These men, while they were bent on ruining Jeremiah, wished also to do it in a safe and plausible way. It was to be done by a plan. They were going to smite him with the tongue. Very likely they hoped to get him put to death under judicial forms. Again, one asks—How came the prophet to hear of these plans? The wise men must have shown a very imperfect kind of wisdom in not being able to keep their designs secret. Indeed, they may have thought that they were secret. The Jews who swore not to eat or drink till they had killed Paul did not reckon that Paul’s own nephew had discovered their designs. II. THE ITSELF. In readings, this supplication, we. vainly try to escape from feeling what a ferocious, savage tone the words have. The dreadful meaning of the words, taken in their natural signification, is only too plain. We must by no means try to defend the prayer; we can only do something to extenuate the language by remembering the provocation the prophet had received, and the spirit of the age in which he lived. It is at least important to remember that he is distinctly conscious of having had good motives towards these enemies. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ With this chapter, Jeremiah 19:1-6 of the next ought undoubtedly to be connected to complete the narrative. Jeremiah here comes before us performing another symbolical action. By breaking a potter’s vessel he foreshows the ruin impending over Jerusalem for the idolatry practiced in the valley of Hinnom. Not (remarks Graf) as if the worship of Moloch had been restored after the death of Josiah; verse 13, in fact, sufficiently shows that the Tophet had, ever since Josiah’s time, continued to be an unclean place, and the sins which are here rebuked are the unexpiated abominations of Manasseh’s reign (described in Jeremiah 15:4, as the immediate causes of the Captivity). Jeremiah’s prophecy on the Tophet is followed by one on the fate of a certain Pashur, a high officer in the temple. The principal prophecy presents striking points of contact with Jeremiah 7:1-34. (comp. Jeremiah 7:4-6 with Jeremiah 7:30-32; and Jeremiah 7:13 with Jeremiah 7:18; Jeremiah 8:2), and we may presume that the events here related belong to the time to which we have already referred Jeremiah 7:1-34, viz. the early part of the reign of Jehoiakim. The same date is confirmed for the narrative of Pashur by the office which is therein given him; for according to Jeremiah 29:25, Jeremiah 29:26, the office was not held by him, but by Zephaniah. Jeremiah 19:1 A potter’s earthen bottle. Dr. Thomson speaks of the extreme cheapness and brittleness of the common pottery of Palestine (comp. Isaiah 30:14). The ancients of the people. The natural popular representatives (comp. Exodus 3:16; 2 Samuel 19:11; 1 Kings 8:1; 1 Kings 20:7). It was an announcement concerning the whole people that Jeremiah was about to make. The ancients of the priests. Jeremiah 19:2 The valley of the son of Hinnom (see on Jeremiah 7:31). The east gate; rather the potsherd gate, i.e. the gate where potsherds were wont to be thrown. Another possible rendering is "sun gate," of which "east gate" is but a paraphrase. But there is evidently a connection between the name of the gate and the action performed by Jeremiah. The Authorized Version seems to have misled Captain Warren into identifying the valley of Hinnom with that of Kedron. He confirms his view, it is true, by the Arabic nomenclature, which speaks of the Kedron as the Wady Jehinnam—a nomenclature, however, which is by no means uniform. The situation of the "potsherd gate" must remain uncertain. Jeremiah 19:3 O kings of Judah; i.e. the numerous clan of royal princes, kings by courtesy (see on Jeremiah 17:20). His ears shall tingle. Jeremiah 19:4 Have estranged this place; rather, have treated this place as strange; i.e. as one that did not belong to their God, that was unholy (comp. Jeremiah 16:18, "They have defiled ray land"). With the blood of innocents; comp." Innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters" (Psalms 106:38)—the children sacrificed in Hinnom to Moloch. Jeremiah 19:5 Baal. This seems to be used loosely for Moloch (comp. on Jeremiah 2:8). Jeremiah 19:6 (Comp. Jeremiah 7:32.) Tophet; rather, the Tophet (see on Jeremiah 7:31). Jeremiah 19:7 I will make void; literally, I will pour out, alluding to the etymology of the word rendered "bottle" in Jeremiah 19:1. Jeremiah 19:8 (Comp. Jeremiah 18:16.) Jeremiah 19:9 The same description, almost verbatim, is given in Deuteronomy 28:53; (comp. Leviticus 26:29; Ezekiel 5:10). For the fulfillment, see Lamentations 4:10. Jeremiah 19:11 As one breaketh a potter’s vessel (comp. Isaiah 30:14). Dr. Them-son speaks of the utter indifference with which the common pottery of Palestine is handled. It is not only brittle, but so cheap that no one is distressed at breaking it. And they shall bury them in Tophet, etc. These words form the conclusion of Jer 7:32 (see note), the greater part of which is repeated in Jeremiah 7:6. They are certainly out of place here, and are wanting in the Septuagint. Jeremiah 19:12 As Tophet; i.e. an unclean spot, avoided by mankind. Jeremiah 19:13 The houses of the kings of Judah; i.e. the palaces and other buildings which together made up the king’s house (Jeremiah 22:6). Shall he defiled as the place of Tophet. This is one of the few places in which the Authorized Version has allowed itself to interfere with the received text; for the Hebrew has "which are defiled," etc. The common reading, in fact, seems untranslatable. Because of all the houses; rather, even all the houses. Jeremiah 19:14, Jeremiah 19:15 Here begins a fresh section of the narrative. Jeremiah has executed his commission, and now proceeds to the temple, where he repeats before the assembled people his announcement of the awful judgment. Jeremiah 19:15 Upon all her towns. The cities of Judah are regarded as in a manner subject to the capital. Jeremiah 19:1-13 The broken bottle. That was a strange scene—the royal family, the nobles, the chief priests, together with the populace of Jerusalem, gathered, at the summons of a prophet whose power could not be ignored though his teaching was opposed, in the valley of Hinnom, now reeking with the odors of foul crime; and the prophet facing them, alone and fearless, with a common potter’s vessel in his hand, while he draws a most awful picture of impending calamity, and sternly charges his audience with the terrible wickedness which is bringing it upon their heads, and brings his discourse to a dramatic climax by breaking the vessel to pieces. I. THE OF THE . 1. It was addressed especially to the leaders of the people (Jeremiah 19:1). "To the poor the gospel is preached," but to the great sterner messages must often be declared. Nothing in the history of the prophets is more exemplary than the directness of their accusations of guilt in high places. They were no flattering court preachers. Yet they were court preachers. -They did not reserve their harsh words for the poorest and lowest of the people, as modern popular preachers are too apt to do. The leaders were first in crime; they should be first in responsibility. 2. It was spoken on the site of the greatest wickedness. The guilty people had the memorials of their crimes before their eyes while judgment was being pronounced for them. Men naturally shun these valleys of Hinnom, these scenes of old sins, the sight of which stings the conscience. But they must revisit them. It is sometimes the duty of the preacher to take his hearers back in memory to the circumstances of the past which they would gladly forget. 3. It was dearly and boldly expressed. The language was precise, detailed, and graphic, the description of the approaching ruin vivid and appalling. Jeremiah used no euphemisms. His words are enough to make our blood curdle as we read them, more than a score of centuries after they were spoken. How must they have sounded in the ears of the criminals who heard them as the sentence of their own doom? Lurid pictures of future punishment frequently strike one as unreal, as though only drawn for effect; they rouse unbelief in some, despair in others, or a hardening in sin. Yet a clear and uncompromising statement of the scriptural revelation of the horrors of the future is not to be set aside for more pleasing doctrines, especially in preaching to the great and the self-satisfied. 4. It was accompanied by a significant action. Jeremiah broke the bottle in the presence of his audience. This would strike the eye and impress the imagination. It is not enough that we convince the reason of a truth; we must rouse the imagination to realize it before it will be effectual. The Eastern imagery of the Bible is useful to us in this way. The preacher finds the value of illustrations in making truth vivid and interesting. Ideas may be received through the eye as well as through the ear. II. THE SUBJECT OF THE . 1. It accused of sin, (1) in for-raking God and (2) in practicing vice and cruelty. We must feel the intensity of guilt to realize the justice of punishment. 2. It denounced a most terrible doom. This was to correspond to the crimes committed. The Tophet of sin was to be the Tophet of punishment. They who had sacrificed children to Moloch would eat the flesh of their sons, etc. 3. It exposed the rottenness of false confidence. "I will pour out the counsel of Judah." People imagine that somehow, without repentance, by ingenuity or by daring, they may escape the consequences of their sins. They will find that all such devices must end in ignominious failure. 4. It was accompanied by a symbol of hopeless destruction. The bottle was broken. (1) This potter’s vessel was a comparatively worthless thing: wickedness robs men’s lives of all value. (2) It was very brittle: nothing is so unstable as the security of the wicked before their sins have wrought out their natural consequences. (3) It was broken to pieces: the punishment of sin is destruction—the destruction of a nation for national sin as seen in the breaking up of the Jewish people, the destruction of a soul in the killing out of it of spiritual activities and all the higher capacities of its being. The warning confirmed. The warning of the discourse in the valley of Hinnom is confirmed by a repetition of it under more ordinary circumstances. I. THE OF THE OF THE WARNING. 1. It was repealed. The scribe must bring from his treasury things old as well as things new. Men need "line upon line." Unpopular truths must not only be revealed once for all, they must be impressed upon people until they are accepted. 2. It was repeated in the temple. The horrible associations of Tophet were wanting there. All was decorum, order, propriety. Yet the message was not the less true there than in a more congenial place. Terrible truths must be uttered in face of the religious respectability of our Church worship. Such outward correctness should not make us forget the true condition of men’s hearts, which is apparent enough in the darker scenes of life, in the Tophets of iniquity. We are tempted to be deceived by the appearance of religions assemblies into a blindness to the greatness of sin which is visible enough in common life. 3. It was repeated in the ears of all the people. The leaders were first selected to hear the warning (Jeremiah 19:1). But it was not confined to them. The people generally were guilty. They had quietly acquiesced in the wickedness of their great men. Nay, they had furthered, them, in it (Jeremiah 5:31), had followed their example, and become guilty’ of similar crimes. They, too, must not expect to escape in the hour of judgment. II. THE FORM IN WHICH THE WARNING WAS . 1. It was epitomized. Truth needs to be broken up into detail that it may be clearly understood and vividly conceived by the imagination. But it is possible to lose ourselves in details and miss the drift of the sum of them. Hence the advantage of broad, sweeping enunciations of principle. 2. It was repeated as a prediction of real facts. The warning was not to be regarded as an empty threat, nor as the indication of a danger that might be evaded. ’I will bring … the evil that I have pronounced,’ etc. It is both weak and cruel to threaten without the intention of executing the threat—weak, for the hollowness of the alarm is soon discovered by experience, and then it is impotent; cruel, for why create distress about a mere "bogey" danger? God is merciful, but firm. His threats are conditional, but, while the conditions subsist, the execution is as certain as any event that depends on the uniform laws of nature. 3. It was repeated without diminution. All the evil pronounced will fall on all the towns. The effect of stern warnings fades with the lapse of time. We are tempted to think that things will not be so very bad as at first seemed likely, and to take comfort from such reflections. But danger is not lessened by our growing indifference to it. 4. It was strengthened by an appeal to the increasing necessity for it. "Because they have hardened their necks, that they might not hear my words." A deep consciousness of guilt makes the just punishment of it seem inevitable. Willful persistence in wickedness after warning can only increase the guilt and make the punishment the more certain and the more severe. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 19:1, Jeremiah 19:2, Jeremiah 19:10, Jeremiah 19:11 The breaking of the potter’s vessel. Another symbolic action, but in this case the revelation to the mind of the prophet was not dependent upon its being performed. It is because of the public significance of it he is enjoined to perform it. The "elders of the priests" and the "elders of the people" are invited to the scene. I. THE SYMBOL. This was a "potter’s earthen bottle [or ’vessel’]," and thus had to be carefully distinguished from the "clay" spoken of in Jeremiah 18:1-23. The latter is soft and unshaped, and may be molded as the potter wishes; but the vessel is already formed and hardened into a certain definite shape, which it is impossible materially to alter. As that represented the stuff or material of which nations and institutions could be made, this must stand for the Jewish nation, with its character historically matured and fixed. Jehovah had already given it the form he intended it to assume, and placed it in certain relations with himself as a theocracy. The historic institutions and nations of the world are the creation of God. He has raised them up and controlled the forces that molded and determined their specific character and work. "The powers that be are ordained of God." The position, character, and life of individual men are also his work. No man is "self-made" in any fundamental sense of the word. A gracious providence has nurtured and cared for him; and, it may be, saving grace has redeemed and sanctified him. He "is the noblest work of God." II. THE ACTION. This was threefold, viz: 1. The vessel was bought. "Get;" literally, "buy." Jehovah had redeemed Israel to be a people for himself. The outlays of Divine love and mercy are suggested. The providence and grace of God are now being expended. The blood of Christ was shed for all nations, "the Jew first, and afterwards the Gentile;" and for every man born into the world. "Ye are not your own: ye are bought with a price. A deeper, obligation is thereby incurred to him, and a grander authority on his part justified. We are all made and saved, or, as it may be expressed, made and remade by him. 2. It was probably poured out. Jeremiah 18:7, "I will make void [literally, ’pour out’]." This action would be natural under the circumstances, and highly impressive. And if it be objected that the vessel was empty, that very fact might still render the action the more emphatically significant. Their counsels were also vain and empty. God suffers wicked nations and men to devise evil, but only as it works out his own ends is it allowed to be executed. He will bring to naught the counsel of the ungodly. That which is devised without his blessing will come to no successful issue. 3. It was broken. (Jeremiah 18:10.). This was intended to depict the extreme and final character of the impending, judgment—"As one breaketh a potter’s vessel, that cannot be made whole again" (Jeremiah 18:11). The nationality of the Jews was to be destroyed. The Babylonion captivity, although only obscurely predicted, is apparently alluded to; but some hold that, as this was but an incomplete fulfillment, the Roman conquest must have been meant. All nations and individuals are on their trial, and may be subjected to this extreme penalty. God holds the sovereign power in his own hand. There is no remedy; the past is irrevocable. And there is no appeal from his sentence, when the limit of his forbearance has been Fussed. 4. It was disgraced by being cast into Tophet. A double purpose was thereby expressed. The scene of idolatrous rites was to be disgraced by being made the burial-place of the slaughtered thousands of Jerusalem, as, on the other hand, such a burial and the necessity for it would be humiliating to the metropolis of the faith. III. THE . 1. It was done in presence of the representatives of the nation. "Take of the ancients [eiders] of the people, and of the ancients of the priests." They were probably responsible for the national guilt, and by their personal and artificial influence might be able to avert the catastrophe. Those who influence a nation’s life—kings, princes, statesmen, ministers of religion, authors, etc.—should be specially appealed to in cases of national sin. So the parent for the child. It is both respectful and just that such persons should be addressed in the first instance. But every man is responsible for his own sin. His intelligence and moral nature must, therefore, be addressed. 2. The language used was such as to recall the general penalties to be incurred by breaking the Law. (Deuteronomy 28:1-68.) The fact was thus suggested that the judgment was willfully and knowingly incurred. There is nothing new about the evils that come upon transgressing nations and individuals, or about their history. It is not for man to judge. God knows the reasons for his procedure, and the sinner himself is not ignorant. 3. The meaning of the breaking of the vessel is fully explained beforehand. This is ever the Divine order. There is "space for repentance" given even to the worst sinners. No man will go wholly unwarned into perdition. Nay, even the historic and so-called secular character of nations, institutions, and individuals is precious in God’s eyes, and effort is constantly made to convert it into an influence of blessing. The sinner is offered the "means of grace" that he may become a saint and a servant of the Most High. And it is only as he obstinately continues in his sin that the irrevocable judgment falls.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 19:1-15 Denunciations of doom. This chapter is filled with these awful warnings of the prophet. And they are made the more awful by the reflection that, fitted as they were to rouse the most careless and hardened, yet they failed with those to whom they were addressed. And so this sad chapter teaches us such lessons as these: 1. The earnest purpose of God to save man from his sin. Hence these warnings. 2. The awfully hardening power of the sin which could despise them. 3. What wise methods are to be employed in the endeavor to arouse and alarm the ungodly. On this we will dwell awhile. This chapter shows— I. THAT THOSE MOST LIKELY TO THEM SHOULD BE TO. Cf. Jeremiah 19:1, "Take of the ancients," etc. No doubt this was because of their influence over the people generally. If they could be won the rest would follow. II. WE SHOULD AVAIL OF ANY LIKELY TO LEND FORCE TO WHAT IS SAID. The prophet led forth his audience to "the valley of the son of Hinnom." It was the Tophet, the Gehenna, the place haunted with memories of Divine wrath against idolatry, and whose ever-burning fire and gnawing worm symbolized the quenchless anger of God against it. With what added power, then, would the prophet’s message come when spoken in such a place! III. SUCH MODES OF ADDRESS SHOULD BE ADOPTED AS WOULD BE MOST LIKELY TO IMPRESS. The prophet was bidden take an earthen bottle, and, after he had solemnly denounced the doom of God against the idolatrous city, he was to dash the bottle on the ground and shatter it utterly, past all possibility of mending. By this dramatic action he was to declare the coming destruction of Judah and Jerusalem. Thus vividly and powerfully to the minds of such as witnessed him would the awful truth he had to tell be impressed on their minds. But also in clear words and in full copious detail he set forth what was to come. Now, such symbolic action as that of the prophet might be of very little service to such as we speak to, however impressive to the Oriental mind, but it teaches us that whatever is likely to deepen the effect of our words upon men’s minds we are to use, and fearlessly, as did the prophet, set forth the coming judgments of God. And most of all— IV. OUR MESSAGE MUST BE GOD’S MESSAGE. God put into the prophet’s mouth the words he was to speak and taught him how to speak them, and he obeyed. Here is the great essential. If denunciations of judgment be spoken simply as part of an orthodox sermon, or for any other reason than that God has borne in upon our souls the conviction that we must speak such words, we are likely to do but little good—indeed, harm rather than good. And let such servant of God who speaks as God bids him remember that, even when speaking thus, his words may fail in the effect designed and desired. "Lord, who hath believed our report," etc.? They did so here. But they will never entirely fail. God’s promise is against that. Some will receive them. Some did even in Jeremiah’s day. There was a faithful remnant. And the preacher will have delivered his own soul, and God’s righteousness in the doom of the impenitent will be vindicated before all. May we be delivered from the necessity of declaring such doom as that which Jeremiah had to speak of; but if we have to, may we be taught of God, as he was, and have better success.—C. Jeremiah 19:14 Jeremiah 20:6 The sin and punishment of Pashur. This man is to be distinguished from him of the same name mentioned in Jeremiah 21:1. The Pashur mentioned here was a priest, and one holding high office in the temple. After Jeremiah had delivered his discourse at Tophet, he seems to have returned to the city and temple, and then to have spoken in substance the same predictions of woe. Whereupon Pashur, with less patience than these who heard the prophet and had seen his symbolic declaration of the coming ruin when he broke the earthen bottle at Tophet, falls upon him and smites him, and tortured him by putting him in what is called the stocks (see Exposition). Thus— I. HE CRUELLY THE PROPHET OF GOD. It was sad that any one should do this. But yet more that it should be the act of a priest of God, and holding high position amongst the priests. What hope can there be of the people when their appointed leaders and those to whom they are wont to look up for instruction and example in what is good thus prostitute their office? Thus the "wicked husbandmen beat" the servants who were sent to them (Matthew 20:1-34:35). And it was the same order that ever opposed, and yet more fiercely, our Lord himself. The sanctity and authority attaching to the priest’s office have ever been fatal to the integrity of unworthy holders of the office, and have caused that amongst the most infamous of mankind not a few priests should be found. But— II. HE FAILED TO SECURE THE END HE HAD IN VIEW. Jeremiah was not silenced, but goaded, as it were, to declare yet more terrible judgments in which Pashur himself should be awfully involved (cf. Paul, "God shall smite thee," etc; Acts 23:3). The stout heart of a true servant of God is an anvil on which many hammers may fiercely smite, but it will wear them out long before they wear it out. Saul of Tarsus found that the persecution he had done so much to further in connection with Stephen only made matters worse. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church. And the reason is that a faith for which men are willing to die convinces all beholders that it must be exceedingly precious and well founded, and inspires them with an irresistible desire to know and possess it for themselves, or at least to know what it is. III. HE BROUGHT DOWN ON HIMSELF SORE . Jeremiah declares to him that the Lord has changed his name to Magor-Missabib, for he will be given up a prey to the torments of mortal anguish, his friends shall be slain before his eyes, Judah carried away to Babylon, all its treasures plundered; he himself shall witness all this and die and be buried in Babylon, "There thou, and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lies." Thus, look where he would, he should see nothing but terror. Above—the anger of God; beneath—a dishonored grave; around—calamity and woe on all near and dear to him, and of which he had been largely the procuring cause; within—a conscience tormenting him day and night. It was an awful doom. "Let persecutors read it and tremble; tremble to repentance before they be made to tremble to their ruin."—C. BY D. YOUNG I. THE OF THE . Spectators of the proper sort needed to be deliberately gathered together in the proper place. We may suppose that the elders of the people and of the priests were peculiarly responsible for all that concerned the safety of the city. This symbolic action was best performed before the select responsible few. As they went forth with the prophet they had time to ask themselves what the meaning of this unusual summons might be. It is, perhaps, a little to be wondered at that they should have gone with the prophet at all. And yet, although none might have quite the right motive for going, each would have his own motive, and so an acquiescent assembly be formed. God knows how to subdue and blend the motives of men for his own purposes. In some minds there would be a superstitions regard for the prophetic office; in others, curiosity would operate; and in a few there might be somewhat of the hearing ear and understanding mind. We are, then, to imagine this company going forth; and they do not go forth at random. It is not for mere seclusion they go out of the city. They are led to the very place which, because of the abominations practiced in it, is to be one of the principal causes of future woe. Thus we see how carefully God arranges the circumstances in which his truth is to be proclaimed. II. THIS HAD A REASON. The thing was not clone in mere wantonness and thoughtlessness, nor in passion, nor in carelessness. The prophet did not draw his lesson from a jar which some one else had happened to break. He got the vessel with the deliberate purpose, divinely put into his mind, of breaking it. This was far enough away from the purpose with which it was made, and the vessel, once shattered, could be of no further use for this first purpose; but in its destruction it served a far nobler end than if it had been carefully kept to carry water for many long years. Rightly considered, indeed, the vessel was not destroyed, but only its service divinely and wisely changed. So, looking from the symbol to the reality behind it, we must bear in mind that the capture of Jerusalem and the conquest of the land of Israel served certain purposes of God. He did not separate this people and give them this laud that at last they might be scattered, even beyond the usual scattering of a conquered people. But when the scattering did come, he sought to make it evident that it was from his hand. It was not a mere chance of war, but something prepared for and prophesied—something to teach and warn the thoughtful among all nations. III. THE REASONS WHY THIS VESSEL WAS THUS BEFORE THESE . 1. To show the ease with which God can shatter any construction of man. One lesson had already been drawn from the potter’s vessel (Jeremiah 18:1-10). That lesson was drawn from the plasticity of the raw material. Now another lesson has to be drawn from the fragility of the finished article. This fragility was part of the nature of the article. The potter could not be blamed because the result of his work was so fragile. Fragility, indeed, is a relative quality. An insect could no more have broken this vessel than men by a single blow could level a forest tree. Men talk of their power to do and their power to resist; but this is only in ignorance of the immense, exhaustless power which God in mercy hides from the eyes of man. A potter’s vessel may be preserved for millenniums if it is sufficiently guarded; but it has no strength in itself. These people of Jerusalem were reckoning on the natural position and artificial securities of their city. Yet these very things would only heighten their calamities and miseries. For they would persist in defense, ever hoping against hope, until, in their extremity, they were forced to devour their very children. We need to bear in mind that, however great our natural advantages, our prudence and foresight, we, as far as our natural life is concerned, are but as this fragile vessel in the prophet’s hand. 2. To show the impossibility of man retrieving the disaster. "That cannot be made whole again" (Jeremiah 19:11). This vessel was not merely cracked. It was more than simply broken. It not only fell, but was dashed to the ground with special force and determination. These people of Israel, once scattered, could not gather themselves together again. God could do it, but only God. And God would not do it; because that would only have been to reconstitute, the fragile. The breaking’ of this vessel is only one of many lessons by which God would teach man his natural weakness. He destroys the old and the fragile, that he may put in its place the new and the indestructible. Our wisdom is not to waste time in trying to strengthen what is inherently weak; but to accept with glad thankfulness that real mercy of God which, in destroying the old Jerusalem, makes way for the new and heavenly Jerusalem, that city of God based on the truly everlasting hills.—Y. Jeremiah 20:1 The continuation of the preceding narrative. Pashur the son of Trainer. This man belonged to the sixteenth of the sacerdotal families or classes (1 Chronicles 24:14). Another of the same name is referred to in Jeremiah 21:1 (see note). The one here mentioned was "chief overseer" (there were several inferior overseers, 2 Chronicles 31:13); the eminence of the position appears from the fact that Zephaniah, Pashur’s successor (Jeremiah 29:26), is second only to the high priest (Jeremiah 52:24). Heard that Jeremiah prophesied; rather, heard Jeremiah prophesying. Jeremiah 20:2 Pashur, being charged with the police of the temple, smites Jeremiah, i.e. causes stripes to be given him, and then orders him to be put into the stocks; literally, that which distorts—some instrument of punishment which held the body in a bent or crooked position (comp. Jeremiah 29:26). The "stocks" were sometimes kept in a special house (2 Chronicles 16:10); these mentioned here, however, apparently stood in public, at the high—or rather, upper—gate of Benjamin, which was by—or, at—the house of the Lord. The gate, then, was one of the temple gates, and is called "the upper" to distinguish it from one of the city gates which bore the same name (Jeremiah 37:13; Jeremiah 38:7). It is presumably the same which is called "the new gate of the Lord’s house" (Jeremiah 26:10; Jeremiah 36:10), as having been comparatively lately built (2 Kings 15:35). Jeremiah 20:3 Symbolic change of name. Not … Pashur, but Magor-missabib; i.e. terror on every side. There is probably no allusion to the (by no means obvious) etymology of Pashur. Jeremiah simply means to say that Pashur would one day become an object of general horror (see on verse 10). Jeremiah 20:5 The strength; rather, the stores. The labors; rather, the fruits of labor; i.e. the profits. Jeremiah 20:6 Comp. the prophecy against Shebna (Isaiah 22:18). Since we find, in Jeremiah 29:26, Pashur’s office occupied by another, it is probable that the prediction was fulfilled by the captivity of Pashur with Jehoiachin. To whom thou hast prophesied lies (comp. Jeremiah 14:13). Pashur, then, claimed to be a prophet. Jeremiah 20:7-13 A lyric passage, expressing the conflict in the prophet’s mind owing to the mockery and the slander which his preaching has brought upon him, and at the same time his confidence of victory through the protection of Jehovah; a suitable sequel to the narrative which goes before, even if not originally written to occupy this position (see general Introduction). Jeremiah 20:7 Thou hast deceived me, etc.; rather, thou didst entice me, and I let myself be enticed. Jeremiah refers to the hesitation he originally felt to accepting the prophetic office (Jeremiah 1:1-19.). The verb does not mean "to deceive," but "to entice" (so rendered in verse 10, Authorized Version), or "allure." The same word is used in that remarkable narrative of "the spirit" who offered to "entice" (Authorized Version, to "persuade") Ahab to "go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead" (1 Kings 22:21). In Ezekiel, too, the same case is supposed as possible of Jehovah’s "enticing" a prophet (Ezekiel 15:1-8:9). The expression implies that all events are, in some sense, caused by God, even those which are, or appear to be, injurious to the individual. Was Goethe thinking of this passage when he wrote the words, "Wen Gott betrugt, ist wohl betrogon?" Applying the words in a Christian sense, we may say (with F. W. Robertson) that God teaches us by our illusions. Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed; rather, thou didst take hold on me, and didst prevail. The expression is like "Jehovah spake thus to me with a grasp of the hand" (Isaiah 8:11). Jeremiah 20:8 For since I spake, I cried out, etc.; rather, For as often as I speak, I must shout; I must cry, Violence and spoil; I can take up no other tone but that of indignant denunciation, no other theme but that of the acts of injustice constantly committed (not merely, nor indeed chiefly, against the prophet himself). Was made; rather, is made. Jeremiah 20:9 Then I said, etc.; rather, And when I say, I will not make mention of him, etc; then it becometh (i.e. I am conscious of a feeling) in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones; and I weary myself to hold it in, but cannot. The prophet has repeatedly been tempted to withdraw from the painful duty, but his other and higher self (comp. ’Old Self and New Self’ in the ’Lyra Apostolica’) overpowers these lower bayings for peace and quiet. The fire of the Divine wrath against sin burns so fiercely within him that he cannot help resuming his work. Jeremiah 20:10 For I heard, etc.; rather, For I have heard the whispering of many; there is terror on every side. Inform (say they), and let us inform against him. This gives us the reason for Ms momentary inclinations to silence. He was surrounded by bitter enemies, who were no longer content with malicious words, but urged each other on to lay an information against him with the authorities as a public criminal. The first clause agrees verbatim with part of Psa 31:13 (this is one of the psalms attributed, by a too bold conjecture, to Jeremiah). "There is terror on every side" (see above, Psalms 31:3, and also note on Jeremiah 6:25) means "everything about me inspires me with terror." All my familiars is, literally, all the men of my peace; i.e. all those with whom I have been on terms of friendship (same phrase, Jeremiah 38:22). Watched for my halting; i.e. either laid traps for me or waited for me to commit some error for them to take advantage of. The phrase, "my halting," is borrowed (?) from Psalms 35:15; Psalms 38:18 (Hebrew). He will be enticed; viz. to say something on which a charge of treason can be based. Jeremiah 20:11 As a mighty terrible one; rather, as a formidable warrior. They shall not prevail. This was in fact, the Divine promise to Jeremiah at the outset of his ministry (Jeremiah 1:19). For they shall not prosper; rather, because they have not pros-pored. Jeremiah 20:12 Repeated, with slight variations, from Jeremiah 11:20. Jeremiah 20:13 In the confidence of faith Jeremiah sees himself already delivered. He writes in the style of the psalmists, who constantly pass from the language of prayer to that of fruition. Jeremiah 20:14-18 Jeremiah curses the day of his birth. The passage is a further development of the complaint in Jeremiah 15:10, and stands in no connection with the consolatory close of the preceding passage. There is a very striking parallel in Job 3:3-12, and the question cannot be evaded, Which is the original? It is difficult to believe that Jeremiah copied from an earlier poem. Deep emotion expresses itself in language suggested by the moment; and, even after retouching his discourses, Jeremiah would leave much of the original expression. But impressions of this sort cannot be unreservedly trusted. The argument from parallel passages is only a subsidiary one in the determination of the date of books. Jeremiah 20:16 As the cities which the Lord overthrow. It is, so to speak, the "technical term" for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah which Jeremiah employs. So deeply imprinted was the tradition on the Hebrew mind, that a special word was appropriated to it, which at once called up thoughts of the awful justice of God (see Genesis 19:25; Isaiah 1:7 (?); Isaiah 13:19; Amos 4:11; Deuteronomy 29:23 [22]; Jeremiah 49:18; Jeremiah 50:40). The cry … the shouting. The cry of the besieged for help; the shouting of the suddenly appearing assailants (comp. Jeremiah 15:8). Jeremiah 20:1-6 Pashur. At length the smoldering opposition to Jeremiah breaks out into open persecution. Hitherto, though he has been answered by words (Jeremiah 18:18) and threatened with violence, no overt act has been committed. Secret enemies have elaborated dark designs, which are alarming enough but come to no serious issue. But now violent hands are laid upon the prophet; and it is not an obscure band of illegal conspirators who contrive evil against him, but the official head of the temple guards formally arrests him and executes upon him the recognized punishment of a criminal. This action bears testimony to the excitement produced by the burning words of the discourse in the valley of Hinnom. So overawing were the utterances of the prophet that no one dared to touch him then; but when he confirmed them in the temple courts the circumstances were altered, and, either from alarm or from rage, Pashur, the chief of the temple police, laid hold of the prophet and brought him to severe punishment. The conduct of Pashur and the fate that is threatened him deserve our careful examination. I. THE CONDUCT OF PASHUR. 1. Pashur was a priest and of high rank in the service of the temple of Jehovah. Such a man should have been able to recognize a true prophet of Jehovah as his fellow-servant. Yet he was first in persecuting him. Official religious positions are no guarantees for spiritual wisdom. But it is scandalous when the professed leaders of the Church are foremost in resisting the declaration of Divine truth and the execution of the will of God. 2. Pashur was a responsible officer of justice. Such a man should not have allowed himself to be carried away by a flood of popular indignation, influences of class jealousy, or impulses of personal spite, Judicial crimes are always the most atrocious crimes. They poison justice at its very Fountain, they abuse high trusts, they disorganize society, and all this in addition to the inherent wickedness of the acts, which is the same in all who commit them with similar motives. 3. Pashur replied to the words of prophecy with the arm of force. He could not answer Jeremiah, so he attempted to repress him. Unable to refute the arguments of the prophet, he endeavored to restrain the utterance of them. Here we recognize the folly, the injustice, and the cruelty of such persecution: the folly, for to silence a voice is not to destroy the unpleasant truth it declares; injustice, for nothing can be more unfair than to do violence to a man for uttering words which we cannot deny to be rote; and cruelty, for it is a man’s duty to make known what he believes to be important truths. II. THE FATE OF PASHUR. Jeremiah stood alone, unpopular and unprotected. Pashur was strong in the powers of office and supported by the sentiment of the country. Yet the prophet was more than a match for the officer. Sensitive and naturally retiring, Jeremiah was bold in the conviction of truth, the sense of duty, and the consciousness of the Divine presence. Pashur’s policy proved a failure. Jeremiah was not silenced by scourge and stocks. Either Pashur had too much sense of justice leg. to retain the prophet in prison, or he feared that such an action would be recognized as illegal and damage his position, or he thought the severe but brief corporal punishment of the prophet sufficient. Jeremiah was set at liberty on the day after he was arrested, and then, instead of cautiously measuring his language, he boldly threatened Pashur with a share of suffering in the coming calamity. This was peculiar. Pashur was not to experience the worst, but to witness it. 1. He was to be punished by fear. Tyrants are cowards. A long-enduring, harassing fear is more painful to bear than a short, sharp, visible trouble. Many evils are worse in prospect than in experience. Courage and active resistance may make the facing of danger easy, but to be haunted with vague terrors, powerless to do anything to avert them, lashed and stung by innumerable ideal and therefore intangible torments,—this is torture. You can fight a foe of flesh and blood, but a fear is like a ghost. The blow aimed at it passes through it, and it remains still glaring at its victim till his blood freezes with horror. May God deliver us from the awful punishment of an eternal fear! 2. He was to see the words of the prophet verified by experience. He tried to silence the warning voice; he could not stay the approaching evil. They who have rejected warnings will be dismayed and confounded when they see them realized in facts. 3. He was to witness the calamity of his nation. Probably there was a genuine love of his country in this man. His attack on Jeremiah may have been influenced by a sincere desire for the national welfare. But if so he had put his country before his God. His punishment would come in the humiliation of his nation. Patriotism is no excuse for resisting the will of God. The godless patriot may be punished by seeing the troubles that are brought on his country through its irreligion. Enticed and overpowered by God. I. GOD ENTICES HIS . Jeremiah had been led to undertake the prophetic mission with assurances of success and victory (Jeremiah 1:17-19), and he was surprised when he met only with contempt and apparent failure. So others have entered God’s service with much confidence in the joy and but little anticipation of the trouble it would bring. There is really nothing either false or unkind in this. 1. Nothing false; for (1) though all the future trouble is not predicted, its approach is not denied; we are simply left in the dark in regard to it; and (2) ultimately the servants of God will triumph, and the trouble will be all forgotten and swallowed up in victory. But if the darker experience were clearly revealed at first, it would throw such a shadow over the future that the ultimate triumph would be scarcely thought of, and thus a more false idea of the whole course of life would be produced than that which comes from hiding from us some of its darker scenes. 2. Nothing unkind. If the trouble must be faced it need not be anticipated (Matthew 6:1-34:84). If God hides approaching trouble from us he does not forget to provide against it. He takes the burden of it upon himself, so that when the trouble is revealed the grace to endure it is also revealed. Moreover, on the whole, the blessedness of the service of God vastly outweighs its distresses. If the alarm of the latter drove us from the service, the result would be loss to ourselves. It is, therefore, merciful in God to condescend to our weakness and thus lead us on through partial views of truth until we are strong enough to grasp the whole. Still, when the prospect of trouble is revealed it should be faced. Something of this must be considered by us or we may make an ignominious failure. Jeremiah was warned of opposition. Christ discouraged rash, heedless enthusiasm (Luke 9:57, Luke 9:58), and bade men count the cost of his service. II. GOD HIS . Jeremiah complained that he was not only enticed but prevailed upon by God by force. "Thou art stronger than I." God never forces a man’s will. But still he hedges a man in and uses such influences upon him that many of the experiences of his life may be ascribed to God’s supreme power rather than to the man’s spontaneous action. If these result in shame and apparent failure, as they often may, at first sight it seems as though God had been dealing harshly with his servant. 1. But we should remember that it is a blessed thing to suffer for God. It is an honor to be a true martyr to God’s will (Matthew 5:10, Matthew 5:11). 2. We should understand that good purposes are being effected through such suffering. It is not without its end. God is honoring us as he glorifies his Son, by making us the sacrifices for the accomplishment of a blessing to mankind. 3. We should believe that a great reward in heaven will compensate for the patient endurance of these brief earthly troubles. Without this the problem would be inexplicable. With it all wrongs will be righted. The burning fire of inspiration. I. THESE WORDS ARE A PROOF OF THE GENUINE OF THE PROPHET. He is not thinking of convincing others of the fact of his inspiration, but simply pouring out the trouble of soul that it occasions. The ingenuousness of the utterance and the indirect allusion to the inspiration make them the more valuable. Then, the words of prophecy gained the prophet no power nor popularity, but only contempt and persecution It is impossible to stud the language of Jeremiah without feeling that he was overwhelmed with the consciousness of a Divine spiritual influence, while the dignity, vigor, and moral sublimity of his prophecies make it unreasonable to suppose that he was a self-deceived fanatic. II. THESE WORDS ARE AN OF THE OF . This was not a mere illumination; it was a power. The inspired prophet was not simply gifted with insight into truth; he was swayed by the might of it. He did not feel at liberty to deal with it as he pleased, to mediate on it by himself, to suppress it, to utter it only as his convenience was suited; it was his master, a hand laid heavily upon him, a fire burning in his bosom, that must come out. The same experience is felt by all men who have spiritual relations with truth. They do not hold truth; they find that truth holds them. That inspiration influences the will as well as the intellect is strikingly proved in the case of Balaam (Numbers 24:1-25.). The reason of this is found in the real presence of the Spirit of God. Revelation is by inspiration, and inspiration is the breathing of God’s Spirit into a man’s spirit, so that he becomes possessed by it. The tremendous importance of the truth revealed increases this compulsion of utterance. Jeremiah had revealed to him no barren, abstract dogmas, no trivial religious notions, no empty answers to curious prying questions of little practical moment, but terrible truths concerning his people and their highest interests. How could he hide such truths as we liars seen he had been entrusted with? If God speaks it must be to utter important words. The burden of them urges their custodian to declare them. III. THESE WORDS ARE AN OF THE PAINFUL EFFECTS OF . No man need desire to be a prophet from motives of worldly ambition or selfish pleasure. The high privilege of inspiration carries with it danger, toil, anguish, terror. Prophecy has its Gethsemanes and its Golgothas. If its mission is faithfully carried out it leads to the cross. If this is faithlessly abandoned the prophet is consumed with inward fires. Inspiration is no substitute for mental labor, no excuse for intellectual indolence. On the contrary, it rouses the whole soul, quickens its energies, and works them to weariness. In so far as any of us are possessed in varying degrees by spiritual influences we shall find the Word of God a fire within us, which burns till we have discharged the minion it brings. Jeremiah 20:10, Jeremiah 20:11 A prophet persecuted by spies. I. THE BY SPIES. 1. Consider the persons persecuting. (1) They were mean and weak. Their names are not given; we know little of their characters and actions; yet the despicable conduct here ascribed to them proclaims them to have been of low and shallow natures. Only such can play the part of a spy. Yet these men could trouble Jeremiah. A spy can persecute a prophet. A gnat can sting a lion. Mean and despicable creatures that can do little good have considerable power of doing harm. This fact is humiliating to our common human nature, and it shows the great need of a Providence to restrain the outrages of wickedness which are so easily executed. (2) They were numerous. The prophet stood alone beset on every side with malicious spies. How difficult to be faithful in that dreadful solitude of a crowd of unsympathizing persons! (3) They were Jeremiah’s familiar acquaintances. Religious and political differences separate the best of friends. When a man’s own near acquaintances turn against him the very ground he stands upon seems to be breaking away from beneath his feet. Such men have peculiar power for harm, because (a) they have been trusted and (b) they know the weak places in a man’s armor. 2. Consider the character of the persecution. The persecution of spies must have been peculiarly harassing. (1) It was not open. It is so much easier to meet a frank foe in the field than to cope with the secret devices of spies. (2) It must have been tainted with untruth. The spy would hear enough to misunderstand, and would unconsciously misrepresent in the effort to make his report consistent and telling. The "whispering" would heighten the color of every tale as it passed from one to another. (3) It was perpetual. The spies were always on the watch, ready to take advantage of the first unguarded moment. (4) It was malicious. The spies were eager for Jeremiah’s halting, hoping to entice him to some mistake. II. THE REFUGE FROM THIS . Jeremiah found his refuge in God. 1. He could do so because he was innocent and because he was suffering in the service of God. How happy to be able thus fearlessly to challenge the arbitration of God between ourselves arid our detractors! 2. The help of God is sought because he knows all. He sees "the reins and the heart." If the spy is watchful, with his prying looks capable of seeing only the surface of things and with only partial views, and listening only to catch up broken fragments of speech to distort and misrepresent, God is righteously watchful of all that his creatures say and do. 3. The help of God is trusted in because he is "a mighty terrible one." "The God is a man of war." The might and majesty of God—so terrible to the godless—are the refuge of his people. It should be remembered by all of us that God is actively concerned with human affairs, and in his providence, without requiring what we call "miracle," can frustrate the devices of the wise and defeat the efforts of the strong. Thanksgiving for future blessings. I. WE MAY BE FOR NOT YET . Jeremiah closes his prayer with praise. No sooner has he asked for God’s help than he feels so assured of receiving it that he anticipates it in imagination, and breaks forth into grateful song as though he were already enjoying it. This is a proof of genuine faith. Faith makes the absent seem near and the future appear present (Hebrews 11:1). It influences our whole being—the imagination among other faculties—so that it enables us to conceive the good thing trusted for so vividly and so confidently that the thought of it affects the mind just as strongly as if we saw the object with our eyes and grasped it in our hands. Such an effect is a test of the earnestness and faith of prayer. Some people could not be more surprised than by receiving the exact answer to their prayers. II. THE FULL FROM ALL HARM IS A FUTURE FOR WHICH WE MAY BE . 1. It is a future blessing. Jeremiah was not delivered immediately. His life was beset with danger to the end. After the time to which our text refers, he met with worse troubles than any that had hitherto befallen him. The Christian must not expect a sudden and perfect escape from all distress and temptation the moment he prays to God for he]p. Perfect deliverance can only come with the conquest of the last enemy, death. "Now is our salvation"—our perfect deliverance—"nearer than when we first believed" (Romans 13:11), but it is not yet enjoyed. 2. It is, nevertheless, a blessing for which we may be truly thankful at once. For it is positively assured to the Christian. The heir of a great inheritance may rejoice in his prospects, though for the present he is in want. But earthly pleasures of hope are checked by fears of possible disappointment. The buds may be nipped by frost; the promising young man may break down before achieving any great work. Nevertheless God is too powerful, as well as too faithful, to fail in fulfilling his promises. Therefore we should anticipate the praises of heaven on earth, sing the songs of Zion in the strange land, and enjoy the vision of the celestial city from Beulah heights though valleys of humiliation and waters of death may lie between. III. IT IS A GOOD THING TO EXPRESS OUR FOR FUTURE . 1. All gratitude should find utterance in praise. The grateful heart should rouse the singing voice. Of all feelings thankfulness should be the last to be mute. We may pray for mercy in secret communion with God; we should utter praise as a public testimony to others and as an uncontrollable gladness that must relieve itself in song. 2. The utterance of praise for future blessings is an assurance of our faith. It will react upon us and strengthen faith. It will be a solace for the dark hours that may yet intervene before the enjoyment of the anticipated good. Jeremiah cursing the day of his birth. I. TROUBLE MAY LEAD A GOOD MAN TO THE VERGE OF DESPAIR. Jeremiah was a prophet, a good man, a man of faith, a man of prayer. Yet he cursed the day of his birth. Jeremiah was not without precedents for his conduct. Not to mention Jonah, whose character is by no means exemplary, the patient Job and the courageous Elijah had both regarded existence as a curse, and cried passionately for death. Jeremiah had great provocations to despair. His mission seemed to be a failure; his old friends had become spies in league with his inveterate foes; he stood alone, watched, maligned, hated, cruelly misjudged. We cannot be surprised that his patience broke down. Though impatience and a yielding to despair are proofs of weakness, they are far less culpable than unfaithfulness. Many would have quietly declined the tasks which Jeremiah manfully performed, though they led him to the verge of despair. It must be noted that, though the prophet cursed the day of his birth, he did not flee from the mission of his life; though he longed for death, he did not commit suicide. From his experience, (1) the sorrowful may learn that deeper depths of sorrow have been traversed than any they are in, and yet the light has been reached on the further side; (2) the desponding may see how good men have been near despair before them, and so be encouraged by knowing that their despondency is not a sin of fatal unbelief. II. IT IS FOOLISH AND WRONG FOR A MAN TO CURSE THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH. He may be a good man who falls into despair, still his despair is a failing. This condition of Jeremiah must be distinguished from that of Simeon. Simeon was ready to depart when his life’s work was finished and at God’s time. His prayer was one of placid submission to the will of God (Luke 2:29). But Jeremiah had not finished his life’s work; life itself was regarded by him as an evil; his despair was contrary to a spirit of resignation to the Divine will Jeremiah’s language should also be distinguished from that of St. Paul when he expressed his longing to "depart and be with Christ" (Philippians 1:23). The apostle was inspired with a hope of heaven, the prophet moved only by a loathing of life; the apostle was willing patiently to remain and do his work, the prophet felt impatient of life. 1. Such conduct is foolish, for the whole value of life is thus judged by one hasty thought in a mood of gloom and distress. Life is too large and multifarious to be estimated in this way. There are recuperative energies in all of us beyond what we can imagine in our moments of weakness. Besides, if the present is dark, who knows what the future will produce? 2. Such conduct is wrong. We are not the judges of our own lives. To despair is to complain of the justice of God. The mistake of Jeremiah’s hasty impatience is apparent when we consider the value of his life. Jeremiah’s life worthless! Why, it was the most valuable life of the age. There may be persons of whom it can be said that it were better for those men if they had never been born. But these are not the men who are usually most ready to despair of their lives. The despondent may take courage from the mistake of Jeremiah, and know that when they think their lives most worthless they may really be of most service. III. THE HAS STRONG NOT TO CURSE THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH. Jeremiah lived before the light and grace of Christianity had been bestowed. We should be without excuse if, while enjoying higher advantages, we imitated his despair. 1. Christianity sheds light on the purpose of sorrow. This was a profound mystery to the Jew, Christ has shown us the blessedness of sorrow, the glory of the cross, the utility of sacrifice. 2. Christianity brings new grace to help in the endurance of sorrow. Christians have the example of the suffering Christ, the sympathy and healing of the great Physician and the new baptism of the Spirit, to help them to endure the baptism of sorrow. 3. Christianity reveals fresh gourd for confidence in God in the darkness of trouble. God is seen as our Father. His will must be wise and good. All life must be wisely ordered by him. Thus we are taught to bend submissively to the higher wilt that we cannot understand. 4. Christianity inspires hope in the final triumph over trouble. It lifts the veil from eternal things and makes known the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." It assures us that no true life can ultimately fail, that no true man lives in vain, that, though evil may vaunt itself in the present, ultimately truth and right shall triumph. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 20:1-3 The behavior of the wicked towards the truth. I. THEY REGARD THE TRUTH AND ITS AS THEIR ENEMIES. If Pashur had known better he would have refrained from such exhibitions of temper. The prophet would then have been accounted the greatest benefactor of his country. Not the soldier on the battlefield nor the statesman in the councils of empire could have rendered so signal a service as Jeremiah did in simply but persistently telling the truth. Much of what he said was patent to every honest observer. By saying what he did the prophet did not bring into existence that which did not exist before; and, if it really existed, it was better that it should be recognized and reckoned with. The evils he denounced were the real enemies of the country, and not those who pointed them out and suggested their reform. It is, however, unpleasant to the carnal mind to have its faults and sins exposed. With many the calamity is not that evil should be done, but that it should be found out. II. THEY ARE NOT AS TO THE MEANS THEY EMPLOY TO SILENCE THEM. He smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks." These means of punishment were at hand, and he used them at once. It was legal power used illegally, or law employed to the detriment of righteousness. Passionate hatred is shown by the whole course of action. Could anything else be expected of those who tried to subvert righteousness? They must needs do it unrighteously. Even the condemnation of Christ was legal only in appearance. III. THE OF THE OF THE TRUTH IS BY ITS OWN AND . "It came to pass on the morrow, that Pashur brought forth Jeremiah out of the stocks." 1. The course dictated by passion is seen to be impolitic and foolish. 2. The guilty intention is weakened by the outcries of conscience. It is this conscience which makes cowards of us all—or heroes. Here it led to vacillation, which discredited the policy to which Pashur was already committed, and made its author ridiculous. This is one of the reasons why men can do nothing against the truth. It shines by its own light and confounds the machinations that have been wrought in darkness. 3. Truth has a powerful ally in the bosoms of its worst enemies. IV. TO THE TRUTH IS CERTAIN TO FAIL. "Then said Jeremiah unto him," etc. (verse 3). The prophet is only the more vehement and enthusiastic. Ill-timed antagonism to his message has provoked him to coin a nickname for Pashur, which linked the impending judgment inseparably with his memory. It was a bad eminence richly deserved. He was to be the refutation of himself, to see all his predictions falsified, and to reap the curses of those he had deceived as they perished in their sins. How often in his disgraceful exile he must have wished he had let the messenger of God alone (Acts 5:38, Acts 5:39).—M. Jeremiah 20:3-6 Magor-Missabib; or, the fate of a false prophet. The person hero mentioned cannot with certainty be identified. He will the better serve as a type and representative of his kind. There is no age or country that has not had its Pashur. I. THE HE . 1. Its character. Absolute and despotic. At the suggestion of his own evil heart. Capable of destroying civil rights and character itself. The whole civil and sacred machinery of the laud was at his disposal. The public trusted him. The state of things condemned by Jeremiah it was his immediate interest to support, and in turn he could rely upon official support. He identifies himself with the ruling party and becomes its representative and mouthpiece. Vested rights, traditional religion, etc; are his watchwords, because he owes everything to them. 2. How it was acquired. Family connection—"the son of Immer the priest." Not by striving to reform abuses, but by fostering and upholding the status quo. He who was so oblivious to the wrongs of which the prophet spoke could not have been scrupulous as to the means by which he rose to position and influence. Oriental corruption and intrigue had doubtless had their part in securing his elevation. ("Pashur" probably means "extension," "pride," "eminence.") 3. How it was employed. Hastily, on the passionate impulse of the moment. Without regard to the essential justice of the case. And when the error is discovered no true repentance or effort at amends is visible. Cf. the time-serving policy of Agrippa (Acts 26:32). II. THE AND DESTINY HE EARNED. By making himself the champion of apostle Judah, and insulting the prophet of God, he is sentenced to the same fate, but in a peculiar and aggravated degree. 1. It would be his fortune to be looked upon as the representative and embodiment of the system of falsehood which had ruined his country. He who prophesied falsely will be justly punished by such an association. Instead of saying, "It was Moloch or Astarte that deceived us," the victims of the common disaster, will say,—"It was the prophet of these false gods who led us astray." How readily does personal influence acquire such a representative character! There are many evil forces and influences at work in society, the state, the Church, etc; which would cease to exist were it not for their accidental connection with some personage who becomes their advocate or their bulwark. 2. His character and influence would be exposed. The assurances he had given would one by one be falsified by the fulfillments of Jeremiah’s predictions. Instead of being honored and looked up to, he would become a loathing and a byword. He would outlive his credit, his self-esteem, and his happiness. Shunned by others, he would be unable to trust himself. Each fresh catastrophe would deepen his disgrace and remorse. A "terror round about" would be the name he would earn. 3. His exemption from immediate destruction would but enhance his punishment. Like the criminal obliged to stand in the dock and hear all the counts of his indictment made good by the evidence of witnesses, he should outlive the first effects of the national ruin, see all his statements falsified, bear the reproach of his own wicked lies, and yet linger on when life had ceased to be desirable. There is a grotesqueness about this punishment that would make it ludicrous were it not so sad and awful. A more severe punishment could hardly be conceived. And yet it is not more than Pashur deserved. Would that our modern "prophets of lies" could be compelled to witness the consequences of their advice and example! A modified degree of this experience has, indeed, been the sentence inflicted upon many a good man. But Christ takes up the entail of sin and breaks it. We may do better than to stand by and see the evil consequences of former folly; it is for us to strive to rectify them. So the past may be retrieved and the evil days redeemed by those who have been servants of sin "turning many to righteousness."—M. Jeremiah 20:7-18 The sorrow and joy of God’s servant. There are many such photographs of the inner heart-life of God’s people. It is the touch of nature which brings them near to us. The words and work of Jeremiah become more living and influential when we witness his spiritual struggles. I. THE OF HIS IS OF AND IN. The saint cannot always continue amidst his highest experiences. There are ups and downs, not only of our actual outward circumstances, but of our inward spiritual states. Do not condemn Jeremiah until you are able to acquit yourself. The heavenly mind is not formed easily or at once. There is an inward cross m every true heart, upon which it must needs "die daily." But "the powers of the world to come" ever tend to increase their hold upon the believer. This alternation of mood and feeling is a necessary accompaniment of spiritual growth. Some day the heart will be fixed. "The reproach of Christ" will then be esteemed "greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." This is what we should strive after—inward oneness of heart and purpose with our Master. II. HIS IS . 1. From doubt to faith. (Verses 11, 12.) 2. From sorrow to joy. (Verse 13.) 3. One day the struggle will end in triumph.—M. BY S. CONWAY Why God’s servants labor on. "Then I said, I will not make mention," etc. It was under no small provocation that Jeremiah uttered these words. It was in no fit of mere indolence or infidelity that he cried, "I will not make mention of God, nor speak anymore in his Name." He had stretched out his hand, but the people to whom he was sent refused; he had called, but they would not answer. And this had been their wont persistently, until he was weary, utterly weary, and out of heart, and then it was he spoke as we read here and declared he would try no more. If any one be inclined to judge him harshly, let us but read the story of his life—a story most sad, yet glorious too, so far as the grace of God and the true honor of his servant are concerned; but yet a sad story, and one which, when we have read it, will most assuredly check all disposition to censure, with anything like severity, the deeply tried servant of God who in his utter weariness said he would speak no more in the Name of God. Now, all of us who are familiar with our Bibles or who know anything of the way in which those who labor for God often fail, will know that Jeremiah by no means stands alone in his sense of hopelessness and weariness in his work. We remember Moses (Exodus 5:22; Numbers 11:11); and how Elijah faltered beneath his burden (1 Kings 19:4); and John the Baptist (Matthew 11:3); and even the holy Savior himself (John 12:29; Luke 22:42). Such is the stress which doing the will of God amongst wicked men puts upon the human spirit; no wonder that it well-nigh gives way. From the experience, then, of our Savior and of so many of his servants we must all of us who are his servants lay our account with manifold and often great discouragements, and yet more with being tried by the temptation on account of these discouragements to abandon our work altogether and to speak no more in the Name of the Lord. Now, where is the spirit that will resist this temptation, that will prevent the half-formed resolve to cease endeavor from being wholly formed and carried out? There is such a spirit. This strong temptation may be and has been resisted again and again. What is the secret of Christian constancy and steadfastness in the work of the Lord? We have the answer in this verse. However much any of God’s servants may be tempted, as Jeremiah was, to give up his work, he still will not do so if, as was the case with Jeremiah, "the Word of the Lord is in his heart as a burning fire shut up in his bones;" then he will be "weary with forbearing," and he will find that he cannot stay. Even as Elihu (Job 27:18), who said, "I am full of matter," etc.; and as Peter (Acts 4:20), and Paul (Acts 17:6; Acts 18:5; 1 Corinthians 9:16); and our Savior (Luke 2:49; Luke 12:50). In all these utterances we have the expression of that spirit which alone can, bat surely will, bear up the servant of God amid all his difficulties and hold him steadfast to his duty in spite of every discouragement. But dropping all metaphor, let us inquire into this excellent spirit which renders such service to the tried and desponding soul. It does exist. The records of the mission work of the Church at home and abroad will furnish not a few instances of men and women whose hearts the Lord hath touched, and who, moved by this Divine impulse, have felt themselves constrained to be up and doing, to penetrate the spiritual darkness around them, and to resist the power of the devil everywhere present. Under the influence of this holy zeal, such servants of God have looked upon the heathen, the degraded, the vile, not with the natural eye alone. That revealed to them only a foul mass of vice and cruelty, sensuality and all human degradation. From such scenes and people nature turns away and would let them alone. But amid and beneath all this moral, spiritual, and physical repulsiveness, the ardent soul of God’s servant sees jewels which may be won for Christ, spirits which may be regenerated and restored. His eye looks fight on to what, through the grace of the gospel, these degraded ones may become; and absorbed, swallowed up by a holy Christ-like love, he determines to spend and be spent in bringing to bear on that mass of sin and evil the power of that gospel which has done so much already and which is "the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth. The Word of God has been in their heart as," etc. There have been times in our history when we have known somewhat of this sacred impulse which fired the soul of the prophet Jeremiah. Have we not known seasons when the impulse was strong on us to say something for God? It has come when we have been preaching or teaching, and we have broken away from the calm, not to say cold, tone in which we have been going on, and have spoken to those before us words which have come up from the very depths of our soul, and we have seen in the countenances of our children or our congregation that they, too, were conscious that they were being spoken to in a manner other than usual, and that portion of the day’s lesson or the sermon has been remembered when all the rest has been forgotten. And sometimes this impossibility of keeping silence for God has come to us on the railway Journey, in the quiet walk with a friend or child, or in social converse, or in the casual talk with a stranger into whose society we may have been for a while thrown; and then we have felt we must say something for God, and it has been said feebly, weakly perhaps, but nevertheless the testimony has been borne, the endeavor has been made. God would not let us be silent; we could not stay from speaking; necessity was laid upon us. These are in their measure instances of the same Spirit as that which moved the prophets and apostles of old, though in a far less degree. But it is evident how well it would be for us all who bear Christ’s name to possess in far larger measure than we do this holy and irresistible impulse. The spur is what we too often need; how rarely the bridle! not the holding back, but the urging on. Whence, then, comes this sacred and mighty Spirit, under whose influence so many of the saints of God, even as the Son of God, have labored on in spite of all discouragement and suffering and wrong? It is evident, from the history of Jeremiah and of all other faithful servants of God, that the method by which God impelled them to their work was by bestowing on them such gifts as these— I. THE OF SIN. For he who has this knows how appalling is the evil under which men live. To him this present world and its inhabitants present but one aspect, that of being under a yoke which no man can bear. He has seen the vision of sin, and it was a sight so terrible that he can never forget it. It haunts him, for he knew it was no dream of the night, but a dreadful reality of the day and of every day. It was no chimera, no fiction of his own imagination, but a real and awful power that has ruled men and still is ruling over men. What scenes of beauty it has destroyed! What fearful misery it evermore produces. There was the garden of Eden in all its loveliness, with every fair flower and noble tree, with luscious fruit and every herb fit for the food of man or beast; it was all beautiful, so beautiful that even God pronounced it "very good." And as chief over this fair inheritance there were the first created of our race, in form and mind and soul harmonizing with the beauty and goodness that was all around them. How blest their condition! But the scene changes. We see no longer the garden of Eden, but a weary land bearing thorns and briars; we see, too, haggard and careworn people bending in sore agony over the murdered corpse of their child, murdered by his own brother, their eldest born. What hath wrought this change? An enemy, without doubt, but what enemy? It is sin—the heart of man in rebellion against God. The Bible is full of scenes like these—misery, shame, ruin, death, all, all the work of sin. And sin reigns yet, as he to whom God has given to see the vision of sin knows full well. Who can recount its doings? Who can describe the woes it causes? What ocean would be vast enough to receive the tears it has made to flow? What colors dark enough to depict the moral and spiritual evil it has engendered? And then the sorrows of the souls that are lost, the doom of the accursed of God—the antitype of that which Jesus describes as the "fire that is never quenched, and the worm that never dies." It is the vision of this,—the appalling evil, past, present, and most of all to come,—that has risen up before the soul of him who, beholding those around him under its dominion, finds himself utterly unable to forbear telling them of the Word of the Lord to the end that they may be saved. No wonder that, in view of these dread calamities, "the Word of the Lord was in his heart;" etc. II. But a further knowledge has been given to him to contribute to this same result. Were the vision of sin all, utter and dreadful despair would be alone left to him; but it is not all. Along with the knowledge of sin there is given to him THE OF THE GOSPEL in the Word of the Lord. It is brought home to his soul, by evidence he cannot question, that the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the sure remedy for all human ill. He has a deep conviction that trust in the Redeemer, reliance on his atoning death and sacrifice, will bring peace to the conscience, purity to the mind, strength to the will, hope to the heart, and final and eternal acceptance in the presence of God. Very much of what it can do for the soul in this life he knows it has done for him, and he has seen it do yet more for others. He sees, not only the need of such great salvation as God has provided in Christ Jesus for guilty and miserable man, but also the fitness and adaptation and the actual power of this grace of God. Such is his conviction concerning the Word of the Lord, the gospel of the grace of God; and, thus persuaded of its power to bless and save mankind, he hears on all sides, and coming up from all depths of sorrow and sin, the imperative summons to him to tell of this Savior and this salvation, and by no means to keep silence. From every hospital and asylum where the victims of vice and sin are reaping what they have sown; from every prison cell; from every place where the ruined in health, in fortune, in character, and in soul are dragging out the remainder of their wretched life; from every gallows-tree; from every impenitent’s grave; and from the sinner’s hell;—there comes the solemn adjuration which the apostle so keenly felt, "Woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel!" And not the sins alone, though they most, but the sorrows of mankind also, utter forth the same appeal. For the gospel of the Savior is a healing balm to the sick at heart, oil and wine to the wounded spirit; it is the gospel of consolation, of hope, and of peace to the sorrowing myriads of mankind. Feeling all this, how can it be otherwise that "the Word of the Lord is in his heart as," etc.? III. But there is one other gift needed to the full possession of that Divine Spirit which finds expression in our text. It is THE OF CHRIST. By this is meant, not merely an acquaintance with and belief in the truths concerning our Lord’s nature and work, nor even simply such belief in him as will save the soul, but such knowledge of him as is involved in deep love to him and sympathy with those objects on which his heart is set. To know Christ as your own loving Savior, who has died for you, redeemed and pardoned and accepted you, and given you an inheritance amongst his own; to know him by oft and earnest communion with him, by toil and suffering for him;—this is that knowledge of Christ which, when added on to that other knowledge of sin and of the gospel of which we have already spoken, will lead to that irresistible desire to serve him which his true servants have so often felt and shown. The love of Christ must be the constraining motive, and then there will come love and labor for the souls for whom Christ died. I do not know that it is possible for us to have a deep regard and concern for those whom we have never seen or known unless we see in each individual member of mankind one of the brethren or sisters of Christ, part of Christ’s body, one of his members, he being the Head of all. If this be believed, then we see that the soul of each of these men and women, though they may be of different clime and color, and be altogether strange and perhaps repulsive to us, still, the soul of each of them is as precious to Christ as our own, and as capable of honoring and as ready to honor him as was our own. This love of Christ will lead to the love of Christ in all men, for indeed he is in all men, and this will beget a Divine charity which will be ever a mighty motive to seek their good. Then shall we possess the mind which was in him who wept over Jerusalem and prayed for his very murderers. Then shall we willingly bear disappointment, reproach, loss, or aught other ill which may come to us as we toil on in our Master’s service. Here, then, in this deep knowledge of sin, of the gospel, and of Christ, have we the secret of that burning zeal which consumed the heart of Jeremiah and of others like minded to him. May God, of his mercy, give to all who labor in his cause this holy and quenchless zeal! Laboring under such impulse, let come what will to us in this world as the result of our toil, we will still labor on. Blessed Lord Jesus Christ, let thy Word be in our hearts as a burning fire, so that when tempted to forbear making mention of thee and speaking any more in thy Name, we may be weary of such forbearing and feel we cannot stay.—C. Is life worth living? Here is one who evidently thought it was not. How bitterly he grieves over the fact that he was ever brought into existence! It is an illustration, as has been pointed out, of the maddening force of suffering.. It drives a man to the use of wild language. For great sufferings generate great passions in the soul. They rouse the whole man into action. And these great passions thus roused often become irrepressible. Many men of no ordinary meekness and self-control are overborne at such times—Jeremiah, Job, Moses, Elijah; and then they express themselves in unmeasured terms. It is as a flood broken loose. Its rushing, foaming waters pour along, and over all that lies in their path. Hence it is that the prophet here, not content with cursing the day of his birth, utters wild execrations on the messenger that announced it to his father. Thus passionately does he protest against the misery and misfortune of his life. Nor has he been alone in such dark thoughts concerning life. Cf. Job 3:1-26; where the patriarch, in almost identical language, deplores the fact of his birth. And Moses prayed that God would kill him out of hand (Numbers 11:15); and Elijah (1 Kings 19:4). And there have been a whole host of men who have in the most emphatic way affirmed their belief that life is not worth living by refusing to live it any longer—Saul, Ahithophel, Judas, and the suicides of all ages declare this. And many more who have not given this dread proof of their sincerity have yet maintained the same. Sophocles said, "Not to be born is best in every way. Once born, by far the better lot is then at once to go back whence we came." Goethe, as he drew near his end, notwithstanding that all men regarded his career as one which had been highly favored and very enviable, is reported to have said, "They have called me a child of fortune, nor have I any wish to complain of the course of my life. Yet it has been nothing but sorrow and labor; and I may truly say that in seventy-five years I have not had four weeks of true comfort. It was the constant rolling of a stone that was always to be lifted anew. When I look back upon my earlier and middle life and consider how few are those left who were young with me, I am reminded of a summer visit to a watering-place. On arriving one makes the acquaintance of those who have already been some time there and leave the week following. This loss is painful. Now one becomes attached to the second generation, with which one lives for a time and becomes intimately connected. But this also passes away and leaves us solitary with the third, which arrives shortly before our own departure, and with which we have no desire to have much intercourse." And the gloomy musings of Hamlet, "To be or not to be, that is the question," is another example, which-has been followed by the whole tribe of those who are called pessimists, of representing life as a curse rather than a blessing. And we cannot deny that there are many now whose lot in life is so sad, that, if we looked only at the present, we could not vindicate the justice and still less the goodness of God in regard to them. And the terrible lottery that life is, a lottery in which the blanks far outnumber the prizes, goes far to account for the apathetic indifference with which the deaths of such myriads of children are regarded. If all parents knew for certain that the lot of their children would be bright or mainly so, how much mole jealously would their lives be guarded and avenged! And there are many men who, whilst they stammer out some kind of thanksgiving for their "preservation and all the blessings of this life," fail utterly to feel thankful for their "creation." They would much rather not have been. So that there can be no doubt that there is a larger and it is to be feared an increasing number of people who are desperately or despairingly asking the question which stands at the head of this homily, and which this passionate protest of the prophet against his birth has suggested. But how is all this? Let us therefore inquire— I. WHAT ARE THE CAUSES OF SUCH AND ? We reply: 1. Temperament has a great deal to do with it. Some are born with a sunny, bright, cheerful disposition; let them go down on their knees and give God thanks for it, for it is a better gift to them, more surely secures their happiness, than thousands of gold and silver. But others are born with a temperament the very reverse-pessimists from their mothers’ womb, always seeing the dark side of things, melancholy, foreboding, complaining. It Is a positive disease, and calls for mingled pity and careful discipline. 2. But more often still it is, the continued and sore pressure of sorrow. So was it with Job and here with Jeremiah. And it is still the bitter disappointments, the miserable failures, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," trouble upon trouble,—these are prolific sources of the sad views of life of which we speak. 3. But most of all, sin—moral evil—is the real cause. The "philosophy of melancholy" finds its true parentage there. It is this which causes that unrest and torment of soul, that hiding of the face of God and uplifting of the scourge of conscience, which throws all life into shadow and blots out the sun from the heavens. It is this which leads it to be said of and felt by a man, that it had been better for him that he had never been born. II. WHAT IS THE TRUTH ON THE MATTER? Such conclusion as that of the pessimist never can be right, for our deepest moral instincts teach us that, if life were more of a curse than a blessing, he who is the God of mercy and righteousness would never have given it; and that if it were better for a man that he had not been born, he would not have been born. Life must be a blessing or it would not be given. 1. Universal instinct says so. See how men cling to life. The law of self-preservation is the first law of nature. 2. The summing up of the hours in which we have enjoyed peace and satisfaction, and of those which have been darkened by pain and distress, would probably in all lives show a vast balance on the side of the former. Let any one honestly make the calculation for themselves. 3. The laws of life all tend to produce happiness; "In keeping of God’s commandments there is great reward." 4. Good men who may have held dark views of life have done so "in haste," as Psalms 31:22 and Psalms 116:11; or through looking at one point of their lives only (cf. the joyous praise of Psa 116:13; what a contrast and contradiction to the verses that follow!); or in ignorance of the truths and consolations which the gospel has introduced. Thus was it with Job and the Old Testament saints generally, and, of course, with all pagan nations. 5. Evil men are not to be credited. They have themselves poisoned life’s springs, and whilst they speak truly enough concerning their own life, they are not competent witnesses as to what all life is. 6. Then "it is the Lord that hath made us, and not we ourselves," and because of this all lands are bidden "be joyful in the Lord" (Psalm c.). Now, how could this be if life were not worth living? 7. The future which Christ has prepared. Let that be taken into view and quoestio coedit. Life is but the porch way to that which is life indeed—the eternal life. Our afflictions, therefore, which here we suffer are light, and "but for a moment," and so, "not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed." (1) Then, "Sursum corda," "Lift up your hearts;" "Be joyful in the Lord," because he hath made us. (2) Be reticent of such thoughts and words as these of Jeremiah. How far short he falls of the apostles of our Lord! They rejoiced in tribulations. Jeremiah had better not have so spoken; better have copied him who said, "If I speak thus I shall offend against the generation of thy children." (3) Pray to be kept from temptation so to speak or even think, for such temptation is hard to overcome.—C. BY J. WAITE A burning fire within. The mental condition of the prophet here recalls the beginning of his ministry. Just as he then shrank from taking its responsibility upon him, so now he is ready to throw it up in despair. His life seems to him altogether a failure. He is a disappointed and defeated man. He will "make mention of the Lord no more, nor speak any longer in his Name." Many an earnest ministering spirit has felt like this, overborne by the force of the world’s evil, impatient of the slow progress of the kingdom of truth and righteousness. But the prophet cannot so easily throw up his work. God, as at the beginning, is "stronger than he," and holds him firmly in his grasp; holds him to his office and ministry by the force, not so much of outward circumstance as of a spiritual persuasion, by the strong necessity of an inward law. "His Word was in my heart as a burning fire," etc. Note here— I. THE OF THE WORD OF GOD AS A LIVING POWER IN THE SOULS OF MEN. "A burning fire" (see also Jeremiah 23:29). All Divine truth possesses a quality that may justly be thus represented. The Law that came By Moses was a "fiery Law," of which the thunders and lightnings of Sinai were the appropriate associations (Deuteronomy 32:2). And even the inspiration of gospel truth was fitly symbolized by "cloven tongues of fire" (Acts 2:3). There is not only light but heat, not only a flame but fire. The moral effects are manifest. 1. Melting. Icy coldness, hard indifference, stubborn self-will, impenitence, etc.—all these are softened by the fire of God when it really enters into the soul. A tender sensibility is thus created that prepares it to receive all Divine impressions. 2. Kindling. Heaven-tending affections are awakened by it that did not exist before. Latent germs of nobler and better feeling are quickened into new life. There is no limit to the holy energies that may be developed in our nature by the inspiration of the truth of God. In this good sense we may say, "Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!" 3. Consuming. It destroys everything in us that is destructible. All that is false, selfish, sensual—all that is "of the earth, earthy"—has in it the elements of dissolution and decay, and cannot resist the purging, purifying force of Divine truth. The dross is consumed that the precious gold may come forth in all its beauty and purity. The solid grain is quickened into fruitful life, the chaff is burnt up as with unquenchable fire. II. THE IT IMPOSES. "I was weary with forbearing," etc. (see Jeremiah 6:11). The soul of the prophet was acted upon by a force that overcame, not only the weakness of his fears, but the strength of his self-will and of every motive that would induce him to relinquish his work. Every earnest, heroic servant of truth is sensible of this inward constraint. It is the constraint (1) of a Divine call, (2) of a masterful conscience, (3) of conscious power to benefit others, (4) of an instinctive impulse to communicate the good one’s own soul possesses. St. Paul stands before us as a conspicuous example of this when he says, "For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me," etc. (1 Corinthians 9:16). There is no clearer mark of a noble, Christ-like nature than submission to such a constraint as this.—W. BY D. YOUNG A changed name and a dreadful doom. The change here, from Pashur to Magor-Missabib, reminds us of other divinely indicated changes of name in Scripture; e.g. from Abram to Abraham, from Jacob to Israel, from Simon to Peter, from Zacharias to John. These changes, however, were indicative of advancement and honor; were suggestive of the rise out of nature into grace. But here is a name which becomes at once the memorial of great wickedness and of the sure judgment following upon it. I. THE NAME BEFORE THE CHANGE. Whatever doubt there may be as to the precise signification of the name Pashur, it seems quite clear that the very meaning of the word had in it something peculiarly honorable. The man himself belonged to a privileged order and held an office of influence and honor; and the name must have been given to him because of something auspicious in the circumstances of his birth. An honorable name is an advantage to its bearer, and to a certain extent also a challenge. He who bears it may so live that in the end there will be the greatest contrast between the name and the character. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ The chapter falls into three parts, two of which seem to be in some sort of connection, while the third is isolated. First comes a warning to the messengers of Zedekiah of the unfortunate issue of the rebellion against Babylon; this is followed by a counsel to the people to give up their futile resistance, and "fall away" to the Chaldeans. The last four verses contain an exhortation to the "house of David" to fulfill their high duties with greater conscientiousness, for fear of the judgment which had already begun to take effect when the former part of this chapter was written. Compare Zedekiah’s embassy to Jeremiah with that of Hezekiah to Isaiah on a similar emergency (Isaiah 37:2). Jeremiah 21:1 Pashur. A different Pashur from the one mentioned in Jeremiah 20:1. This one reappears in Jeremiah 38:1; he belonged to the fifteenth of the sacerdotal families, named after Melchiah. Zephaniah, mentioned again in Jeremiah 29:25; Jeremiah 37:3. He was of the priestly family or class of Maaseiah, and was next in rank to the high priest (Jeremiah 52:24). Jeremiah 21:2 Nebuchadrezzar. This form predominates in Jeremiah and Daniel, and is the only form found in Ezekiel. It is, in fact, the correct way of spelling the name, which is in Babylonian Nabu-kudura-ucur, i.e. "Nebo, protect [or perhaps, ’has made’] the crown." According to all his wondrous works; e.g. the destruction of Sennacherib, which must have occurred in the first instance to the minds of devout Jews. Jeremiah 21:4 I will assemble them into the midst of this city; i.e. I will compel the warriors to give up resistance, and shut themselves up within the walls. Jeremiah 21:7 And such as are; rather, left which are left. (There has been an obvious error in the repetition of "and.") Jeremiah 21:9 He that abideth in this city, etc. No doubt Jeremiah often gave this counsel to his fellow-citizens (comp. Jeremiah 38:1, Jeremiah 38:17), and it appears from Jeremiah 38:19; Jeremiah 39:9; Jeremiah 52:15, that many of the Jews acted in accordance with it. Falleth; more distinctly, falleth away (as Jeremiah 37:14, Authorized Version); i.e. goeth over to. Jeremiah 21:11 And touching the house, etc. The formula with which this section is introduced shows that it was attached to Jeremiah 21:1-7 at the same time as Jeremiah 21:8-10, although obviously written at a much earlier period. Jeremiah 21:12 O house of David. The "house of David" here, as in Isaiah 7:13, means the various branches of the royal family, the same, in fact, which are called by courtesy "kings of Judah" in Jeremiah 17:20 (see note). They appear from the present passage to have monopolized the judicial function. Deliver him that is spoiled, etc. The poor man would have no advocate to plead for him; in this case the judge was to see that he suffered no injustice in consequence. Jeremiah 21:13 Jehovah, standing, as it were, on the Mount of Olives, addresses the proud city beneath him. O inhabitant of the valley, and rock of the plain; rather, O inhabitress; Jerusalem is personified as a virgin. The poetical description of the capital as a "valley" (the word, however, signifies a valley as wide as a plain) reminds us of "the valley [or rather, ’ravine’] of vision" (Isaiah 22:1, Isaiah 22:5); While "the rock of the plain" recalls "my mountain in the field" (Jeremiah 17:3). So, as Graf points out, Babylon is called "a mountain" in metaphorical language (Jeremiah 51:25). It is, however, singular that the prophet should call Jerusalem a "valley" and a "rock" in the same passage. In the former, perhaps, Jeremiah is thinking specially of the lower city, and in the latter of Mount Zion. Who shall come down against us? viz. from the "hills round about Jerusalem." Jeremiah 21:14 In the forest thereof; i.e. in the forest of houses (comp. Jeremiah 22:6, Jeremiah 22:7). Jeremiah 21:1, Jeremiah 21:2 God consulted in vain. I. IT IS VAIN TO SEEK GOD’S HELP WITHOUT OF OUR SIN. Zedekiah sends to Jeremiah in his alarm. But he gives no sign of repentance. The dread of coming trouble and the desire to escape it are not penitence; the fear of hell is not penitence. All men naturally desire to be safe from suffering. But God will only deliver those who also desire to be free from sin, who regret the evil they have done, not merely that which they endure. II. IT IS VAIN TO SEEK GOD’S HELP WITHOUT TO HIS WILL. Zedekiah consults God as an oracle; he wants information. But he gives no indication of a willingness to obey the command of God. He would be glad of Divine aid for his own plans, but he has no thought of yielding himself up to the execution of God’s will. Many men would have God for their servant; their prayer is that God would do their will. Such presumptuous conduct must be rebuked by failure. III. IT IN VAIN TO SEEK GOD’S HELP FOR FROM THAT WHICH IS MORALLY . There is a moral necessity as well as a physical. No sane man would pray that two and two might make five. There are moral impossibilities equally impregnable. A just God cannot forgive the impenitent. All that God does must be for the best, and nothing can induce him to turn from what he knows is best. If men need chastisement God will give it them, though they may most earnestly desire to be delivered from it. It was good for the Jews as a discipline, as well as just as a punishment, that they should be carried captive to Babylon. Therefore, even if all thoughts of inflicting the penalties of justice were in abeyance, God’s merciful intentions to his people would make their prayers for escape vain. Jeremiah 21:8-10 The choice between life and death. I. THE CHOICE WAS FREE. It was left to the Jews to choose which course they would take. God has endowed every man with freedom of will, opening up to him a vast range of possibilities. All of us have opportunities for choosing life and blessedness if only we will seek them. A Divine vocation marks out for us a course which we ought to follow in preference to the fancies of our own inclination, and a Divine destiny sots us down in a certain sphere bounded by definite limitations beyond which we cannot go; but within these limits we are free from compulsion, and even in regard to the vocation no force is exerted to make us follow it. We are under moral obligation to do so, but we are left to freely acknowledge or reject the claims of that obligation. II. THE CHOICE WAS . It was between life and death. These were the great alternatives of the Deuteronomic covenant (Deuteronomy 30:19). The same alternatives are set before us spiritually (Romans 6:23). Life is not to be played with; tremendous issues depend on the manner in which it is conducted. Religion is no mere topic of abstract speculation for learned leisure, no empty toy for idle sentiment; it is of vast practical moment, for it deals with the choice of the greatest possible alternatives—life and death. III. THE CHOICE WAS LIMITED. The choice which was set before the Jews by Jeremiah was gloomy enough. The best prospect offered to them was escape from massacre indeed, but escape to exile and captivity. We may come to such a condition that no effort will restore the lost possessions and gladness of the past. Even though there is no ground for despair, though the worst may be avoided, our conduct may bear such inevitable fruits in poverty, loss of position, alienation of friends, sickness, etc; that our best prospects may be far from satisfactory. This is necessary, for moral choice cannot undo past facts nor overleap the barriers of physical law. It is wise, for the disagreeable fruits of sin may be useful medicines in the form of chastisement. Yet the New Testament offers us a freer choice for the ultimate future; as the alternative of death not captivity and a life of sorrow, but eternal life and liberty, the full restoration to the blessings of God’s favor (1 John 5:11, 1 John 5:12). IV. THE CHOICE OF LIFE SAFETY WITH . Jeremiah said that death would await those who stayed in Jerusalem to resist the invader from behind the city walls, while they who went out to the field to yield themselves up without fighting would be spared. For this advice the prophet was regarded as a traitor. It was justified, because (1) resistance was utterly hopeless, (2) submission was required by God to a divinely appointed chastisement, (3) the Divine aid with which the Jews had won their victories in the past would not be forthcoming in this case. It is never dishonorable to submit to the will of God. True patriotism will seek the good of the nation rather than its transient glory. The method of escape offered to the Jews illustrates the Christian method of salvation. The Jews were to escape by leaving their ramparts and meeting their foes defenseless in the open field. We are to save our life by losing it. The Jews found safety in submission. The Christian salvation is secured, not by fighting and grasping at our rights, but by yielding to the will of God in Christ, and submitting to this even when it brings chastisement. God against Jerusalem. In the fact that God was against her, Jerusalem was to see that all resistance to the Chaldeans must fail. This terrible secret of hopeless ruin may be found in others besides the Jews. I. IT IS FOR GOD TO BE AGAINST THOSE WHO WERE ONCE HIS MOST FAVORED PEOPLE. It is Jerusalem, of all cities, that finds God to be her opponent. Therefore they who have enjoyed the friendship of God in the past have no right to presume that nothing can break that friendship. Moreover, God may be actively opposed to us. The opposition may not be all on our side. Though God is love, he can be angry, since even love itself will rouse anger when it is abused; and though he desires ultimately nothing but good, he may first send partial and temporary evil as a means for effecting this. II. THEY WHO OPPOSE TO GOD WILL FIND GOD OPPOSED TO THEM. The original enmity is on our side, so is the offence, the wrong-doing, the evil passion which stirs up contention. God would ever be at peace with his children, and it is they alone who have imported strife into his family. But after they have done so it is impossible for God to be indifferent to their conduct to him. His honor, insulted, must needs be vindicated—not, indeed, in the selfish way of personal pride, but in the righteous regard for the just and orderly government of his kingdom. III. NO MORE FATE CAN BEFALL MEN THAN FOE GOD TO BE AGAINST THEM. The horrors of the sieges of Jerusalem are amongst the darkest scenes of history. Yet the moral effects of God’s wrath are far more serious than the material. 1. If God is against us, we lose all the help of his favor. It is impossible to measure the grace which, in multiform influences, streams into us and sustains and strengthens us for duty and trial. If all were removed we should perish. If God were wholly against any soul, that soul must at once be driven to outer darkness—be crushed and destroyed, and by negative causes alone; simply through the loss of God’s light and life. But no man in this world has been so cursed. Yet even while God withdraws his special favors the loss is so great as to entail certain failure in life. The fruit may not be dashed from the trees, but the summer sun will never come to ripen it. 2. If God is against us, terrible evils will befall us. God is ever active in his presence. If we are not blessed by it, we suffer from it. How fearful to have God for our enemy! All the laws and forces of the universe are then against us. Nature and providence, earth and heaven fulfilling his will, must direct their vast resources against the wretched outlaw. Our opposition to God will be to our own injury, but what much more fearful results must follow his opposition to us! This dreadful fate is illustrated by our Lord’s words, in which he compares those who shall fall on the stone with those on whom the stone shall fall (Matthew 21:44). IV. IF GOD IS AGAINST US, MUST INVOLVE A CHANGE OF GOD’S TO US. The atonement must have an aspect towards Cod as well as one towards man. While man is reconciled to God, God must be propitiated to man. It is true that this language is only possible because we speak of God after the manner of man, and that the atonement does not originate in us or in an independent third party who seeks to reconcile man and Cod, but in God himself, who sent his Son to redeem the world to himself. Yet, though desiring to be only gracious to men, God must have recognized the necessity of that intercession and sacrifice of Christ which won the favor of the Father to his beloved Son, and so to mankind, of whom Christ was the representative Priest. In Christ, therefore, we need not fear that God is against us (Romans 3:25). BY A.F. MUIR Zedekiah’s message; or, the prayer of the ungodly. I. AN EXAMPLE TO BE . Whatever might be said of the general behavior of the king, his conduct on this occasion appears at first highly sagacious and commendable. 1. For its acknowledgment of Jehovah as the only Deliverer. A tremendous danger threatened the state. Zedekiah "counted the cost" and sent to the representative of Jehovah. He did not waste his resources in useless expedients, but frankly accepted the calamity as sent from God, appealing through God’s prophet for deliverance. Most men in similar circumstances lose themselves in secondary causes. "It is this unfortunate accident or that. In time circumstances will be better, and we shall right ourselves." 2. Its respect for God. Great officers of state sent to a poor prophet. Religion after all may be the chief concern; at least a very important matter, and worthy the attention of the highest in the land. II. AN EXAMPLE TO BE AVOIDED. 1. It was tardy. The warning of the prophet had been given long before, but it was not believed. Not until the visible proof of his veracity appeared before the city was Zedekiah eager to come to terms with the God he had offended. However great the alacrity of men to betake themselves to the offices of religion in times of calamity, their earnestness has not the spontaneous character to which it pretends. They are spurred on by fear. 2. The power instead of the grace of God was appealed to. A compliment to Jehovah’s past achievements is delicately suggested. No potty business would bring him to ask a favor of God, but this trouble is great and urgent, and beyond human means of dealing with it; therefore God is called in. "It is worthy of his interference who always ’ doeth wondrously.’ "Now, there is no real humiliation here. Recognition of God’s claims is grudgingly and of necessity made, but no word is mentioned of sin or repentance from it; no appeal is made to the forgiving love of God. Human nature is proud even in its necessities and prayers. "Help me now, at this juncture, and—afterwards I shall be able to help myself." God wilt not accept us unless we come humbly as well as prayerfully. Sin must be confessed. 3. It contained no promise of amendment. Jehovah is summoned as a Dens ex machina for the solution of a humanly impossible problem; but there is no indication that the "desperate resort" will grow into a course of constant waiting upon God. 4. The duty which ought to have been personal was delegated to others. Under the garb of respect religion is often really evaded. The Bible teaches the great doctrine of mediation, but it does not tell us how to perform our religious duties by proxy. 5. Certainty, the note of Divine faith, is conspicuous by its absence. "If so be that." The case is stated as a distant possibility. The language sounds respectful; it is so diffident, so unpresuming; but it really veils a profound skepticism. There ought to be, there is, no "perhaps" in believing prayer. The king was told that if he and his people repented, God would instantly avert the calamity or convert it into blessing. Perhapses like this are profanities. Besides, the suggestion is dishonoring to God, viz. that he should stay his judgments and the sinner nevertheless continue impenitent, 6. The whole tone of the message is false and unsatisfactory. It is that of one driven up into a corner by an unexpected exigency, but resolved that what he is obliged to do shall be barely done, and in such a manner as to give it quite another aspect to those who look on. A moral distance is observed, as of one who is unwilling to allow that religious duties are of personal as well as official and conventional obligation. It is the courtly language of diplomacy, and does not come hot-burning from a heart full of sorrow, faith, and love. What wonder it should not be answered save in scorn and added severity? The sarcasm is sublime.—M. Jeremiah 21:13, Jeremiah 21:14 God’s answer to earthly presumption. The indifference and callousness of Judah and her king would appear to have reached a climax. Ignorance could not be alleged in excuse of it. It had become ingrained systematic unrighteousness; and had added this to itself, that it had rejected the warning counsels of God’s prophet. How was it to be dealt with? I. IT COULD NOT BE LET ALONE. 1. The long-suffering mercy that had already been shown had been misunderstood. To delay longer was therefore impossible. 2. For all sin is a contradiction of the Divine Spirit and rule in the earth. It is a direct challenge to Heaven. Especially is this the case when a positive law has been revealed, and a direct intimation of God’s will made by a living representative. God’s honor is therefore involved in the issue. 3. The interests of truth and the kingdom of God on earth would suffer. The transgression of one child of God is a stumbling-block to many, and those who enjoy Divine privileges should be especially careful as to how they behave. The world of heathenism witnessing the behavior of Judah would be confirmed in its unbelief, or would misinterpret the genius of the religion of Jehovah. It might suppose that Jehovah was but a likeness of one of its own gods, full of partiality. This impression must be dissipated, and it could only be so by firm and prompt dealing with the offence. II. A FINAL SUMMONS TO IS GIVEN. It might be supposed enough to have dealt silent and summary punishments upon the guilty land anti its king. But this would not consist with: 1. God’s revelation of righteousness. In blessings as well as in punishments a rational connection had to be shown with the behavior and deserts of their subjects. The sinner’s own conscience had to be addressed ere he was cast off forever; and the indictment was of world-wide concern. A warning and an example were required for the general guidance of men, and for their apprehension of the justice of Heaven in punishing those upon whom the calamity came. 2. God’s mercy. The scheme of redemption does not exclude the possibility of the sinner himself being saved. On the contrary, this is its chief aim. Just as it would not be consistent with God’s character to suffer unrighteous practices to continue unrebuked, so "God would not be God" were the penalty to be unannounced and without alternative of salvation. With many sinners of today he deals in like fashion. The warning is given with gentle, repeated, and terrible emphasis, and the way of escape is pointed out so plainly that "the wayfaring man, though a fool, may not err therein," III. HE HIMSELF WILL BE THE . "I am against thee" (cf. Jeremiah 21:5). 1. This was a reversal of his normal relation to Israel. It would be hard for people of their habits of thought to realize; and it is stated boldly in order to emphasis. Not mere neutrality, He is to be a belligerent—the belligerent with whom they have to do. They must have felt foredoomed to failure. They knew his power and resources, for had they not been employed on their own behalf in the past? Is not this the present consciousness of many? They know that God is against them. Are they prepared to carry the war on to the end? 2. It represented the utter wrongness and hopelessness of their cause. The "rock of the plain’ would be of little avail against him. The forces of the world were at his command; and their own hearts would fail them for fear against this ghostly combatant. Against the righteous one the sense of an evil cause would be the parent of discomfiture. IV. YET THE WAS TO COME FROM WITHIN , "I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings;" "I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof." It is not easy to gather from these vague statements the precise form the punishment would assume. But the description agrees best with the circumstances of Jehoiakim’s reign, who built palaces of cedar, and ruled with despotic violence. A literal rendering of the terms of the judgment is scarcely permissible. Is civil war meant? Or court intrigues that may issue even more disastrously? In any case it would be the result of a reaction against the tyranny and wrongdoing of the court. 1. The elements of destruction are within the sinner himself. Many already know something of what hell is in themselves. 2. The results of sin will be its punish-men.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 21:1-14 Saved so as by fire. This chapter has been by some means put out of its proper place; for it treats of King Zedekiah, whilst in later chapters circumstances connected with the reigns of the kings who preceded him are given. But being placed here it serves to show how God’s servants, despised at first, come to be honored at last. The stocks had been good enough for Jeremiah—so the last chapter tells-and his enemies had smitten him as if he were a common felon. Here we find the king and high officers of the court coming and beseeching his intercession and help to avert the calamity which was so fast coming upon them and the nation at large. "Give us of your oil," said the foolish virgins to the wise. And again and again has it been and will it be that the ungodly shall come to covet earnestly the place in God’s favor which his servants only enjoy, but which, together with them who sought it when they did not, they have heretofore despised. Those who honor God he will honor, and will cause their enemies to come and confess that God is with them of a truth. Thus did the enemies of Jeremiah at this time acknowledge him as the true servant of God. But it was too late to secure what they desired. "The door was shut." But as the foolish virgins were bidden go to them that sell and buy for themselves, so the prophet of God has one counsel to give them whereby they might be "saved, yet so as by fire." "Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death" (verse 8). But when we come to see what that way of life was, we see how far different it was from what the king and his people would have chosen for themselves. Note, therefore— I. WHAT THIS WAY OF LIFE WAS. 1. It was bare life—life only. They were to suffer defeat; their weapons to be of no avail, their strong fortress to be taken, their city and their temple in which they gloried to be burnt with fire, and they themselves led into captivity. That now was all that was possible for them. It was too late to avert their calamities, much less to gain victory, or honor, or glory in the war which they were waging. A glorious deliverance such as Hezekiah had known was out of the question. 2. And ever, this bare life on hard conditions. They must surrender themselves to their enemies when the summons came, and meanwhile they must reform their ways (verse 12). On these terms they should be allowed to live. Refuse them, as many did, and they perished miserably. It was indeed a salvation "so as by fire." II. ITS . How full of this it was is seen by the plaintive psalms of the Captivity: "By the rivers of Babylon we sat down and wept," etc. And that which made it so mournful was the remembrance of how different their lot might have been. Had they but hearkened to the pleadings of those prophets of God, whose prayers when it was too late they importunately sought, how happy had it been with them then! Salvation in fullness, as their fathers had experienced and rejoiced in again and again, they too might have known. But now— III. ITS PLAIN FOR . Life may be retained, but made so wretched that only one thing could be worse—to have lost it altogether. This certainly true of the present life, it is probably true of the life after this. Beware of that false doctrine which encourages men to believe, that if only they can get within what they are pleased to call "the door of heaven," they need desire no more. This is not humility, but the evil desire to escape that faithful following of Christ which alone will win "the prize of our high calling." And since salvation in fullness is offered to us and God desires it to be ours, let us be content with nothing less, lest we be "ashamed before him at his coming," and have "with shame to take a lower place." To any now suffering under judgment of God this history says, "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.’ Accept his terms, see in them your only hope."—C. Jeremiah 21:8 A sad but common necessity. The surrender of a part to save the whole. This was the "way of life" the prophet put before the people. The way of death would be their refusal "If they would submit to the irresistible pressure of the Babylonian power, then whatever blessings were bound up in the preservation of the house of David and of the holy city would remain intact". But to resist would not merely be useless, but mischievous in the extreme. It would rouse the rage of their conquerors and involve the destruction of all they held most precious. It would be "a way of death." At the final siege of Jerusalem the Christians retired, but the Zealots drew down upon themselves the rage of the armies of Vespasian and Titus, and so hurried on the ruin of the whole Jewish state. Stanley says of Jeremiah, "It was not indifference to his country, but attachment to its permanent interests, with the yet larger consequences wrapped up in them, which induced him to counsel submission. It was his sense of the inestimable importance of that sacred spot, with its sacred institutions, which caused him to advise every sacrifice for the sake of retaining it. He had the courage, so rare in political leaders, to surrender a part for the sake of preserving the whole-to embrace in his view the complete relations of the great scheme of the world, rather than fix his attention exclusively on the one pressing question of the moment. As there are times when the constitution must be broken to save the commonwealth, when the interests of particular nations or doctrines must give way to the preponderating claims of mankind or of truth at large, so Jeremiah staked the eternal value of the truths which Jerusalem represented against the temporary evils of the Chaldean dominion. It was a bitter pang, but the result seemed to him worth the cost," "To steel his melting heart, To act the martyr’s sternest part; To watch with firm, unshrinking eye His darling visions as they die; Too happy if, that dreadful day, His life be given him for a prey." (Keble). I. THIS DREAD IS ONE WHICH MAY BE SEEN ON MEN. Illustrations are numerous: the throwing over the cargo in storm at sea; the abandonment of outposts to concentrate strength on the key of the position; the cutting off a limb to save the life; the giving up a less important branch of trade to safeguard one more so. And in the religious life we are perpetually summoned to such sacrifice. "Whoso loveth his life shall lose it, but he that loveth his life for my sake shall find it;" "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die," etc. All ventures of faith. And death—" for corruption cannot inherit incorruption," and therefore that the true life may be ours, the fleshly life must die. And our Lord represents the awful doom of the wicked to be a "cutting off of a diseased part," a κολλασις, that—so it should seem—entire destruction may not be needed. It is an awful process, but sternly necessary. God save us from it! And what is the submission of our will to God, the self-surrender for which he ever asks, but the prudent conduct of that king who feels that with his puny force of ten thousand he cannot meet the king who comes against him with twenty thousand, and therefore straightway sends an embassage desiring conditions of peace? But— II. MEN SHRINK FROM IT. Those before whom Jeremiah placed this "way of life" shrank from it. They would not listen to him. They cruelly persecuted their farseeing and God-inspired prophet. And it is so still. In common life the proverbial saying, "Nothing venture, nothing have," implies that men are loath to venture. Many a craft hugs the shore, thinking to find safety there, and is driven on the rocks and wrecked, when by putting boldly out to sea the storm might have been safely weathered. The historian of the Crimean War finds fault, once and again, with our generals for their timid policy, which he maintains brought so great sufferings and losses on our army, whilst had a more daring strategy been adopted—as in our recent Egyptian campaign at Tel-el-Kebir—the war might have been speedily and gloriously ended. And in the religious life, how men shrink from this self-surrender! What frantic but futile efforts there are to serve God and mammon, notwithstanding our Savior has said, "There is no man that hath left house, or lands," etc. (Mark 10:29)! But men cannot be-persuaded to believe this. The young ruler who had great possessions (Matthew 19:1-30.) went away sorrowful, because he could not make the great venture. And the feeble religious life of so many, the absence of all joy in God’s service, is owing to this same cause. Men are ever trying to find a via media between the "way of life" and "way of death." The husbandman does not refuse to cast into the earth all he has left of last year’s corn, in the trust that it will yield him a bounteous harvest. But we are slow to believe in the wisdom of such sowing in spiritual things. III. BUT THE REFUSAL TO SUBMIT IS FATAL. It was so in case of those to whom Jeremiah preached, and it has been so a thousand times since. A ship was sinking. A man leaped from her deck into the sea. He was a good swimmer, but he had fastened round him a belt containing gold, which he could not bring himself to abandon, and its weight sank him ere he could reach the beat for which he was making. Our Lord bade him who should be on the housetops when Jerusalem was besieged "not go down to fetch his clothes." Such carefulness might cost him his life. Our Lord tells of many of the Pharisees who believed on him, but were afraid to confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue. And perhaps there are few of the worldly and irreligious amongst us who have not sunk down to where they are now, and will sink down to lower depths still, through this same refusal to give up all for Christ. It may be humiliating and involve present loss, and therefore men let go the eternal gain. To refuse such sacrifice is the way of death. But— IV. To CONSENT TO IT IS LIFE. Take our Lord as the supreme example, who, not for himself but for us, threw away that infinite glory, that equality with God, which, being in "the form of God," was ever his; but St. Paul tells us (Philippians 2:6) he counted it not a thing to be grasped at, a prize which he should cling to with eagerness and retain with tenacity, but "emptied himself of it, and made himself of no reputation." Thus for the time of his incarnation submitting himself to the cruel might of sin and Satan, he gained thereby that infinite exaltation, that salvation of mankind upon which his loving heart was set. "Let this mind," therefore, "be in us which was also in Christ Jesus." And whenever it is found, God rewards it. Self-sacrifice, the cross, is the way to supreme reward. The shepherds were told, at the Nativity, that there was born to them "a Savior, Christ the Lord." And when they came to Bethlehem they found a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. What correspondence was there between that saying of the angels and that sight of the infant Jesus? To the outward eye none, but to the eye instructed by God’s Word and God’s providence, there is every correspondence. For those outward signs of poverty and humiliation which were the characteristic of his life, have formed his title-deeds, his royal right, to the homage of every human heart. "Blessed are the meek," etc.; "He that humbleth himself shall," etc. It is ever so; and especially when we humble ourselves before God, giving up self and sin, giving up and losing, as the world would say, our very life,—then it is we find it, as God grant we may.—C. BY D. YOUNG Jeremiah 21:1-7 A king appealing for a prophet’s intercession. I. A KING’S THAT HUMAN ARE . The hour and the danger so long and often predicted, referred to all the more earnestly as the hour draws nigh, has come at last. No time is here taken up in narrating the attempts Zedekiah may have made himself to repel the invader. The Scriptures were not meant to give us details of sieges. The likelihood is, however, that it was long before Zedekiah reached anything like an extremity that he made this appeal to the prophet. When all unusual danger comes close at hand it is easy to exaggerate. The man who has been indifferent, imprudent, heedless of all hints that have been given him to make provision for the future, is the very man who, when peril comes, rushes into panic and becomes unable to use the resources he has. II. A KING’S ATTEMPT TO AVAIL HIMSELF OF DIVINE . Nothing is more beautiful than to see one who has found out the vanity of human help turning to God. Only he must come in a right spirit, having made a clear discovery of why it is that man could not help him. Anything of this sort was utterly lacking in Zedekiah’s approach. There is no sign of repentance, no word of confession, no resolution of amendment. The only thing in the shape of acknowledgment is that Jehovah is the God who does wondrous works. This is an acknowledgment which we find often in the Old Testament, but it is acceptable to God only when accompanied with a sense of why it is that God does his wondrous works. The more we consider Zedekiah’s request, the more will the blindness and audacity of it appear. Here is the king in Jerusalem, bound, if any man ever was, to know the significance of the history of Israel as a whole; and yet he can only see certain great manifestations of power which encourage him to hope that a similar manifestation may now come for his own deliverance. There is no real coming to God, unless we come for things that are according to his will. His power cannot wait upon our selfish needs. There is no telling what might have happened, even at this more than eleventh hour, if Zedekiah had only come with something of true penitence. God knew beforehand that this could not be expected; and thus there is no clearer evidence of the righteousness of Jerusalem’s doom and of Israel’s expatriation than is furnished from Zedekiah’s own lips. He shows that he has lost all sense of the meaning and the necessity of God’s great covenant with his people. If only they had been obedient they would never have lacked the benefit of many wondrous works. III. THE PLAIN AND ANSWER OF JEHOVAH. We see through all that God here says a purpose to make plain that he is now full of activity against his apostate people. The object was not to be attained simply by leaving them, in their natural resources, to the natural resources of the Chaldeans. The contest is not of man against man, but of the man who has forsaken God against the man whom God has taken to be the instrument of his righteous indignation. God must specially intervene and make his presence manifest, to show that all this visitation of suffering is from him. If God has, for a time, to forsake his people, he must needs oppose them. If God be not for us, be is against us; and so here the defenders of Jerusalem are represented as having difficulties to deal with such as have arisen through God’s own operation. Their weapons of war do not produce the usual effect. God turns them back upon those who wield them. This may be more than a mere general figure of speech. It is quite possible that either the arm wielding the heavy, sharp sword becomes as the arm of the little child, or else, that remaining strong, the weapon becomes but as the child’s toy. Thus the Chaldeans themselves would learn that some mysterious power was at work, and that the glory of the victory was not theirs. Furthermore, God was to fight against these apostates with a weapon of his own. He can make the wicked and the ambitious his sword, but pestilence is of his own sending. Not all the might of the Chaldeans could bring a pestilence, nor take it away once it had come. Thus we see how all this dread combination of events was intended to impress on all, alike amongst besiegers and besieged, who had minds to understand that God himself was terribly at work. He was indeed dealing with the people according to his wondrous works; works necessitated in order to prevent his holy and reasonable wrath from being nothing more than empty wind.—Y. Escape for the individual among the calamities of the nation. Even amid all the thick, impending horrors indicated in the previous passage, a clear and immediate way of escape is indicated for the individual. Every one going over promptly and resolutely to the Chaldeans would be at least safe. What might be reserved for him in the future it was not proper to say. Enough for him to know that he had security for the present. He who is made safe may expect further communications of positive blessing in due time. We are not, indeed, to suppose that every one who remained in the city, exposed to sword, famine, and pestilence, would assuredly perish. That can hardly have been the case. But this certainly is meant, that every one so remaining would have to take a tremendous risk. Whereas every one who took the suggestion as to what is here called the way of life, found that the great Preserver of life had thereby entered into a special covenant with him. I. THE PLACE LEFT FOR . God is dealing with a whole nation. His representative and the representative of this nation’s king have just been in conference. His dreadful, necessary decision as to the nation’s fate is communicated. But now each individual is impressively informed that God is thinking also of him. The individual must, to some extent, share in the suffering of his people. How far he shall share depends, however, on his own choice. We cannot be dragged into the worst experiences of human life merely as sufferers from the wrong-doing of others. The worst pains, the gloomiest hours of life, can only come from our own wrong-doing. Whatever faithful remnant there might now be in Jerusalem had a great chance given to them. Complete exemption from suffering was not possible; but they were offered a kind of shelter, where the great storm of God’s wrath would leave them untouched, however much it might affect their temporal belongings. II. ALL THAT THE BEST OF MEN MUST EXPECT FOR THE PRESENT IS A OF . Whatever advantages come from our connection with the temporal body politic must be accepted with the risk of corresponding disadvantages. Even while Israel was in this doomed degenerated state it was the medium of benefits to those who could use it aright. No Israelite needed to regret that he had belonged to Israel; if only he had the wisdom to accept all uncomfortable experiences as part of a discipline that would work out unmixed and abiding good in the end. Those here addressed had much reason to Be thankful that at such a terrible crisis God did so much to make their position safe. He who has got safe to land from the sinking ship would be reckoned a monster of ingratitude if he did nothing but grumble because all his property was lost. He may still have the opportunity of a prosperity as great as he had in the past, or even greater. III. THIS GAVE A TRIAL TO THE FAITH OF THE . If any good was to come out of the proposition it must be by acting on it at once. And such action could not but have some appearance of cowardice and desertion. Indeed, under certain circumstances, it would have been cowardice and desertion. If Israel could have been looked on as a human state and nothing more, if the Chaldeans had been a human enemy and nothing more, then such a departure, self-prompted, would have been nothing less than apostasy from national duty. The sentiment is a noble one: better to die a freeman than to live a slave. This aspect of things vanishes, however, when we recollect that Jerusalem was divinely doomed. This Chaldean army was nothing less than the sword of God, and a timely surrender to the Chaldean was really a timely surrender to him. To go over to them might look questionable enough on a mere hasty, superficial glance; but time would show that it was the right, trustful, obedient course. The real bravery is to withstand the taunts and misrepresentations of unbelieving men; enduring "as seeing him who is invisible." Some, indeed, who escaped to the Chaldeans did so, we doubt not, in a really cowardly spirit. But the Lord knows who are his; and their motives would be revealed in the end. A bravo heart cannot be forever misrepresented; and a mere outward appearance of obedience will have to pass through that fire which tries every man’s work, of what sort it is.—Y. Jeremiah 22:1-30 and Jeremiah 23:1-40, are connected together by similarity of subject. The temporal and spiritual leaders of the people, who are mainly responsible for the national catastrophe, receive their merited castigation. Jeremiah 23:1-8 of Jeremiah 23:1-40; properly speaking, belong to Jeremiah 22:1-30.; thus we get a well-rounded discourse on the conduct of the kings, with four symmetrical parts or strophes—Jeremiah 22:1-12, Jeremiah 22:13-19, Jeremiah 22:20-30, and Jeremiah 23:1-8. Each begins with a general exhortation or meditation, and continues with a poetical description of the fates, successively, of Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Jehoiachin. The prophecy is concluded, according to the good old rule of Isaiah, by a Messianic promise. Jeremiah 22:1 Go down. Not literally, for the royal palace was probably the highest building in the city (comp. Jeremiah 22:6); but because of the spiritual eminence of the temple (comp. Jeremiah 26:10, "They came up from the king’s house unto the house of the Lord"). Jeremiah 22:2 And thy people. The Septuagint reads, "And thy house and thy people;" thus the passage will agree with Jeremiah 21:11, Jeremiah 21:12. Jeremiah 22:4 Parallel passage, Jeremiah 17:25. Jeremiah 22:5 I swear by myself. "Because he could swear by no greater, he swore by himself" (Hebrews 6:13). A synonymous expression is, "As I live, saith Jehovah" (Jeremiah 22:24). Jeremiah 22:6 Unto the king’s house of Judah; rather, concerning the house of the King of Judah; i.e. the royal palace, which, on account of its height and its being constructed so largely out of cedar-weed (comp. Jeremiah 22:14, Jeremiah 22:23), is called "Gilead, and the summit of Lebanon," just as Solomon’s palace was called "the house of the forest of Lebanon" (1 Kings 7:2). Of Gilead in general, Canon Tristram writes, "No one can fairly judge of Israel’s heritage who has not seen the luxuriant exuberance of Gilead, as well as the bard rocks of Judaea." And again, "Lovely knolls and dells open out at every turn, gently rising to the wooded plateau above. Then we rise to higher ground and ride through noble forests of oak. Then for a mile or two through luxuriant green corn, or perhaps through a rich forest of scattered olive trees, left untended and uncared for, with perhaps patches of corn in the open glades". The cedars of Lebanon, however diminished, still bear witness to the ancient fame of this splendid mountain district. A wilderness, and cities which are not inhabited. The comparison has a terrible significance when read in the light of De Vogue’s and Freshfield’s discoveries. For Gilead itself is full of ruined cities of massive stone architecture. "It is no uncommon thing," says Mr. F.A. Eaton, "to see these houses in a complete state of preservation, built of huge blocks of black basalt, with slabs of the same for the roof, twelve feet long, a foot and a half wide, and half a foot thick, and entrance doors also of basalt … great solid stones of the same material being used as lintels at the top and bottom". Cities which are not inhabited; not, indeed, the cities of Gilead of the time of Jeremiah, but constructed of materials which may reasonably be presumed to have been chiseled in a far more remote antiquity. (The date of the cities in their present state is subsequent to the Christian era.) Jeremiah 22:7 I will prepare; literally, I will consecrate; the Babylonians being instruments of the Divine vengeance (see on Jeremiah 6:4). Jeremiah 22:10-12 There is a fate worse than that of the dead Josiah. Weep not, in comparison, for him, but weep sore for him that goeth away (or rather, that is gone away). The king referred to is probably Jehoahaz, who, though two years younger than Jehoiakim, was preferred to him by the people on the death of Josiah. The counsel to "weep sore" for this royal exile was carried out, as Mr. Samuel Cox observes (and we have, perhaps, a specimen of the popular elegies upon him in Ezekiel 19:1-4): "A young lion of royal strain, caught untimely, and chained and carried away captive,—this was how the people of Israel conceived of Shallum". The conjecture is incapable of proof; and Ezekiel, we know, was fond of imaginative elegies. But probably enough he was in harmony with popular feeling on this occasion. The identification of Shallum with Jehoahaz is confirmed by 1 Chronicles 3:15 (Shallum, the youngest son of Josiah); the name appears to have been changed on his accession to the throne, just as Eliakim was changed to Jehoiakim (2 Chronicles 36:4). There is, therefore, no occasion to suppose an ironical allusion to the short reign of Jehoahaz, which might be compared to that of the Israelitish king Shallum (somewhat as Jezebel addresses Jehu as "O Zimri, murderer of his lord," 2 Kings 9:31). This view has the support of F. Junius, of Graf, and Rowland Williams; but why should not the Chronicler, though writing in the Persian period, have drawn here, as well as elsewhere in the genealogies, from ancient traditional sources? There is nothing in 1 Chronicles 3:11 to suggest an allusion to the fate of the earlier Shallum. Jeremiah 22:13 Shallum, or Jehoahaz, in his short reign of three months, had no opportunity of distinguishing himself for good or for evil It was otherwise with Jehoiakim, whose eleven years were marked by the worst characteristics of idolatry and despotism. He "had, besides, a passion for building splendid and costly houses; and as he esteemed his own position secure under the protection of a superior power, he did not scruple severely to oppress his helpless subjects, and wring from them as much money as possible" (Ewald, ’History of Israel,’ 4.252; see 2 Kings 23:33-35). The building mania, to which Oriental sovereigns have always been prone, had seized upon Jehoiakim. The architecture of the original palace no longer, perhaps, suited the higher degree of civilization; the space was as confined as that of a Saxon mansion would have appeared to a Norman. That buildeth his house by unrighteousness; i.e; as the second half-verse explains, by not paying the workmen (comp. Habakkuk 2:12). Jeremiah 22:14 A wide house; literally, a house of extensions. Large chambers. The Hebrew specifies "upper chambers "—the principal rooms in ancient houses. Cutteth him out windows; and it is ceiled with cedar; rather … his windows, roofing it with cedar. "Cutteth out" is, literally, rendeth; it is the word used in Jeremiah 4:30 of the apparent enlargement of the eyes by putting powdered antimony upon the eyelids. Windows are, as it were, the eyes of a building (Graf compares Ecclesiastes 12:3). Beams of cedar wood were used for the roof of the palace, as being the most costly and durable (comp. Isaiah 9:10). And painted—rather, and painting it—with vermilion; a taste derived from the Egyptians rather than the Babylonians, who seem to have had a difficulty in procuring red. Jeremiah 22:15 Shalt thou reign—rather, dost thou reign; i.e. dost thou prove thy royal qualities)—because thou closest thyself in cedar? The second part of the clause must at any rate be. altered. Some render, "because thou viest (with thy forefathers) in cedar" (i.e. in building cedar palaces). Hitzig would strike out "in cedar," as having intruded from the preceding line (such a phenomenon meets us occasionally in the received Hebrew text), but this does not help us to a ’connected translation of the passage. Graf’s rendering is grammatical, and not against usage; it is, "Dost thou reign because thou art eager about cedar-wood?" and yet the impression left on the mind is that there is some error in the text. The Septuagint finds a reference to one of Jehoiakim’s predecessors, "because thou viest with Ahaz" (so the Vatican Codex), or, " … with Ahab". The latter king is celebrated in the Old Testament on account of his buildings, especially his ivory palace (2 Kings 22:1-20:39). The former was at any rate addicted to the imitation of foreign ways (2 Kings 16:11; 2 Kings 20:11). Did not thy father eat and drink? There was no call upon Jehoiakim to live the life of a Nazarite. "Eating and drinking," i.e. enjoying the good things within his reach, was perfectly admissible (Ecclesiastes 2:24); indeed, the Old Testament view of life is remarkable for its healthy naturalness. There was, however, one peremptory condition, itself as much in accordance with nature as with the Law of God, that the rights of other men should be studiously regarded. Josiah "ate and drank," but he also "did judgment and justice," and so "it was well with him." Jeremiah 22:17 But thou, O Jehoiakim, art the opposite of thy father. For (not, But) thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness. "Covetousness" includes the ideas of injustice and violence (comp. Jeremiah 6:13; Jeremiah 8:10); hence the second half of the verse emphasizes the cruel tyranny which marked the internal policy of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah 22:18 Josiah had been bitterly missed and universally lamented (2 Chronicles 35:25); and so, only perhaps with less heartiness in most cases, Jehoiakim’s other predecessors (Jeremiah 34:5). The Babylonian kings, too, received the honors of public mourning, e.g. even the last of his race, who surrendered to Cyrus, according to the British Museum inscription translated by Mr. Pinches. Ah my brother! or, Ah sister! The Septuagint omits the latter part of this phrase, apparently because it seemed inappropriate to the death of Jehoiakim; but the parallelism requires a two-membered clause. According to Movers, the funeral procession is to be conceived of as formed of two parts, condoling with each other on having to share the same fate. Or perhaps mythology may supply a reason; it is possible that the formulae of public mourning were derived from the ceremonies of the Adonia; Adonis was an androgynous deity (Lenormant, ’Lettres assyriologiques,’ 2.209), and might be lamented by his devotees as at once "brother" and "sister.". Ezekiel (Ezekiel 8:13) testifies to the worship of Tammuz, or Adonis, and the highest compliment a king could receive might be to be lamented in the same terms as the sun-god. Jeremiah does not approve this; he merely describes the popular custom. The recognition of the deeply rooted heathenism of the Jews before the Exile involves no disparagement to Old Testament religion; rather it increases the cogency of the argument for its supernatural origin. For how great was the contrast between Jeremiah and his semi-heathen countrymen! And yet Jeremiah’s religion is the seed of the faith which overcame the world. Ah lord! or, Ah his glory! Lord is in the Hebrew adon (comp. Adonis and see above). His glory is against the parallelism; we should expect "lady" or "queen." Jeremiah 22:19 Jehoiakim’s miserable death, without even the honor of burial. The prediction is repeated in Jeremiah 36:30, where the statement is made in plain language. At first sight it appears to conflict with 2 Kings 24:6, "So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead;" but it is only appearance, and when we remember that the complete formula for describing the natural death of a king of Judah is, "slept with his fathers, and was buried with his fathers in the city of David" (1 Kings 14:31; 1 Kings 15:24; 1 Kings 22:50; 2 Kings 8:24; 2 Kings 15:7, 2 Kings 15:38; 2 Kings 16:20), and that the phrase, "slept with his fathers," is used of Ahab, who fell on the field of battle (1 Kings 22:40), we are naturally led to the conjecture that Jehoiakim did not die a natural death, but fell in battle in some sally made by the besieged. Buried with the burial of an ass; i.e. cast out unburied. Beyond the gates; rather, far from the gates. Jeremiah 22:20 A new strophe begins here, relative to Jehoiachin, the son and successor of Jehoiakim. Go up to Lebanon, and cry. The people of Judah is addressed, personified as a woman (comp. Jeremiah 7:29). The penetrating character of the long-toned cry of an Arab has been mentioned by Dr. Thomson. In Isaiah 40:9 a similar command is given to Zion; but in what different circumstances! From the passages; rather, from Abarim. The range of Abarim—Nebo, from which Hoses surveyed the land of Israel, belonged to it (Deuteronomy 32:49)—completes the circle of mountain stations; Lebanon was in the north, Bashan in the northeast, Abarim in the southeast. All thy lovers; viz. the nations whom self-interest had combined against Nebuchadrezzar, and between whom and Judah negotiations had from time to time been entered into (Jeremiah 2:36; Jeremiah 27:3). "Lovers" (comp. Jeremiah 4:30; Jeremiah 30:1-24; Ezekiel 16:33, Ezekiel 16:37). Jeremiah 22:21 From thy youth; i.e. from the time that thou didst become a nation (comp. Jeremiah 2:2; Hosea 2:15). It is tile Exodus which is referred to. Jeremiah 22:22 Shall eat up all thy pastors. The verb is that connected with the participle rendered "pastors;" strictly, therefore, shall pasture upon all thy pastors. The wind referred to is doubtless the parching east wind, the symbol of calamity, which is actually called a "sharp" wind in Jeremiah 4:11. Jeremiah 22:23 O inhabitant—rather, O inhabitress—of Lebanon. It is the people of Jerusalem which is meant; the "Lebanon" are the palaces of cedar-wood which together are called" the house of the King of Judah" (Jeremiah 22:6). How gracious shalt thou be; rather, How wilt thou sigh! Jeremiah 22:24 Coniah. A shorter form of Jeconiah (1 Chronicles 3:1), found again in Jeremiah 37:1. Perhaps this was the name this king bore prior to his accession, after which it was certainly Jehoiachin; Jeremiah has already spoken of one king by his earlier name in verse 11. The Divine speaker solemnly announces that though, as the representative of Israel’s invisible King, Coniah were—or rather, be—the signet upon his right hand (a most valued jewel), yet would—or rather, will—he pluck him thence; i.e. depose him from his high dignity. The same figure is used in Haggai 2:23, "I will take thee, O Zerubbabel, and make thee as a signet;" and Ezekiel 28:12, where there is a well-attested reading, "Thou (O King of Type) art a deftly made signet-ring." (For the fulfillment of the prediction in this verse, see 2 Kings 24:12, 2 Kings 24:15; Jeremiah 24:1; Jeremiah 29:2.) Jeremiah 22:26 Cast thee out. The Hebrew is stronger—"hurl thee" (comp. Isaiah 22:17, Hebrew). And thy mother; i.e. the queen-mother Nehushta (comp. Jeremiah 29:2; 2 Kings 24:8). She seems to have been particularly influential (see introduction to Jeremiah 13:1-27.) Jeremiah 22:28 Is this man Coniah, etc.? The prophet’s human feelings are stirred; he cannot withhold his sympathy from the sad fate of his king. What! he exclaims; is it possible that this Coniah is treated as a piece of ill-wrought pottery ware (comp. Jeremiah 18:4), and "hurled" into a strange land? He and his seed. These words have caused some difficulty, owing to the youth, of Jehoiachin. According to 2 Kings 24:8 he was only eighteen when he was carried captive, while 2 Chronicles 36:9 makes him still younger, only eight (Josiah’s age on his accession). Hitzig thinks the latter number is to be preferred; his chief reasons are the prominence given to the queen-mother, and the fact that the length of Jehoiachin’s reign is given with more precise accuracy in 2 Chronicles than in 2 Kings. It is true that the king’s wives are mentioned in 2 Kings 24:15. But that he had wives may, according to Hitzig, have been inferred by the late compiler of Kings from the passage before us; or the "wives" may have been those of Jehoiachin’s predecessor. Graf’s conjecture is, perhaps, the safest view of the case, whether we accept the number eighteen or the number eight; it is that the "seed" spoken of as born to Jehoiachin in his captivity, and is reckoned to him by anticipation. It should be mentioned, however, that the Septuagint omits "he and his seed" altogether. Jeremiah 22:29 O earth, earth, earth. The repetition is for solemnity’s sake (comp. Jeremiah 7:4). Jeremiah 22:30 Write ye this man childless; i.e. enter him in the register of the citizens (comp. Isaiah 4:3) as one who has no heirs. He may have children, but none of them shall succeed to his place in the community. This is all that the passage means; there is no discrepancy with history: how should there be, when Jeremiah himself has mentioned the posterity of Jehoiachin? Yet the Septuagint thought it necessary to avoid the appearance of such a discrepancy by rendering, not "childless," but "one proscribed" (ἐκκήρυκτον). Jeremiah 22:1-5 Court preaching. Jeremiah has been preaching in the valley of Hinnom, in the temple courts and in the streets of Jerusalem; now he is called to enter the king’s palace with a message from God. The preacher must not wait for his audience to run after him, but he must create it. He must make his work public, not hiding it in modesty, but bringing it to bear on the widest possible field. He must not be content to maintain his unopposed ministry in the Church, but must boldly carry out his mission in the world. Religion is not a concern for religious people alone; people who will not come to church may be supposed to need it more than those who manifest their interest in it by attendance at regular services. If the court is irreligious there is the more need for the prophet to go into its midst. I. THE HIGHEST RANK SHOULD NOT BE EXEMPT FROM THE MOST . The Hebrew prophets were remarkable for their clear and bold utterances before kings—often at the peril of their lives (e.g. Amos 7:10-13). Christ expects his servants to be equally faithful and fearless (Acts 9:15). When court preachers descend to become court flatterers they are doing their utmost to ruin their patrons. Kings may not often need to be addressed in the style of John Knox, in his sermons before Mary Queen of Scots; but they certainly should not be treated only to the drawing-room delicacies of Atterbury. The fastidiousness which makes strong words about unpleasant subjects seem in "bad form" in fashionable congregations is really a sign of sacrificing truth and right to mean pleasantness. Kings are men, and have human failings and sins. Rank confers power for evil as well as for good. The privileges and talents of a high position involve such great responsibilities, that the neglect or abuse of them is a crime of first magnitude in the sight of God. To ignore these truths is to act cruelly to the persons whom the preacher deceives by his smooth words. II. THE OF THE COURT IS OF GREAT TO THE NATION. As men, the king and his courtiers have a fight to be dealt faithfully with by the preacher. But as persons in authority, their influence makes their condition of importance to all. The people are largely responsible for the condition of the court, since popular applause and popular censure always carry great weight there. Thus Jeremiah associates the people with the king in the address which is intended chiefly for the king. Even under a constitutional government such as that of our own country, the court has immense influence especially in social circles, and it is of vital interest to us all that this influence should be pure and true and righteous. III. THE OF A COUNTRY LARGELY DEPENDS UPON THE MORAL OF ITS . This great truth is one of the chief lessons to be derived from the Bible accounts of the history of Israel. We commonly rely too much on physical resources, wealth, commerce, military power, etc.; on political resources, legislative schemes, diplomatic complications, etc. We in England have yet to learn how much of our prosperity depends on honesty in trade, fairness in dealing with foreign nations and a high tone of political morality. To judge by some of our newspapers, it would seem that religion has no business with politics; that a county is glorified when her leaders stoop to underhand work that would disgrace the name of the most unscrupulous lawyer. The doom of Israel should warn us against this political atheism. Three duties are specially to be noted in the discourse of Jeremiah. 1. To execute judgment and righteousness; not only to pronounce just verdicts, but to carry out an active policy of justice. 2. To deliver the oppressed; non-intervention may be cowardly and selfish when the weak claim our help. 3. Not to oppress the weak; this applies to nationalities as well as to individuals, and is a warning for our conduct with dependencies, and the native races with which we come in contact in the colonies. For righteousness in these respects the promised reward is, not a mere deliverance from approaching calamities, but glory, fiches, triumph. Jeremiah 22:8, Jeremiah 22:9 On visiting the ruins of a city. What a picture we have here! Many nations passing by on the high-road between Egypt and the East struck with amazement at the ruins of Jerusalem. Is not the sight of a city in ruins always a source of pathetic interest? As we wander about the silent streets of Pompeii the stillness of death is appalling by contrast with the tumult of pleasure and commerce which formerly thronged those once busy thoroughfares. Such a melancholy spectacle muses thought and inquiry. Gibbon tells us that it was while seated among the ruins of the Capitol that he first thought of writing the history of the decline and fall of the city of Rome. The magnificent ruins of Carnac and of Persepolis naturally lead us to ask how prosperity and power came to pass away from Persia and Egypt. So must it have been in ancient times with the ruins of Jerusalem. Jeremiah warns the citizens that their city, now brilliant in splendor and prosperity, will soon astonish all beholders with its overthrow. We have in the words of the prophet a question and an answer. I. THE . (Verse 8.) It is put by the heathen nations. These people who cannot understand the religion of Jerusalem can see clearly enough her ruin. The world has eyes for the shame of the Church in her overthrow, though none for her highest glory, that of the beauty of holiness. The question is asked by many nations. The spectacle is open to all, and so startling that many are arrested by it. How true is this even in the case of individual men! If a Christian falls into sin and shame the scandal rings through the world. 1. This question bears witness to the horrible doom of sin. The ruins are so extensive and so completely wrecked, that all who pass by are fascinated and appalled by the sight of them. If strangers are so struck, how must the children of the city feel? Well may they hang their harps on the willows, and sit them down in despair by the waters of Babylon. Yet the temporal ruin of a city is slight compared with the spiritual ruin of a soul. 2. The question bears witness to the surprise that this calamity excited. (1) It was in contrast to former prosperity. We are too ready to see in prosperity the promise of its continuance. But no delusion can be greater. (2) It was in opposition to the boasts of the Jews. They had regarded their city as sacred and invulnerable. So the French under the empire were taught to consider Paris. And this serf-confidence carries weight with others; for the world is indolent and thoughtless enough to take people very much at their own estimate of themselves. Nevertheless it is vain. (3) It was in spite of the supposed protection of God. The Jews were the elect nation. Hence the expectation of their immunity; but a vain expectation. No Divine favoritism will save us from the consequences of our sins. 3. The question suggests no possibility of kelp from the nations. They may pity, but they can do nothing. The stare of the crowd only aggravates the calamity. Well may such a prospect strike grief into the people interested. II. THE ANSWER. (Verse 9.) 1. The cause of this calamity may be known. Even the heathen nations may know it. Providence is not so mysterious as we suppose. No study is more lofty or more useful than the study of the moral philosophy of history. Treated only on secular grounds, it may be perplexing and unsatisfactory. But regarded in the light of the principles of the Bible, it may be fruitful in sound results. 2. The cause is moral. The hosts of Nebuchadrezzar conquered Jerusalem. Swarms of northern races and Asiatic hordes swept away the power of imperial Rome. Paris fell before the guns and discipline of the German army. Yet in each of these cases moral corruption was behind the physical cause of ruin, sapping the strength of the doomed city and provoking the onslaught of its foes. 3. The special cause was unfaithfulness to God: (1) forsaking God—for God never withdraws his protection from his people till they have abandoned their fidelity to him; (2) breaking the covenant—for this had two sides, and God’s promised grace is conditioned by the conduct of his people; and (3) positive idolatry—for the unfaithful servant of God never rests with the abandonment of his God. He must serve some master. Such moral and religious corruption justifies punishment and requires chastisement. We may believe that a right understanding of the guilt and necessities of men will ultimately convince us of the righteousness and wisdom of God’s sterner dealings, which at first naturally excite our wonder and dismay. Jeremiah 22:10 Misspent tears. I. WHY NOT WEEP FOR THE DEAD? It is natural to do so. The religion of the Bible is not stoicism. Christ wept by the grave of Lazarus. Yet there are times and circumstances which make it fitting not to weep for the dead, and there are always grounds for the mitigation of such grief. 1. The dead are taken from the evil to come. This is the idea of Jeremiah. If death was a calamity, the fate of the living at the overthrow of Jerusalem would have been a worse one. If an evil, death is still the less of two evils. Even if we only think of the dead as leaving the sunlight of this upper world and passing to the dim land of shades, still they go to the place "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." In less calamitous times we should feel that, as God knows all, he may have taken our loved ones to save them from some fearful evil which he, though he alone, saw in their path. 2. The dead are removed according to the wall of God. David wept for his child while it lived; after it was dead he dried his tears, for then he knew God’s will and resigned himself to it (2 Samuel 12:22, 2 Samuel 12:23). This resignation is more than a sensible recognition of the inevitable; it is a calm and trustful acquiescence in the will of God as righteously supreme—for if the Lord gave, may he not take away?—wise, and good. 3. The dead have fallen into the hands of God. In what better hands can they be? How much better to fall into the hands of God than into the hands of man! We dare not dogmatize concerning the deep mysteries of futurity. But one thing we know—"The mercy of the Lord endureth forever." He is just, he may seem stern; the impenitent must suffer punishment, which can be nothing else but fearful, though fair. Yet may not this be the very best thing for them, even during their sufferings? For it is better for us to suffer for sin than to sin without suffering. And who knows what ultimate designs God may have? 4. The dead in Christ never need our tears. We may weep for our own loss, but this is their gain. Weep that the battle is over and victory won? Weep that the pilgrimage is finished and the pilgrim safe at home? Weep that the toil and sorrow, the temptation and sin, of this world are left behind, and the joys of heaven inherited? that the night has ended, the shadows flown away? that the light of the celestial city is beaming on the weary wanderer? Such tears are tears of unbelief. II. WHY WEEP FOR THE LIVING? This may be required by special causes. Life is his children m this "a blessing. God gives many joys to his children in this world. The continuance of life is a privilege carrying with it the extension of advantages for faithful service. The brave and loyal servant of God will not selfishly crave a premature release from the duties of his life. Still there is a pathos about all life. "Our sincerest laughter with some pain is fraught." Special circumstances may make it fitting to weep for the living. There are calamities that are worse than death. Such seem to have been realized in the horrors of the sieges of Jerusalem. It is worse to live in sin than to die. The lost and ruined life claims our pity far more than that which is cut off by an early death. What curse could be greater than that of the "Wandering Jew?" Matthew Henry says, "Dying saints may be justly envied, while living sinners are justly pitied. And so dismal perhaps the prospects of the times may be, that tears even for a Josiah, even for a Jesus, must be restrained, that they may be reserved for ourselves and our children (Luke 23:28).’ Why should not this situation justify suicide? Because (1) we are not the masters of our own lives; (2) no man can tell what may follow the gloomiest prospects in the boundless possibilities of life, even in this world; (3) the man who lays violent hands on himself in rash, cowardly, and willful rebellion against God, may expect a worse condition in the future life than that of the man who is called away by Providence, and possibly far worse than any he is attempting to escape. Dishonest builders. In no age could these words of Jeremiah be more appropriate than in our own. Whilst we must be most careful to discriminate and not to vent wholesale censure, there can be no doubt that the building trade of our day furnishes numerous instances of an unrighteousness in business transactions which is a scandal to the commercial character of our nation, and which, if it becomes general, must be a sure presage of ruin. I. THE OF THE . 1. It is seen in bad work. Attempts are made to palm off wretched work with external decorations. There is a double crime here—lying and stealing; the work pretends to be what it is not, and undue payment is wrung out of the purchaser. Is not this commercial immorality to be witnessed in many branches of trade? In how many instances is it impossible to draw the line between the trader and the swindler? We find people accepting it as a maxim that every advantage should be taken of the ignorance, weakness, and trustfulness of others. It is forgotten that work should be done well for its own sake and in justice to others. Remember, God judges us more by the character of our work in the week than by the appearance of our worship on Sunday. 2. This wickedness is seen in the treatment of workmen. Those who live in rapidly growing neighborhoods know how common it is for poor tradesmen to be ruined by the speculative builders to whom they have supplied materials, and for the artisans to have the utmost difficulty in obtaining their wages. This is especially bad, because it is the oppression of the poor and the abuse of confidence. We have no right so to speculate as to risk the property of other people. The cruelties of slavery which accompanied the gigantic building operations of antiquity (e.g. in the building of the Pyramids) may be equaled in wickedness by the crime of those who steal the work of the poor to increase the chance of their own aggrandizement. II. THE RUIN OF THE . "Woe unto him," etc.! Undue anxiety to get rich overreaches itself and ends in bankruptcy. Dishonesty in trade is poison to successful business in the ultimate issue, for it cuts at the root of the mainspring of all business—trust. The abuse of confidence must finally destroy confidence. No doubt commercial depression is largely due to this cause. If the abuse were general, there could be no commerce in the form that this must assume if it is to be carried on largely with the complicated civilization of modern life. We may be assured, too, that God will not overlook this wickedness. Success may be attained at first. The rich man may have built his palace and may be enjoying its luxuries. The commercial man may have brought his dishonest transactions to a successful termination. Yet the fraud and the cruelty are noted in heaven; and if there is a Judge above, the palace of the great will be no citadel to protect the guilty man from the thunders of Divine judgment. The voice of God disregarded in prosperity. I. GOD SPEAKS TO US IN OUR . 1. There are important words which need to be spoken to us at such a time. We can never have all the wants of our souls supplied by the richest abundance of material good things, and we need heavenly words for our soul’s sustenance then as much as in the conscious helplessness of trouble. We have special duties belonging to the time of prosperity. Prosperity brings talents, opens up opportunities for enlarged service, calls for renewed devotion of love and gratitude. There are also peculiar dangers attending prosperity, and it is well that we should hear a Divine voice warn us against them, and heed a Divine counsel which will direct us how to conquer them. 2. There are means by which God speaks to us in prosperity. He is ever speaking to us, even when we do not hear his voice—by the Bible we should be reading, by the ordinances of the Church and the institution of preaching, by the course of providence, by the life of nature, by the still small voice of conscience. But there are special voices of prosperity. Prosperity speaks to us of the goodness of God exercised towards us in spite of our ill-desert and in a degree beyond all reckoning. II. THERE IS DANGER LEST WE SHOULD THE VOICE OF GOD IN . God does not thrust his messages upon unwilling ears. We may refuse to hear. Yet he speaks so that we may always hear, so that if we do not heed his voice it must be because we will not hearken to it. 1. Prosperity may disincline us to do this because it seems to satisfy us without God. Really satisfy us it cannot. But temporarily it acts as an opiate, and when we do not feel the need of God we are tempted selfishly to disregard his voice. 2. Then prosperity is distracting. Sorrow is lonely and silent, and leaves us in the dark night to listen to heaven? voices and gaze on the wonders of the world above. The garish day of prosperity, with its noisy and dazzling distractions, withdraws our attention from such things. 3. Further, prosperity begets pride. It leads us to think much of self, to yield to self-will, and to rebel against the requirement to act as God’s servants and stoop beneath the yoke of his will. Hence it inclines us to a rebellious disregard for his voice. 4. If men have been hardened against God from their youth, it is not likely that they will heed his voice in the time of prosperity. The longer we neglect this voice the more deaf do we become to it. It is terrible to think of the folly and wickedness of persistent disregard to God’s truth while he is patient and long-suffering and persevering in seeking access to our hearts: Some great shock seems to be required to disturb this habit of hardened indifference. An earthquake of adversity may be required to break up such fallow ground. If trouble comes with this end it is a great blessing. The adversity of the Captivity was such a blessing to the Jews; it led them to regard the voice that was unheeded in their prosperity. So our sorrows are often blessings if they make us to hear the voice of our Father in heaven. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 22:1-23 Truth-speaking under difficulties. The prophet is commanded to go down to the king’s palace and deliver his prophecies in the royal audience. His mission did not admit of time-serving or evasive utterance. Like that prophet who said to David, "Thou art the man," he had to speak to the king face to face and with great plainness. I. GOD’S ARE OFTEN CALLED UPON TO WITNESS TO HIM IN PLACES. In king’s courts; in society; in unbelieving homes; in the office, workshop, etc. II. THEIR WITNESS IS OFTEN IN SHEER TO THE ACTIONS AND HABITS THAT PREVAIL THERE. The sin of Judah was flagrant and open, affecting the most elementary laws of righteousness, The Law of Moses guarded the widow and the orphan. The Law of God, in its righteousness, purity, and love, is still strange to the world’s life, and is constantly violated in it. But the duty of witnessing is only rendered the more imperative. III. THEY ARE BY: 1. The consciousness of inner rectitude and duty. 2. The witness of conscience in the transgressors. 3. The presence and promises of him who sends them.—M. Jeremiah 22:5, Jeremiah 22:7, Jeremiah 22:13, Jeremiah 22:14 Building in unrighteousness. The building of a house, be it small or great, is always an interesting and suggestive process. It is a lengthened operation, expensive, and representing a great part of a man’s aims and efforts. Various purposes may be sought in it according to the character, circumstances, etc; of the builder—mere shelter, comfort, splendor, protection. As these come into view the object in which they are to be realized becomes representative of the living personality and character with which it is associated. Jehoiakim was a despot, bent upon aggrandizement, and so he sought to build a magnificent palace with forced, unpaid labor. The ambitions of unspiritual men, the exclusive and absorbing projects of earthly life, resemble the palace-building of this Hebrew tyrant in— I. THE UNION OF DESIRES AND , METHODS. Easy for Jehoiakim to "go in" for a splendid palace, as he is not in the habit of paying his employee. Are there not many in modern life who act on the same principle? The desire for self-advancement and aggrandizement overtops every other consideration. 1. Unlawful methods of securing these are employed. Speculation; getting on in business in order to get out of it; adulteration; insufficient wages; prices that do not admit of honest manufacture; clap-trap advertisements, etc. 2. Imagining that others exist for the sake of one’s self. This reverses the golden rule and the spirit of Christ’s life. II. ITS SIN. This is selfishness—self-glorification, neglect of God and of human claims. The great principles of the Divine kingdom are contradicted;—justice, mercy, brotherly sympathy, etc. III. ITS RESULTS. 1. The ruin of the building; i.e. the life-project—the unhallowed aim. 2. The ruin of the builder—for time, perhaps for eternity.—M. Monumental judgments. I. WILL ATTEND THE ABUSE OF . 1. As a measure justice. The position attained by Jerusalem was due not so much to its site as to its being the center of a theocracy. The foundation of its prosperity was a spiritual one. It was God’s elective favor which had lifted it up above the cities of the earth. Presuming upon this, the first laws of righteousness had been violated and the whole conditions of the covenant relation ignored. This assumption of the inalienability of Divine blessings is at the root of every great apostasy. It is doubly unrighteous. (1) As a robbing of God. (2) As a misuse of a falsely acquired advantage and reputation. The robbery of such things is of infinitely greater heinousness in so far as they transcend in their value merely earthly treasures, and differ from them in the terms of their acquisition. It is free grace and unrequited love that are trampled on, and the punishment must therefore be the more exemplary. 2. As a necessary precaution. Pretensions so great are apt to mislead others. People who say, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we," may be taken at their own estimation if no marked change takes place in their external condition. God, therefore, uses his judgment in its external signs as an index of his reprobation. Other nations than Israel have illustrated this principle in their decline and fall. The great peoples of Christendom are on their trial. There is nothing more hateful in the sight of God than a people that has outlived its religion and yet retains the profession of it. Although the chief penalties of unfaithfulness in spiritual things must be inward, external evidences will not be wanting of what has taken place. How colossal the ruin of a power that has once been Christian, and has been exalted through Divine grace for the fulfillment of pledges, which have never been redeemed (Matthew 23:37; Matthew 11:23)! II. THE OF GOD WILL BE BY THE VERDICT OF THE WORLD. Even the ruins of Jerusalem would be a thing to gaze at. Its desolation would be unlike any other. The epitaph of a forfeited spiritual supremacy would seem to be graven on the very stones. There is ever something unmistakable and peculiar in the condition of those who are rejected by God. Their misery is not as other misery, their ruin not as other ruin. 1. The spectacle will be self-explanatory. Not that every sin and failing of God’s people would be written in earthly chronicles, but the causes of their decay would be broadly apparent. So is it with the Church from which God removes his candlestick, and the soul in whom the light has become darkness. 2. It will be morally impressive. Even in its misery the people of God will instruct the nations; and the Church of Christ will be a spectacle to angels and to men in its failures as in its successes.—M. Fates worse than death. Josiah’s death was still fresh in the memory of the people. But their hopes were reviving at the accession of the young Jehoahaz, his son. For three months he reigned in Jerusalem, following the evil and not the good of his predecessor, and "Pharaoh-Nechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem." After appointing Eliakim, another son of Josiah, to reign in his stead, he took the captive prince to Egypt, where he died (2 Kings 23:31-35). The exile of "Shallum" was quite recent at the time of this prophecy, and the nation was naturally more concerned over the tragic fate of Josiah than the evil fortune of his son. Jeremiah hastens to correct this mistake by assuring them of the miserable death of Shallum in Egypt. From this we learn that— I. DEATH IS NOT THE THAT CAN BEFALL MEN. Shallum living, but in shameful exile, was really more to be pitied in himself and to he deplored for the sake of his country, than Josiah dead. The latter was-free from the degradations to which his descendants were exposed, and saved the pain of seeing his country rendered tributary; he had also children to occupy his place. But Shallum experienced all his nation’s shame, as it were, vicariously, and was helpless to rescue it from the foreign yoke under which the intrigues of his brother had brought it. The hopes of Israel had in a special but easily understood way centered upon Shallum, in whom it trusted to see the restoration of ancient glory. All these are cut off by a decree more than human. He became, therefore, the type: 1. Of forfeited possibilities of usefulness. 2. Of national ignominy. 3. Of an irremovable curse. The apostate professor of religion, the impenitent sinner, etc; are worse than dead. It were better for the offender of the little ones that he had never been born (cf. Hebrews 10:26; 2 Peter 2:20, 2 Peter 2:21). II. THE OF MEN SHOULD BE CALLED FORTH FOR THE MISERY OF THOSE WHOSE WRONG-DOING THEY HAVE SHARED. 1. Because of its vicarious character. 2. Because of the Divine displeasure which it represents. This extends to themselves, even although they are not personally punished. Shallum, in this respect, is a type of him who was "made sin for us." 3. In order to practical measures being taken for its relief. There are many in our own day who, like Shallum, are the victims of national crimes and social sins. It is for those who have escaped the penalty to seek, by practical measures and the earnest presentation of the gospel, to redeem them to a happier life. The outcast and the fallen will be the brightest gems in the crown of the Church which gives itself to their redemption.—M. Jeremiah 22:15, Jeremiah 22:16 True royalty. The contrast between Josiah and his son has had many a parallel. The family emerges from honest homespun into splendid dishonor, dropping its virtues and its religion as it goes. In all periods of external development and material civilization it is well to remember that true greatness must be in the man and not in his circumstances, and that the richest amongst us cannot afford to do without the graces and benevolence that dignify and adorn even the humblest life. I. SHAM ROYALTY. "Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar?" With such persons the romp of circumstance is everything. Autocratic imperiousness is mistaken for empire. The whole superstructure is unsafe because the foundation is false. The ground is undermined. In proportion as men lose the reality of power they grasp at its shadow. II. TRUE ROYALTY. Essentially a spiritual thing. 1. In what it consists. In moral authority and real influence over men. This is never impaired by mere loss of external circumstance. The true king does not require his crown. 2. How it is secured. By (1) dependence on God, (2) simplicity of personal wants, (3) singleness of patriotic purpose, (4) sympathy with the ruled. "It was well with him." This repetition is intended to impress. "Then it was well with him"—an emphasis of time that was to be noted. Josiah himself had gone away from this ideal life and God cast him off.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 22:1-10 The mighty pleadings of God, These verses contain record of what we may fitly term a Divine wrestling with his sinful people to induce them to abandon their wickedness and live, so intense and urgent are the motives which he brings to bear upon them. Note— I. FOR WHAT GOD PLEADS. "That they should execute righteousness and judgment." It is the King Jehoiakim who is addressed specially, a monarch one of the worst who filled the throne of David. "He remained fixed in the recollections of his countrymen as the last example of those cruel, selfish, luxurious princes, the natural products of Oriental monarchies, the disgrace of the monarchy of David." For the estimate formed of him, cf. Jeremiah 22:13, etc. To him, therefore, God thus appeals. Now, this appeal is one God is ever making. Righteousness is his supreme solicitude (cf. homily on Jeremiah 7:1-34, on "Relation of religion and righteousness"). False or corrupted religions are ever characterized by indifference to righteousness. So long as outward adhesion to the creeds and customs they enjoin is given, a wide margin is allowed for the indulgence of the natural and evil propensities of humanity. But a constant characteristic of the religion taught us in God’s Word is its demand for righteousness. The gospel is no less stringent than the Law, yea, is more and justly more so, as it has brought to our aid a Divine force by which the demands of righteousness may be more readily met. It does not make void the Law. So far from that, it establishes the Law. If we understand by "belief" that which a man "lives by," which some say is the etymology of the word, and at any rate its meaning, then the scornful lines of the sceptic may be admitted to be true— "For creeds and sects let senseless bigots fight; His can’t be wrong whose life is in the right." For if those principles of conduct, those governing motives of a man’s life, lead him to right, then, though encrusted with what amount of error and superstition soever they may be, they nevertheless, because hearing such fruit, cannot be wrong at the root. And, on the other hand, however orthodox and scriptural the professed creed, if it do not tend to right conduct then that fact proves that the professed belief is not the real one, but one far other. "Be ye holy as I am holy," is ever God’s demand. Note— II. HOW HE PLEADS. See what forcible arguments he employs. 1. The mighty attraction of hope. Thus he would draw men off from sin. If those to whom he appeals would but hearken, he would work what would be virtually a miracle for them. He would stay the progress of ruin and decay which were now threatening the state; he would turn back the tide of events which was now rushing on in such vast volume and force to overwhelm the throne and people, and he would re-establish the ancient monarchy of David in all its pristine glory (cf. Jeremiah 22:4). To do this now that matters had gone so far would be as great a moral miracle as the cleaving of the waters of the Red Sea, and the Jordan, and the destruction of Sennacherib’s army, were physical ones. But God would do that if but the wicked king would turn from his wickedness and execute righteousness and judgment. 2. The mighty compulsion of fear. Thus he would "drive them off" from their present evil ways. See the terrible threatenings of Jer 22:5, etc. What a picture the prophet draws of calamity and of shame, which would be theirs if they did "not hear these words!" And to prevent the force of this threat being diminished, he distinctly warns them that his affection for them and the joy he ever had in them will not hold him back from doing what he said. They had been as Gilead and as Lebanon for beauty, fertility, majesty—his choice possession, his precious heritage; nevertheless his wrath would go forth against them if they refused his words. And this appeal to the King of Judah is like the Divine appeal addressed to sinful men now. What promises to draw men to himself, what threatenings to drive them from their sins, the Bible is filled with! So intent is the Divine mind upon righteousness. In face of this earnestness of God in this matter, what fools they must be who make a "mock at sin"! III. WHY HE THUS PLEADS. Because of: 1. His love of righteousness. It is the element in which God lives and moves and has his being. He cannot live in an atmosphere of unrighteousness. It is hateful to him. Righteous men feel thus; how much more, therefore, the righteous God! 2. His love of men. How would a father feel towards any one who was ever causing distress and ruin to his children? How he would detest such a person! And, on the other hand, how would he desire that which ever furthers his children’s good! Thus God must, out of love for us his children, hate that which ever hurts and harms us, and desire that for Us which ever ministers to our good. 3. His love for the sinner. God separates between the sinner and the sin, and whilst his love yearns over the sinner, his wrath burns against the sin. All his dealings with us are designed to effect a severance between the two. Death is the last and most effective separater; its keen sickle cuts the last bond that binds God’s children to the dominion of sin. "He that is dead hath ceased from sin." Blessed be God that it is so! His providence, his Word, conscience, the strivings of his Spirit, are all designed to the same end, and our Lord was called Jesus because he should" save his people from their sins." IV. WITH WHAT RESULT HE PLEADS. In this case it was of no use (cf. 2 Chronicles 36:16, etc.). And—alas that it should be so—it is often the same. When sin has got a certain hold on the will, no considerations will stay its course. No promises, no threats. How solemn a fact this I How it calls us to resist the beginnings of sin, to dread lest it should become such a habit of the soul as that God should say, "He is joined to his idols: let him alone!" But what is the result of God’s pleading on ourselves? That is the question. God grant we may be able to answer it as he would desire!—C. Misplaced sorrow. "Weep ye not for the dead," etc. Reference is to Josiah, the pious and patriotic King of Judah, who died deeply lamented (2 Chronicles 35:24, 2 Chronicles 35:25), being spared the pain of seeing and sharing the disgrace and suffering of his country (2 Kings 22:20). And by "him that goeth away" Shallum is probably meant. He was a younger son of Josiah, and was raised by the people to the throne under the name of Jehoahaz, but was soon carried captive into Egypt, never to return (2 Kings 23:31-35). Taking the words of tiffs verse generally, we note— I. WE DO WEEP FOR THE DEAD. Not, however, in the same hopeless way in which the dead were mourned ere Christ brought life and immortality to light by the gospel. Still, though in a very real sense Christ has abolished death, we yet weep for the dead. 1. For the beloved dead. We can hardly comprehend how, if they be conscious, they can be happy without those they have loved here on earth. We know how much her children were to the fond mother of whom they have been bereaved, how she delighted in them and they in her, and hence we cannot see how she can be happy and blessed apart from them. And the fearful vacancy which the removal of the beloved dead causes in the circle of those who mourn them, the constant and dreary sense of irreparable loss,—all this is sufficient to make us weep for the dead. 2. And for the holy dead, as we think of the influence they exerted, the power for good they were to the family, the Church, the neighborhood. 3. And for all who die we mourn. For life itself is a blessing: "All that a man hath will he give for his life." If, therefore, they have been cut off in the prime of their existence, their "sun gone down while it was yet day," we grieve over the possibilities of honor, happiness, and usefulness which are thus lost to them. And if they have been unbelieving and godless, we weep yet more. So far as we can see, the door of heaven is shut on them ere ever they have sought entrance there. It is a fearful thing for a man to die unforgiven, impenitent, and unbelieving. But it is not of such that mention is made in this verse. How can the thoughtful soul do aught but weep for them? But— II. WE SHOULD AT TIMES WEEP MORE FOR THE LIVING. Great blessing as life is generally, there are times when death is less a reason for tears than life is. It is so when life is a prolonged sorrow, or shame, or suffering, or, especially, sin. Our Lord himself bade the women of Jerusalem weep not for him, but, etc. (Luke 23:28). He thus declared that death—even such as his was to be—was preferable to life such as theirs would soon be. And death is a relief in cases not a few. Has not many a mother, heart-broken by the wild, wicked ways of a godless son, felt often that had he been taken from her when a little child, that sorrow had been less than his life now causes her? And our Lord said of Judas, "It had been better for that man if he had never been born." If sore sorrow can make life to be more pitiable than death—and it can—how much more grievous sin? Such a one is making the worst of both worlds. What is our life? III. BUTT IS NOT DEATH, FOR THE GODLY, ALWAYS TO LIFE? Is it not always the living who are to be pitied? St. Paul says, "To depart and be with Christ … is far better." And the author of Eccclesiastes declares, "Better is the day of one’s death than the day of one’s birth." And without doubt the condition of the blessed dead is better than any earthly lot whatsoever. An old divine represents one such as saying to those who mourned him, "Weep not for me. For," he says, "consider the evils I am freed from. I had a sickly, crazy body, especially toward my latter end; wearisome days and nights were appointed me. What would I have given many times for an hour’s rest? But now all this is at an end. I shall be no more sick, no more pained; my head shall now ache no more. And are you sorry for this? I had my share also of worldly losses and crosses in my worldly affairs. I had one house burned over my head, and almost all that was in it, in a few minutes, and have had other cares and troubles besides; but now farewell all such cares. And are you sorry for this? You know that as long as I was able I was laborious in my particular calling. I never ate the bread of idleness, but of honest diligence; but now all that toil is over. I am got to bed, where I rest from my labors—from all my labors of that kind—never to return to them again. And will you grieve for this? A great deal of pains I have taken in travelling and attending upon holy ordinances, on Sabbath days and on weekdays, sometimes above and beyond my strength; but I am now where I have communion with God at the spring-head, without the conduit-pipes of ordinances. And will you grieve for this? You all of you have, and I doubt not some of you feel, a body of death. I am sure I did; and many a time it made me cry out, ’O wretched man that I am!’ You know what I mean—the corrupt nature in the carnal mind, the sin that dwells in us, a proneness to evil, a backwardness to good; but death has eased me of that burden. When the health went out of the body that indwelling sin went out of the soul. There was an end of the leprosy that was in the walls. What all the praying and hearing, the Sabbaths and sacraments, the care and watchfulness, of forty years would not do, death has done at one blow. Weep not for me, then. I had daily grief in my heart for my own sins, for the sins of others, and for’ the afflictions of my friends, and for the troubles of the Church of God; but now all tears, even those of godly sorrow, are wiped away from mine eyes. Therefore let none be in yours upon my account. And, lastly, the bitterness of death is past with me. I have shot the gulf; that last enemy, that son of Anak, is vanquished, and I am triumphing. ’O Death, where is thy sting?’ And, therefore, weep not for me. But this is not all. If you consider the happiness I am entered into, that fair palace in which death was but a dark entry, you would not weep for me, but rejoice rather. Would you know where I am? I am at home in my Father’s house, in the mansion prepared for me there. I am where I would be, where I have long and often desired to be; no longer on a stormy sea, but in a safe and quiet harbor. Would you know how it is with me? I am made perfect in holiness. Would you know what I am doing? I see God. I see him as he is; not as through a glass darkly, but face to face. I am in the sweet enjoyment of my blessed Redeemer, whom my soul loved and for whose sake. I was willing to part with all. Would you know what company I keep? Blessed company, better than the best on earth. Here are holy angels and the spirits of the just made perfect. I am set down ’ with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God,’ with blessed Paul, and Peter, and James, and John, and all the saints. And here I meet with many of my old acquaintance that I fasted and prayed with, who got before me hither. And, lastly, will you consider that this is to continue? It is a garland that never withers, a crown that fadeth not away." IV. STILL WE ARE TO CHOOSE LIFE, IF IT BE GOD’S WILL. St. Paul did so; and we all, notwithstanding the blessed revelation of the gospel, desire life. And it is a natural and lawful desire. God ’has placed us here; he has visited us here; he has given us something to enjoy and something to do here. He expects us to value what he has bestowed. Christ did not desire that his disciples should be taken out of the world, but only kept from its evil. Paul desired to abide in the flesh, even when he was ripe for glory, and they are the healthiest Christians who in this matter tread in his track. V. HOW, THEN, SHOULD THE TWO OF LIFE AND DEATH BE BY US? Are we, as this verse implies, and as is the common way, to count death a great misfortune? Certainly not. The world does, but the believer in Christ should not. Then, on the other hand, should we count life a misfortune, and weep and moan over it? As certainly not. In morbid, unhealthy, and therefore unhappy moods (cf. Jeremiah 20:14-18), a man may long to die and to have done with the weary woefulness of his life. And at such times—and they do occur—he has felt some sort of sympathy with the ancient stoic, who said that "the best gift the gods had given us in this life was the power of putting an end to it." But the universal instinct of man condemns this, and life is valued even for its own sake, and so it ought to be. "All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come"—such should be the soul’s language, even under the heaviest trial. But the right regard of life and death is that of St. Paul. He was "willing to wait, but ready to go" (Philippians 1:23, Philippians 1:24). To be in his "strait" is the best position for us. To be evenly balanced between-the two desires for life and for death—that is the happiest mood in which a man can be. For the desire of life greatly to preponderate is to come under that fear of death which makes some "all their lifetime subject to bondage." And a preponderating desire for death is certainly not good. The strait of St. Paul is the place. God bring and keep us there! His desire for the "far better" lot of companionship with Christ was met and counteracted by his desire to glorify Christ in life through being helpful to his brethren, for whom it was "more needful" that he should abide in the flesh. And so he was kept in equilibrium, as it were, by these opposed forces, and the result was, as it ever will be, a saintly and devoted life. Paul’s "strait" is the only easy position on the earth. Oh, to be in it! If you are held by both of these bonds you will not fear a fall on either side. "Although your life, instead of being in your Father’s hands, were at the disposal of your worst enemy, in his utmost effort to do you harm he would be shut up between these two—either to keep you a while longer in Christ’s work or send you sooner to Christ’s presence. That were indeed a charmed life that should tremble evenly in the blessed balance. This way, we shall do good to men; "that way, we shall be with the Lord." Weep not, then, either for the blessed dead or for the holy living; bemoan neither, but bless God for both. But we may weep sore for him that goeth away an exile from God, never in this life, so far as we can see, to return. That sorrow is just; all other is misplaced.—C. The Nemesis of oppression. "Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness!" It is one of the many precious characteristics of the Bible that it ever represents God as the Avenger of the poor and oppressed. It tells over and over again how God "plentifully rewardeth the proud doer." And it is interesting and most instructive to note the manner in which God does this. Not so much by direct punitive inflictions of his wrath as by the results of those laws according to which his universe is ordered. That law of his universe is against the oppressor, and sooner or later overtakes and overwhelms him. "Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small." Now, here, in these verses, we have a Divine denunciation of oppression: "Woe unto him," etc.! And we note— This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ The first eight verses form the necessary conclusion of the group of discourses summarized in Jeremiah 21:1-14; Jeremiah 22:1-30. Like Isaiah, our prophet follows up denunciation with consolation, and will have the mind rest on the sure promises of God for the Messianic future. A part of the people has been already scattered abroad. In Jeremiah 24:8, "those who dwell in the land of Egypt" are a section no less important than "those who remain in this land;" and the Babylonian Captivity is an event only too certain to take place (comp. Jeremiah 24:8). Unhappy Judah! for though not free from responsibility, it is the kings who are the prime authors of the calamity. Yet happy Judah! for "the days come" that an ideal king shall arise, even the promised Messiah. (Comp. Ezekiel 34:1-31, which seems like a development of this section.) Some have represented the promises of this chapter as fulfilled in the return from Babylon, with perhaps the Maccabean glories in addition. The fulfillment would in this case correspond but ill to the prediction; the context, too, is equally opposed to it. For, as Hengstenberg points out, the "gathering" and "bringing back" of Israel is in Jeremiah 24:4 closely connected with the raising up of good shepherds; and, according to Jeremiah 24:5, that promise is to find at any rate its culminating fulfillment in David’s "righteous Branch," the Messiah. The mistake has been partly caused by a reluctance to increase the number of prophecies still awaiting their fulfillment, and partly by the false supposition that the events described must take place simultaneously (against this view, see Jeremiah 24:7, Jeremiah 24:8). Hengstenberg himself thinks that the fulfillment lies in the conversion of Israel to the gospel. "Canaan had such a high value for Israel, not because it was its fatherland in the lower sense, but because it was the land of God, the place where his glory dwelt." To be in Christ is to be in the true Canaan. Jeremiah 23:1 Woe be unto the pastors, etc.! This "woe" is a pendant to the" woe" upon Jehoiakim in Jeremiah 22:13. The original form of the verse shows the strong feeling with which the prophet both wrote and spoke: "Woe I shepherds who destroy," etc. By "shepherds" Jeremiah means rather the civil than the spiritual authorities, especially the kings—ποιμένεςλαῶν, as Homer calls them. This is, in fact, the general Old Testament application of the term (see on Jeremiah 2:8). That destroy; if it is true of all sin that no one can calculate its issues, this is specially true of the sins of rulers. Delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi; or, as an inspired teacher puts it, "The leaders of this people became false guides, and those whom they led were lost men" (Isaiah 9:16). How these evil shepherds "destroyed" the people we are not here told; but from Jeremiah 22:3, Jeremiah 22:13, it is clear that sins of injustice, ranging from oppressive exaction to murder, are specially intended. Scatter; the captivities of the Jews being directly owing to the want of good government and teaching. How could the prophets stem the tide of popular corruption, when the ruling classes opposed their efforts? The sheep of my pasture; or, the sheep of my pasturing—the "pastors" are Jehovah’s under shepherds. The figure is a favorite one, especially with the psalmists of the school of Asaph (see Psalms 74:1; Psalms 77:20; Psalms 78:52 (comp. Psalms 78:70-72); Psalms 79:13; Psalms 80:1). Jeremiah 23:2 The Lord God of Israel; strictly, Jehovah the God of Israel. This national title of Jehovah suggests, in such a connection, that the crime of the kings is nothing short of sacrilege. Ye have scattered, etc.; i.e. been the cause of their scattering, Have not visited them. "To visit" often, by a natural association of ideas, means "to give attention to." By an equally natural association, it means "to fall upon, to punish." Hence, in the next clause, I will visit upon you. We have the same combination of meanings in Zechariah 10:3. Jeremiah 23:3 Parallel passage, Ezekiel 34:12-15. I will gather the remnant;. For the ill usage of foreign oppressors has supplemented that of home tyrants, so that only a "remnant" is left. And they shall be fruitful and increase. The fertility of the Jewish race in modern times has been a frequent subject of observation, and supplies the best comment upon Jeremiah s prophecy. Jeremiah 23:4 And I will set up shepherds; e.g. rulers, not necessarily kings (see on next verse). Which shall feed them. For the evil shepherds "fed themselves, and fed not my flock" (Ezekiel 34:8). And they shall fear no more. Ezekiel again contributes an essential feature to the description. The neglect of the shepherds left the flock exposed to the ravages of wild beasts (Ezekiel 34:8). Neither shall they be lacking. A speaking phrase. Too many of the sheep had fallen down precipices or been carried off by lions. Yet the context rather favors a slight and palaeographically natural emendation of Hitzig, "Neither shall they be terrified." The Septuagint omits the word altogether, which favors the supposition that they read as Hitzig would read, for they are apt to condense by omitting synonyms. Jeremiah 23:5, Jeremiah 23:6 (Comp. the parallel passage, Jeremiah 33:15, Jeremiah 33:16.) Jeremiah 23:5 Behold, the days come. The use of the analogous phrase, "And it shall come to pass in that day," would lead us to suppose that this verse describes a fresh stage in the progress of events, as if the faithful shepherds (Jeremiah 23:4) were to precede the "righteous Branch" (Jeremiah 23:5). Such a view, however, is not very plausible, for the Messtab, according to prophecy, is to appear in the darkest of times. The prophet simply means to impress upon us the greatness of the revelation which he is about to communicate. I will raise unto David. The promised Messiah, then, is certainly to be of the family of David (comp. Isaiah 9:7; Isaiah 11:1; Micah 5:2). A righteous Branch; rather, a righteous Plant: the root means "to bud, or sprout." This is the first time in which the title the Plant is unmistakably applied to the Messianic King (possibly, but less probably, to the Messianic kings). It indicates that this great personage stands in connection with the divinely ordained and ancient royal family, but that he is in some way unique, and far surpasses his human ancestors. He "springs forth;" therefore he is not a sort of meteoric appearance, without any natural home among men, but rather the blossom of the Jewish nation, the embodiment of its highest qualities. And yet there is something extraordinary about him, for it is needful that Jehovah himself should "raise" this Plant from the almost worn-out stock of David. Note that the word rendered here in the Authorized Version "Branch" is not the same as that in the parallel passage in Isaiah (Isaiah 11:1). It is, however, the word employed in Isaiah 4:2, which is taken by many, especially the elder interpreters (but with very doubtful justice), to be a prophecy of the Messiah. It is also the word used by Zechariah (Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12), as a proper name of the Messiah, which is one strong reason for rejecting the view mentioned above that the word rendered "the Branch," or "the Plant," is to be taken collectively as equivalent to "branches," or rather "plants" (the article is not expressed in the Hebrew). In short, this passage and the prophecies referred to in Jeremiah are exceptions to the general Old Testament usage of the Hebrew word (cemakh), which is elsewhere a collective term equivalent to "plantation." It is true that in verse 4 "shepherds," in the plural, are spoken of, but there is no reason why this title should be confined to kings—it may as fairly be extended to the chief rulers under a king as the term "king" itself (see on Jeremiah 17:20); and true, further, that ill Jeremiah 33:17 a continuous succession is promised of Davidic heirs to the throne, but this is not decisive in favor of the collective meaning, any more than Isaiah’s later prophecy that "the [reigning Davidic] king shall reign in righteousness" disproves the strictly Messianic reference of his earlier promise in Isaiah 11:1. All prophecy is conditional; there may have been moral reasons why a continuance of the Davidic dynasty was held out by Jeremiah at one time as a possible prospect. (It is, however, extremely probable that Jeremiah 33:14-26 is the work of some other inspired writer; see ad loc.) The thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel, which is so closely parallel to this section, appears to interpret the prophecy of a single Messianic king (Ezekiel 34:23). And a King shall reign; rather, and he shall reign as king; i.e. he shall be the realized ideal of an Israelitish king—a second David. And prosper; or, and deal wisely. There is the same doubt as to the rendering of the verb in Isaiah 52:13 a. The radical idea is that of wisdom, and the analogy of Isa 11:2 favors the alternative rendering here. Shall execute judgment; in contrast to the neglectful conduct of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 22:3). Jeremiah 23:6 Israel shall dwell safely. In the parallel passage (Jeremiah 33:16) we read "Jerusalem," and there can hardly be a doubt that "Jerusalem" ought to be restored here. This is not the-only instance in which, by mistake, the scribe has written "Israel" instead of "Jerusalem" (see Jeremiah 32:30, Jeremiah 32:32; Jeremiah 51:49; Zephaniah 3:14; Zechariah 12:1). In Zechariah 1:19 the scribe discovered his mistake, and wrote the right word, "Jerusalem," after the wrong one, "Israel," but without canceling the latter. And this is his name whereby he shall be called. There is a various reading, which may be rendered either, whereby they shall call (him, or her), or, which they shall proclaim, supported by the Peshito, Targum, Vulgate, and a few manuscripts (St. Jerome, too, mentions this reading). There is also a more important difference among the commentators as to the person who was to bear the name. The older Christian interpreters contended with all their might for the view that the name belonged to the Messiah, partly on real philological grounds, partly with the illegitimate theological object of obtaining a proof-text for the orthodox doctrine of the person of the Messiah and (in the case of Protestant writers) of justification. It is much to the credit of Hengstenberg that he sets this object aside, and while maintaining the Messianic reference of the pronoun interprets the name with a single eye to the requirements of the context, "He by whom and under whom Jehovah will be our righteousness." The objection is that in the parallel passage (Jeremiah 33:16) Jeremiah assigns the name "Jehovah-Tsidkenu," not to the Messiah, but to Jerusalem. The prophet must be allowed to be his best interpreter, so that we must, it would seem, at any rate, reject the Messianic reference. But then how are we to explain the pronoun? It is right to refer the parallel pronoun in Jeremiah 33:16 to "Jerusalem," because the pronoun there is feminine, and evidently refers to a city, but it is not natural in our passage to explain "his name" of "Israel," seeing that the subject of the noun in the parallel line is, not Israel, but the Messiah. is the text here correct? A comparison of the parallel Psalms 14. and lift; and of the corresponding chapters in Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, will show how easily errors made their way into duplicate copies of the same passage. Granting that we have such duplicate copies of this prophecy in Jeremiah, there can be no doubt which is the more original; the form of Jer 23:6 has a difficulty from which Jeremiah 33:16 is free—a difficulty of interpretation and a difficulty also of grammar. For, as Ewald has already pointed out, the contracted suffix is very rarely attached to the simple imperfect, and the clear style in which this section is written justifies us in regarding any unusual form with suspicion. "Israel" thus was probably written by mistake for "Jerusalem," and this error soon led to others—first, the omission of "her," and then the prefixing of "his name" for clearness, and (on the part of the authors of the points) the mispointing of the verb (so as to include in the form the pronoun "him"). It is some confirmation of this view that there are several other passages in which the words "Israel" and "Jerusalem" appear to have been confounded (see preceding note). Read, therefore, as in Jeremiah 33:16, And this is the name wherewith she shall be called. THE LORD OUR ; Hebrew, Yahveh (Jehovah) Tsidkenu. The name is formed on the analogy of other symbolic names, such as El-elohe-Israel (Genesis 33:20), Jehovah-Nisei , and especially Jehovah-Shammah (Ezekiel 48:35), also a name of Jerusalem. These names are, in fact, sentences; Jehovah-Shammah, for instance, means "The Lord (is) there;" and the name in the present verse, "The Lord (is) our Righteousness" (Hengstenberg’s view mentioned above seems less natural). It is singular that Zedekiah’s name should come so near to that announced by the prophet. But there is still a difference between them. Zedekiah must mean "The Lord (is) righteousness," i.e. is ever faithful to his revealed principles of action. But Jehovah-Tsidkenu may be correctly paraphrased, "The Lord is the author of our prosperity," or, more strictly, "of the justification of our claims in the sight of our enemies" (comp. Isaiah 45:24; Isaiah 50:8; Isaiah 54:17; Isaiah 58:8; Isaiah 62:1,Isaiah 62:2). Similar applications of forensic language are familiar, e.g. "When they speak with their enemies in the gate" (Psalms 127:5). Jeremiah 23:7, Jeremiah 23:8 This is another of Jeremiah’s repetitions (see Jeremiah 16:14, Jeremiah 16:15). Either the Septuagint translator or the copyist of the Hebrew manuscript which he used appears to have thought that the passage might, therefore, be dispensed with. In the Septuagint it is placed at the end of the chapter (being possibly supplied from another Hebrew manuscript), and the form given in this version to the close of verse 6 (Ἰωσεδὲκἐντοῖςπροφηταῖς, combining the opening words of verse 9) shows that verse 9 followed immediately upon verse 6 in the Hebrew manuscript. Jeremiah 23:9-40 These verses form a complete prophecy, the title of which Jeremiah himself supplies in the words, "Concerning the (false) prophets" (see below); comp. Jeremiah 46:2; Jeremiah 48:1; Jeremiah 49:1, Jeremiah 49:7, Jeremiah 49:23, Jeremiah 49:28. It is true the rendering of the Authorized Version (Jeremiah 49:9), Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets, is not purely arbitrary; it is favored by the exegetical tradition represented by the Hebrew accents. But it is not probable that two entirely different causes should be given for the prophet’s deep emotion (see the latter part of the verse). Besides, "breaking of the heart" is nowhere a sign of anger (as Authorized Version would suggest), but either of grief (see on Jeremiah 8:20, or, as the context implies here, physical disturbance at the solemn message of Jehovah (comp. Jeremiah 6:11; Jeremiah 20:9). All my bones shake. It is a very uncommon verb, occurring only twice elsewhere (Genesis 1:2; Deuteronomy 32:11, in Piel). The words of his holiness; co, his words of holiness; i.e. his holy words, the words of the Holy One on the unholy doings of the false prophets. Jeremiah 23:10 The land is full of adulterers. The false prophets connive at flagrant immoralities, one of which is mentioned as a typical sin. As to the nature of the adultery, see note on Jeremiah 5:7. Because of swearing; rather, because of the curse; the curse, namely, with which God punishes the guilty earth (comp. Zechariah 5:3; Daniel 9:11; and especially Isaiah 24:6, where in the original there is a paronomasia very similar to that here). The land mourneth; a figurative expression, suggested partly by the assonance of the word for "curse." Drought is what is meant (comp. Jeremiah 12:4; Jeremiah 14:1, Jeremiah 14:2). The pleasant places of the wilderness; rather, the pastures of the prairie-land ("wilderness" suggests ideas very alien to the context). Their course; literally, their running (comp. Jeremiah 8:6). The subject is "the inhabitants of the land." Their force is not right; rather, their might (or, heroism) is untruth. They are "mighty men" only in telling untruths (comp. Jeremiah 9:3; Isaiah 5:22). Jeremiah 23:11 Both prophet and priest are profane; i.e. are unholy, disobeying the Divine commands (see on Jeremiah 5:7). The same two important classes specified as in Jeremiah 6:13. Yea, in my house, etc. Evidently some sin specially incongruous with its locality is referred to, either idolatry (comp. Jeremiah 7:30) or the totemistic worship of figures of animals (Ezekiel 8:10, Ezekiel 8:11). Comp. note on Jeremiah 5:7. Jeremiah 23:12 Their way shall be unto them as slippery ways, etc.; rather, slippery places. The passage has a manifest affinity with Psalms 35:6 (in one of the Jeremiahizing psalms; see on Jeremiah 18:19, Jeremiah 18:20). They shall be driven on; or, as Ewald, taking over the last word of the preceding clause, they shall be thrust into the darkness. This involves a reminiscence, probable enough, of Isaiah 8:22 b. It is against the accentual tradition, but improves the rhythmical derision of the verse. If we ask who "thrusts" them, Psalms 35:5 supplies the answer—it is not merely external circumstances, but "the Angel of Jehovah," i.e. Jehovah himself. As Bishop Hall says, "God wounds us by many instruments, but with one hand." I will bring evil upon them, etc. Favorite expressions of Jeremiah (comp. Jeremiah 11:23). Jeremiah 23:13, Jeremiah 23:14 The prophets of Samaria were no doubt guilty enough, but their offences dwindled by the side of the "horrible" transgressions of those of the southern kingdom. The prophet apparently means, not only that the former, having fewer spiritual advantages, were less responsible than the latter, but also that they had not violated the moral code so conspicuously. Jeremiah 23:13 I have seen folly; rather, absurdity or unseemliness; literally, that which is unsavory (comp. Job 6:6). The word occurs with a similar reference to Jehovah in Job 1:22; Job 24:12. To "prophesy by Baal" was "absurd," "unseemly," because Baal was a "non-entity" (Isaiah’s word for an idol). In Baal; rather, by, or by means of, Baal (see on Jeremiah 2:8). Jeremiah 23:14 I have seen also, etc.; rather, But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen. Horrible; as in Jeremiah 5:30. They commit adultery, etc.; literally, the committing adultery and the walking in lies—a much more forcible way of putting it. They are all of them; rather, They have become all of them; vie. either the prophets or the people in general. The inhabitants thereof; viz. of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 23:15 On the punishment hero threatened, see note on Jeremiah 9:15. Jeremiah 23:16-22 A warning addressed to the people against the false prophecies (comp. Ezekiel 13:1-23.). Jeremiah 23:16 They make you vain; i.e. fill you with vain imaginations. A similar phrase occurs in Jeremiah 2:5, on which see note. A vision of their own heart; the heart being the center of the intellectual as well as of the moral life, according to the Hebrew conception. Jeremiah 23:17 Unto them that despise me, The Lord hath said. The Septuagint and the Syriac render the same text (the consonants are alone the text) with different vowels, thus: "Unto those who despise the word of the Lord." In favor of this it may be urged that the phrase, "The Lord hath said," is nowhere else used in this abrupt way to introduce a real or supposed revelation, and Hitzig and Graf accordingly accept it. Ye shall have peace; as Jeremiah 6:14. After the imagination; rather, in the stubbornness (see on Jeremiah 3:17). Jeremiah 23:18 For who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord; rather, in the council. This verse is connected with Jeremiah 23:16; it gives the reason why the false prophets were not to be listened to. None of them had been admitted to the secret council of the Lord; the interrogation is here a form of denial. "To stand in the council" is not the same as "to sit" (Psalms 1:1); the latter phrase implies taking an active part in the consultations. It is specially applicable to the true prophets, according to Jeremiah 23:22, and this, as we gather from other passages, m a twofold sense. Sometimes the prophets had visions, in which their inner eye was granted a sight of Jehovah in consultation with his trusted servants (Isaiah 6:1, comp. Isaiah 6:8; 1 Kings 22:19); and the words of Eliphaz, "Weft thou listening in the council of God?" (Job 15:8), appear to be descriptive of a similar experience. But the phrase may also be used in a wider sense of entirely unecstatic revelations. Amos says (Amos 3:7), "Surely the Lord Jehovah will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret counsel unto his servants the prophets; ’ and a psalmist extends the term "secret counsel" to the communion which God grants to the pious in general (Psalms 25:14; comp. Proverbs 3:32). Thus there is no hard and-fast line between the experiences of the prophets and those of humbler believers. In so far as the latter are "disciples of Jehovah" (Isaiah 54:13), they too may be truly said to "stand," at least in the doorway, "in the council of Jehovah;" just as a well-known collect inherited from the Latin Church beseeches that "by God’s holy inspiration we may think those things that he good." Who hath marked his word? A Jewish tradition, represented by the marginal notes in the Hebrew Bible, has taken offence at this variation in the expression, and would correct the reading to "my word." But such changes of person are of frequent occurrence, and we know that the prophets were thoroughly assured that the word which they spoke was not theirs, but that of him who sent them. Jeremiah 23:19, Jeremiah 23:20 These two verses seem to be connected with Jeremiah 23:17. The false prophets say, "Ye shall have peace." How different the message of the true! (A duplicate of these verses occurs in Jeremiah 30:23, Jeremiah 30:24.) Jeremiah 23:19 A whirlwind of the Lord, etc.; rather, A storm of the Lord, even fury, is gone forth, and a whirling storm—upon the head of the wicked shall it whirl. The hurricane has already broken out; it will soon reach Jerusalem. This seems to be the force of Jeremiah’s expressive figure. Jeremiah 23:20 The anger of the Lord. The prophet’s interpretation of the image. It is the judicial anger of Jehovah, personified as Divine manifestations so often are (hence "shall not return"). The form of the verse reminds us of Isa 55:11. In the latter days; rather, in future days, as Dr. Henderson rightly renders. It seems better to restrict the term "latter days" to the Messianic period ("the coming age," Matthew 12:32), to which, in fact, it is often applied (e.g. Isaiah 2:2; Hosea 3:5). The phrase in itself simply means "in the sequel of the days," i.e. in the future; its Messianic reference, when this exists, is inferred solely from the context. In the passage before us, and in Deuteronomy 4:30, Deuteronomy 4:30:29, there can be no intention of pointing to the Messianic age. Precisely the same phrase occurs in an Assyrian inscription, where its meaning is clear from the context (aria akhrat yumi irib, "For a sequel of days—i.e; for a future time—I deposited"). In the present case it is no distant period to which the prophet refers, for he continues, Ye shall consider it, etc; or rather, ye shall understand it clearly, viz. that the calamities which will have come upon you are the Divine judgment upon your sins. Jeremiah 23:21, Jeremiah 23:22 In Jeremiah 23:17-20 Jeremiah has shown that these cannot be true prophets, because their message is diametrically opposed to the true revelation. He now proves it from the absence of any moral effect from their preaching. Jeremiah 23:23-32 Jehovah has observed and will punish the false pretensions of the prophets. Jeremiah 23:23, Jeremiah 23:24 Am I a God at hand, etc.? ("At hand" equivalent to "near.") Eliphaz may again assist us with an illustration. "And thou sayest "—he is expostulating with Job—"What doth God know? can he judge through the dark cloud? thick clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; yea, he walketh upon the vault of heaven" (Job 22:13, Job 22:14). It might seem, from the preponderance of the false prophets ever the true, as if Jehovah were unaware of the mischief. Not so; Jehovah is omnipresent. Jeremiah 23:25 I have dreamed. Jeremiah mentions it as one of the marks of a false prophet that he appealed to his dreams (comp. Jeremiah 29:8); true prophecy contented itself with less ambiguous media of communication with the unseen world. It may be objected that Abraham (Genesis 15:12), at any rate, and Abimelech (Genesis 20:3) received Divine revelations in dreams; but these were not officially prophets. Nathan and the contemporaries of the author of Job had messages from God by night, but these are called, not dreams, but visions. Deuteronomy (and this is one of its striking points of agreement with Jeremiah) expressly describes a false prophet as "a dreamer of dreams". Two passages in the Old Testament seem inconsistent with this discouragement of dreams as a medium of revelation—Numbers 12:6, where the Lord is said to make himself known to prophets by visions and dreams, and Joe 2:28, where the prophetic dreams of the old men are one of the features of a Messianic description; but it is noteworthy that the first of these refers to the primitive period of Israel’s history, and the second to the distant Messianic age. In its classical period prophecy kept itself sedulously aloof from a field on which it had such compromising companionship (comp. Ecclesiastes 5:7). Jeremiah 23:26 How long shall this be in the heart, etc.? i.e. how long shall this be their purpose, viz. to prophesy lies? But this rendering leaves out of account a second interrogative which in the Hebrew follows "how long." It is better to translate this difficult passage, with De Dieu and many moderns, thus: "How long (quousque durabit haec ipsorum impudentia)? Is it in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies, and the prophets of the deceit of their own heart; are they thinking (I say) to cause my people to forget," etc.? On this view, Jeremiah 23:27 resumes the question interrupted in Jeremiah 23:26. Jeremiah 23:27 Every man to his neighbor. Not merely one prophet to another prophet, for it is "my people" whom they cause to forget my Name (comp. Jeremiah 23:32), but the prophet to his fellow man. Have forgotten my name for Baal; or, forgot my name through Baal. Jeremiah 23:28 Let him tell a dream; rather, let him tell it as a dream; let him tell his dreams, if he will, but not intermix them with Divine revelations. Jeremiah, then, does not deny that there is a measure of truth in what these prophets say; he only demands a distinct declaration that their dreams are but dreams, and not equal in authority to the Divine word. For, as he continues, What is the chaff to the wheat? What right have you to mix the worthless chaff with the pure, winnowed grain? How, he implies, can such an adulterated message produce the designed effect of a prophetic revelation? (St. Paul has a somewhat similar figure, 1 Corinthians 3:10-13.) So Naegelsbach. Keil, however, denies that there is any thought of an adulteration of the Divine word by the "false prophets." According to him, the question in this verse is simply meant to emphasize the contrast between the false, dream-born prophecy of Jeremiah’s opponents and the true revelations. How can the false prophecy pretend to be the true? They are as different as chaff and wheat. Both views are admissible. Naegelsbach introduces a new element by suggesting the intermixture of false and true in the utterances of the "false prophets;" but his view is not inconsistent with what the prophet has stated before, and it is favored by verse 30 and by the command, Let him speak my word faithfully; i.e. in its genuine form; comp. Jeremiah 2:21, "A faithful or trustworthy [i.e. a genuine] seed;" also, for the general sense, 2 Corinthians 2:17. Jeremiah 23:29 Is not my word like as a fire? As in Jeremiah 23:19, Jeremiah 23:20, so here, the prophet contrasts the message of the false prophets with that of the true. The former flatter their hearers with promises of peace; the latter speak a stern but potent word, which burns like a fire, and crushes like a hammer. Observe, the prophet does not define the activity of the fire as he does that of the hammer; for the fire has a twofold effect—protection to God’s friends and destruction to his enemies. On the figure of the hammer, comp. Jeremiah 1:1-19:23; Jeremiah 51:20. Jeremiah 23:30-32 The punishment solemnly introduced by a three times repeated, Behold, I am against, etc; corresponding to three several features of the conduct of the false prophets. First we are told that the prophets steal my words every one from his neighbor. The latter part of the phrase reminds us of Jer 23:27, but the neighbor in this case must mean, at any rate primarily, a fellow-prophet, one who has really received a revelation at first-hand from Jehovah. The "false prophets," not trusting to their "dreams" alone, listen greedily to the discourses of men like Jeremiah, not with a view to spiritual profit, but to making their own utterances more effective. We must remember that they lived by their prophesying (Micah 3:5). Jeremiah 23:31 That use their tongues; literally, that take their tongue, like a workman’s tool—as if prophecy could be turned out to order. And say, He saith. The word rendered "he saith" is one which the prophets habitually used to affirm the revealed character of their teaching. It is the participle of the verb rendered "say." Adopting a Miltonic verb, we might render, and oracle oracles." The "false prophets" adopt the same forms as the true; but they are to them only forms. Jeremiah 23:32 That prophesy false dreams (see on Jeremiah 23:25). By their lightness. The word is an uncommon one, and implies arrogance or boastfulness (comp. Zephaniah 3:4); the root means "to bubble over." Therefore they shall not profit; rather, and they cannot profit. Jeremiah 23:33-40 The abuse of a consecrated phrase. The prophets were accustomed to apply the term massa to their prophetic declarations in the sense of "oracle," or "utterance"—a sense derived from the use of the cognate verb for "to lift up the voice," i.e. to pronounce clearly and distinctly. But the word massa was also in common use for "load, burden," and hence the "false prophets" applied the term derisively to Jeremiah’s discourses. "Rightly does he call his word a massa; it is not merely a solemn utterance, but a heavy burden; as De Wette puts it, not merely a Weissagung, but a Wehsagung. The passage is important as indicating the sense in which the true prophets understood the term. It should be added that the term mused is prefixed to at least four Biblical passages which, not being of threatening import, do not admit of being entitled "burdens" (Zechariah 9:1; Zechariah 12:1; Proverbs 30:1; Proverbs 31:1; comp. Lamentations 2:14). How remarkable is the line adopted by Jeremiah 1:1-19 He simply abandons the use Of the term massa, consecrated as it was by the practice of inspired men! Better to adopt a new phrase, than to run the risk of misunderstanding or, even worse, profanity. Jeremiah 23:33 What burden? etc. The Hebrew text, as usually read, is extremely difficult; the Authorized Version is entirely unjustifiable. It is just possible to explain, with Ewald, "As to this question, What is the burden? the true meaning of the word is that," etc. But how harsh and artificial! By a change in the grouping of the consonants (which alone constitute the text), we may read, Ye are the burden. So the Septuagint, Vulgate, Hitzig, Graf, Payne Smith. We must in this case continue, and I will cast you off, as the same verb is to be rendered in Jeremiah 7:29; Jeremiah 12:7. Instead of carrying you with the long-suffering of a father (Deuteronomy 1:31; Isaiah 46:3, Isaiah 46:4; Isaiah 63:9; Psalms 28:9), I will east you off as a troublesome load (Isaiah 1:14). Jeremiah 23:35 What hath the Lord answered? i.e. a simpler phraseology is to be used, Jehovah hath answered, saying, or, Jehovah hath spoken, according as a definite question had been put before the prophet or not. Jeremiah 23:36 And the burden of the Lord, etc.; i.e. ye shall no longer use the word massa at all. Every man’s word shall be his burden; rather, the burden to every man shall be his word; i.e. his derisive use of the word massa shall be a burden which shall crush him to the ground. Ye have perverted; i.e. have turned them round, and put them into a ridiculous light" (Payne Smith). Jeremiah 23:38 But since ye say, etc.; rather, But if ye say, etc. In case the false prophets disobey, and persist in using the old expression, the threatening already uttered shall come into operation. Jeremiah 23:39 I, even I, will utterly forget you; rather, I will even take you up, and east you off. This involves a slight difference in the pronunciation of the text from that adopted by the Massoretes, but is adopted by the Septuagint, Peshito, Vulgate, a few manuscripts, and most critics; it is, in fact, almost required by the figure which fills the verse. And cast you out of my presence. "And cast you" is not in the Hebrew; nor is it necessary to supply the words, if the preceding clauses be rightly translated. Jeremiah 23:40 With this verse, comp. Jeremiah 20:11. Jeremiah 23:1-4 The character of leading men. The character of its leading men is a matter of first importance to a people. Israel had been led astray by his kings; one of the first blessings promised to him on his return is the possession of good leaders. In the most free state there must always be leading men—men exercising influence by reason of their office, their rank and position, or their capacities. Observe this in regard to the various classes of leading men. I. LEADERS. On their character depends the questions (1) whether laws shall be justly framed and justly executed, (2) whether the welfare of the subjects shall be honestly worked for, and (3) whether the dealings with foreign nations shall be just and peaceable. II. SOCIAL LEADERS. The moral influence of the court is always great and widespread; how important that this should be pure! There are people whom rank or personal attractiveness, or powers of persuasion, endow with power to influence the customs of their age. These need be well advised that their influence may be on the side of truth, purity, and humanity. III. LEADERS. Shall the reformer be a Luther or a Voltaire? The poet a Wordsworth or a Byron? The historian an Arnold or a Gibbon? The philosopher a Butler or a Hume? Surely for the real welfare of a people the moral tendency of its literature is more important than the intellectual brilliancy. IV. LEADERS. Are these men barren controversialists, or earnest practical guides to their flocks? Are they loyal to truth, or merely bigoted defenders of their own crotchets? Are they spiritual-minded servants of Christ, or ambitious priests? Are they true shepherds, or wolves in sheep’s clothing? These questions touch the welfare of a people very closely. Note, the one essential is that the leading men should desire to serve the good of others and not simply to increase their own power and honor; to feed the flock, not to scatter it by reckless indifference, selfish ambition, or tyrannous cruelty. The power of leading men is a great and dangerous gift, only entrusted by Providence to those who possess it for the sake of the good it may be the means of conferring on the community at large. The state is in a healthy condition only when public characters are inspired by public spirit. The Branch of David. The glorious prophecy of the Messianic future which here bursts forth from Jeremiah, after his denunciation of his nation’s sin and lamentation over its approaching calamities, is necessarily clothed in the language of the age, and viewed in an especial relation to contemporary wants. The people are suffering from bad rulers and an unrighteous government. A good king, administering his kingdom happily and justly, is promised for the golden age of the future. Associated with this king is, no doubt, that succession of righteous sovereigns referred to in the fourth verse. It was not given to anticipatory visions to show how unique and solitary and eternal was to be the kingship of the Messiah. Yet even there he stands forth in marked prominence, and towers above his successors, who are only regarded as following his initiative. Regarding the prophecy with the fuller light of Christian times, we may see how it is a true foreshadowing of the nature and work of Christ, though, of course, only partial and limited, as the shadow can only indicate the general form of its object, and that in but one aspect. I. THE ORIGIN OF THE MESSIAH. 1. He comes from a human stock. He is called a "Branch," or, rather, a "Sprout." Christ entered the world by birth; he was "made of a woman." Hence his oneness with us, his human sympathy, true example, and representative character as the High Priest of the race. 2. He comes of the family of David. This historical fact is significant. Christ is a born King, a rightful Sovereign. He realizes the ideal which the kings of the Jews had failed to attain, but which the best of them had aimed at. 3. He comes quietly and gradually. The sprout springs from a bud by slow growth. Christ began his life as an infant, and grew in physical, mental, and spiritual powers (Luke 2:52). He did not astonish the world with a sudden apparition of majesty. His kingship is like his kingdom, a quiet and gradual growth as that of a tree from a seed (Matthew 13:31-32). 4. He comes with close relations to the circumstances of the world. The sprout is vitally connected with the earth and the atmosphere. It grows in the natural season of growth. Christ is associated with all human interests. The ages before his advent were preparing for him. He is the representative of their highest aspirations, the satisfaction of their deepest needs. He comes in the "fullness of time." 5. He comes from a Divine origin. God raises up the righteous Branch. The text tells us no more than that the coming of Christ is providential and through special Divine influences; but we know that God not only raised him, but was in him, as one with his very being. II. THE OFFICE OF THE MESSIAH. He is to be a King. It was natural that the Jews should anticipate a temporal sovereign, and natural, therefore, that they should have been disappointed at the appearance and conduct of Jesus of Nazareth. Yet was he not, is he not, a King? He professed to be a King (John 18:37). The apostles claimed submission to him as to a King (Acts 17:7). His influence is kingly. The essence of kingship is not seen in the sitting on a material throne and wearing a visible crown, but in the exercise of power over men. Christ is the one true King, because he rules the thoughts and affections and wills of men. Human sovereigns can only command external obedience. While the slave cringes before the throne he may be cursing his master in his heart. Christ is satisfied with no such superficial loyalty. He seeks the allegiance of the heart, and he wins it from all his people. We must, therefore, recognize this great fact—Christ is a King as well as a Savior. While he delivers us from ruin, he expects submission to his authority. He is a Savior partly by being a King, for his royal influence is one means of his deliverance of mankind. Therefore the selfish Christianity which would accept escape from ruin, but would not accord loyal obedience, is a delusion. We cannot even be safe, cannot even escape from the ruin of our sin, except by bowing to the rule of Christ. We can only find rest unto our souls by taking on us his yoke. True faith, therefore, includes trust in the kingship as well as in the redemption of Christ, i.e. active fidelity in addition to passive confidence. III. THE OF THE MESSIAH. 1. He is righteous. This was much in contrast to the unrighteousness of contemporary rulers. Taking the word "righteous" in the largest sense, we have assurance of the truth, justice, holiness, and goodness of Christ. If this righteousness of the Messiah is a ground of rejoicing to the prophet, how much more shall we Christians rejoice in witnessing his gentleness, compassion, and love? 2. He rules righteously. The character of the government is necessarily determined by that of the ruler. The great King comes to live not for himself, but for his people, and not to execute stern judgments upon them, but to secure their highest good. Christ reigns for the good of his people. If we submit to his rule we find our own blessedness secured thereby. The new name. (See also Jeremiah 33:16.) God’s people are to have a new name. In the epistle to the Church at Pergamos, every one "that overcometh" is assured that he will receive "a white stone, and in the stone a new name written" (Revelation 2:17). This is suggestive, not only of a change of character, but of a change of reputation. The redeemed will no longer be thought of in connection with the old associations of their sin and shame. These will be forgotten, and a new name given to them, describing their holier character and happier condition. Consider the significance of this new name—"The Lord our Righteousness." I. GOD IS THE OF HIS PEOPLE. 1. He justifies his people in the face of their maligners by proving the rightness of their cause. For this, like David, they may appeal to him (Psalms 35:23, Psalms 35:24). 2. God’s righteousness is the ideal of righteousness for his people. True righteousness is that which is after God’s mind. Men have their notions of right, which are often perverted by passion and prejudice. But the redeemed have a vision of a higher law and a purer type of goodness. God is righteousness to them. He is the Good, the only true Good (Mark 10:18). 3. God is the Source of righteousness to his people. None can make himself righteous; righteousness is an inspiration. This idea is suggested by Plato in the ’Meno,’ where he represents Socrates as saying, "To sum up our inquiry—the result seems to be, if we are at all right in our view, that virtue is neither natural nor acquired, but an instinct given by God to the virtuous;" and again, "Then, Meno, the conclusion is that virtue comes to the virtuous by the gift of God." How singularly near is this to St. Paul’s teaching about the righteousness of God without the Law (Romans 3:21-26)! II. IS WITH . When the people are saved, they receive the new name. We are not delivered on account of our righteousness, but in our sin and need and ill desert. Nevertheless, salvation brings righteousness, includes the gift of righteousness—is, indeed, essentially a restoration of righteousness, a deliverance from sin to a state of holiness. The two ideas may be separated in thought; they cannot be separated in experience. It would be unjust and unholy for God to deliver a man from the penalties of his sin while he remained in the practice of it. But when deliverance comes, no part of it is more full of joy and blessedness to the redeemed, and none reflects more glory on the Redeemer than the salvation from the power of sin and the creation of a new nature of holiness. III. THE DIVINE IS THROUGH CHRIST. The giving of the new name follows the advent of the Messiah and the exercise of his kingly rule. Here we are carried beyond the vague and apparently casual Platonic notion of the inspiration of virtue to the definite Christian doctrine of righteousness through Christ. 1. Christ secures redemption for us by his life work and his sacrificial death, and with this comes righteousness. 2. Christ is the incarnation of the Divine righteousness, and breathes that into us by his vital contact with his people. 3. Christ rules in righteousness over a people whom he teaches to follow and obey him with righteousness. Therefore, if we crave the honor and the blessedness of the new name, let us yield our souls in trust and obedience to the claims and grace of Christ. Uninspired prophecy. The Jews were warned not to listen to the prophets, because they were not inspired by God. This fact was considered to be a sufficient proof of their inefficiency, and necessarily so, since the prophets professed to be acting as the oracles of God, and not merely indulging in their own speculations and conjectures. Herein lay the danger of their position. They held official rank as religious teachers, their claims were backed by venerated tradition, they boldly professed to speak with Divine authority; yet they were not sent by God. The same danger accompanies the pretensions of men in our own day, who claim a right to be heard without question by reason of their high office in the Church, and yet have no Divine commission. The appearance of this uninspired prophecy in Jeremiah’s age may, therefore, be a warning to modern times. I. THE ORIGIN OF THIS WAS PRIVATE . The prophets spoke "a vision of their own heart." Such a vision could only be a revelation of themselves. This is what uninspired religious speculation amounts to. It is a revelation of man, not a revelation of God. Attempts are made to arrive at truth in three ways. 1. By observation. But observation cannot reveal (1) the future, (2) the Divine. 2. By reasoning. This must be based on experience, and can bear no more strain than its basis. It is not found that we have sufficient data in normal experience to warrant important predictions of history and conclusions on vexed theological questions. 3. By intuition. Intuition does reveal truth, but only the truth of our own nature. We have no reason for supposing that this is always a counterpart to the facts of the larger world. II. PRIVATE WAS LIKELY TO IMPORT ERROR INTO THIS . It was always fallible, but in the present instance it was peculiarly likely to err. 1. It was attempting too great a task. The prophets were venturing to predict the future of their nation under the most difficult circumstances. 2. It was biased by prejudice, passion, and interest. The prophets were swayed by their own inclination. In religious questions personal considerations blind men to pure truth. III. THIS WAS VERY POPULAR. 1. It was recommended by the official teachers. 2. It was recommended by the majority of the prophets. Jeremiah stood almost alone; his opponents were numerous. 3. It was flattering to the people; it represented them as less guilty, as deserving less punishment than was threatened by Jeremiah. 4. It was pleasant. The prophets spoke smooth words and promised comfortable things. Such teaching is only too popular. IV. NO IS WHICH IS NOT BY GOD. The prophecy is condemned simply for want of this one fundamental condition. The history of religions speculation proves the helplessness of all attempts to solve the great problems of the future and of the spiritual by bare human intelligence. If, therefore, we believe that the Bible is inspired, weight should be given to its teaching as to an authority. In our own thought, and our meditation on the Scriptures, we need those lesser degrees of inspiration by which all Christians may be led into truth (John 16:13). The omnipresence of God. I. THE FACT. God must he thought of as fully present everywhere; not as a great Being who fills a great space with, however, only distinct parts in each section of space. The whole of God is present everywhere. He is as much present in every separate locality as if he existed nowhere else. All his infinite attributes of knowledge, power, and goodness are present, to be brought to bear on each individual of the infinite variety of things in the universe. God is as much present in the less seemly places as in those that are recognized as fitting temples for him to dwell in. He is in the earth as well as in heaven. Heaven is described as his throne, earth as his footstool. He is present with the godless as well as with the godly, in the heathen world as well as in Christendom. More particularly: 1. God is present with those who do not recognize him. The sunlight is not limited by man’s vision; it shines as clearly about the blind man as about one with keen eyesight. So, though we may not think of God’s presence, it is not the less near to us. 2. God is present with those who refuse to obey him. We cannot remove ourselves from the observation and control of God by forsaking all allegiance to him. Jonah could flee from his mission, but he could not flee from his God. God’s eyes are on the evil as well as on the good. 3. God is present with those who are far from enjoying the blessedness of the full manifestation of his presence. God is present with the Christian all through his earthly pilgrimage. Though God appears to hide himself for a season, though thick clouds intervene between the soul and that beatific vision which is reserved for the future state, God is as truly with his people on earth as he will be in heaven. II. LESSONS. 1. It is foolish to expect to escape from the judgment of God. God never abdicates his right to be the Judge of all his creatures. There is no possibility of hiding from him. God searches us and knows our deepest heart-secret. Will it not, then, be best for us to be true and open and frank with him? 2. We must not ascribe the confusion of the world to God’s indifference. If he knows all and does not set it right, this must be (1) partly because he gives large liberty to his creatures for the possibility of attaining higher good than would be reached by the exercise of any irresistible power, and (2) partly because he must have higher ultimate designs than any we can conceive of in the present imperfect condition of the world. 3. No change of place will bring us nearer to God. "He is not far from every one of us" (Acts 17:27). Therefore (1) it is needless to wait for some better time for approaching God. No time will be better than the present. He will never be nearer to us than he is NOW. He only waits that we should open our eyes. (2) It is a mistake to suppose that any outward event wilt lead us nearer to God, Death will not bring us more closely into his presence. No journey to a heavenly world will do this. We only need a change of heart to recognize and enjoy the eternal presence of God, which will make heaven wherever it is felt. 4. Christians need fear no harm. They must meet with troubles and temptations, but God is present to uphold them. They must go through the valley of the shadow of death, but God is there. They must enter the strange land of departed souls, but he is there also. And wherever God is it must be well with his faithful children. Jeremiah 23:33, Jeremiah 23:34 The abuse of a word. This is not a mere play upon a word, but a mocking abuse of the meaning of it, designed to convey a sinister insinuation. It illustrates what a dangerous and uncertain weapon language is. We are all inclined to attach too much importance to words, forgetting that they are not rigid landmarks of thought, but variable in meaning with the variations of the ideas we import into them. I. THE WORDS OF TRUTH MAY BE USED IN THE SERVICE OF . The Jews repeated the phrase of Jeremiah, but with a new and false signification. The "burden" as an utterance, was entirely distinct from the "burden" as a weight to be borne. Of course, mendacity belongs to our thought and intention, not to our mere language. We may tell a lie by using true words in such a way as to infuse into them a false meaning. Such conduct is peculiarly mean and dishonorable. It is robbing the armory of truth to turn its weapons against itself. No condemnation can be too strong for the treachery and dishonesty of those persons who appropriate the consecrated phrases of Christianity as a subterfuge under which to attack its spiritual truths. Let us be careful in using the Bible, not to read our own thoughts into the text, but to search simply for the original meaning of it. II. BECOMES WHEN IT IS BY THE OF WORDS. This is the essence of sophistry. A word is spoken with one meaning; it is replied to with another. Often and often this is done unconsciously. Indeed, a large part of our contentions rest on nothing but "misunderstandings." Under such circumstances we may deplore the error, but we cannot severely condemn the moral conduct of the misguided disputants. But it may be done deliberately, to throw dust in the eyes of an opponent, to raise a laugh without justification, to gain a point by mere word-fencing. When this is the case it is untruthful and ungenerous. If we must dispute, let us be frank and fair, using every effort to understand our opponent, carefully guarding against misrepresenting him. So long as a word is used as the embodiment of a thought, it is a sacred thing to tamper with which may be to murder a truth. III. NO VERBAL WILL THE OF TRUTH. This is just a corollary on what precedes. But it is sufficiently important to claim distinct and emphatic notice. Truth must find its expression in words, and to be intelligible these should be clear and definite. Hence the need of formulae. But nothing is more unreliable than a formula. Since it may be used against truth with all the force of its prestige if a new false meaning is foisted into it, we need to be constantly considering it afresh in the light of facts. Creeds may be useful as the expression of "views" of truth, but history proves that they are of little good as defenders of the faith. IV. WHEN A WORD HAS GIVEN TROUBLE IN IT MAY BE WELL TO ABANDON IT. Jeremiah is bidden no longer to use the word "burden." We are too jealous of words. There is a superstition of phrases. It is foolish to fight for a word. Anxiety about words is generally a sign of the loss of hold upon truth. If we are sure of possessing the truth and feel the living reality of it, we can afford to abandon any form of language, and can soon find other words in which to clothe it. Truth will not suffer. If it loses the aid of old associations, it loses also the hindrance of misunderstandings and antagonisms, and it gains the freshness of new suggestions. Let us be careful not to be the slaves of a vocabulary. We shall often find it wise to melt down our theological phrases and cast them in a new form, or rather to bury the old ones and let new ones naturally spring up as the embodiment of fresh living thoughts. Remember, "the letter killeth." The burden I. IT IS A MISTAKE TO REGARD THE OF TRUTH AS A BURDEN. It comes to lighten our burdens. At first it may seem to increase them by making us conscious of them. It opens our eyes to our own condition. The very light may serve to reveal the existence of the deep mystery all around us, which was not felt while the soul slumbered in darkness. Yet the light does not make the darkness that fringes its radiance. Revelation does not create the burdens of which it makes us conscious. It has rather the opposite effect. 1. All truth clears away some of the burden of superstition. Men people the unknown with horrors. Midnight shadows shroud dread nightmares. Daylight dispels the shadows, and the evil dreams melt away. 2. Divine truth is expressly designed to liberate the soul from spiritual burdens. It is a light of blessing, not a message of death; an evangel promising consolation to the weary. Even the darker elements of truth have this object to attain, since the evil that they reveal is only made manifest that we may see how to escape it, or be prepared to endure it, or receive it so as to profit by it. On the whole and in the end the truth of God is revealed for the loosening of the weary weight of men’s greatest burdens, the burden of unforgiven sin, the burden of impossible duty, the burden of unendurable sorrow, the burden of unintelligible mystery. II. MEN WHO DO NOT RECEIVE THE OF TRUTH MAY REGARD IT AS A BURDEN. Thus these Jews derided Jeremiah by mocking his language with words, however, which expressed their own sentiments if not their deeper convictions. To them his word was a weariness, a very burden. Is it not so regarded by many? We should note the causes of this sad mistake. 1. Ignorance. The word is heard, but it is not understood. On the outside it is harsh. This is the characteristic of much Divine truth. Far off it sounds like grating thunder, terrific and repellant. We must be near to hear its sweet but hidden music. 2. Want of sympathy. All truth is burdensome to those who have not sympathy with it. Spiritual truth is a weariness to the unspiritual. 3. Partial faith. Jeremiah’s words produced enough conviction to rouse fear, but not enough to lead to confidence in the wisdom, righteousness, and goodness of God in his acts of discipline and chastisement. A weak faith always makes truth a burden. To be joyous and exultant we must be trustful. III. THE OF TRUTH WILL BRING A BURDEN, The revelation is not a burden, but the neglect of it will make one (verse 36). Men turn from God’s truth for the trouble they think it threatens. They will find that this very act will bring the greatest trouble upon their heads. 1. This involves the loss of the blessing that truth is designed to bestow upon us. If we reject the truth we must bear the inevitable which the acceptance of it would have lightened. We then go our own way to meet unaided the crosses and toils of life. 2. This involves the addition of a new burden of guilt for the sin of rejecting truth. A willful rejection of light is, of course, wicked and most culpable in the sight of God. It must bring trouble. BY A.F. MUIR False shepherds and the true. The reference here is to the kings of the house of David, as the leaders of a theocratic people; and secondarily, to the spiritual purpose of all true kingship. I. THE OF FALSE . This is twofold, viz. scattering and destroying. The false shepherd has no real interest in the sheep; being but a hireling, his chief consideration is a selfish one. The kings of Judah had sought to realize their own ambitions and to indulge their own lusts. The moral and spiritual advancement of the people—the foundation of all real material prosperity—was not sought. The royal example which ought to have been influential for righteousness was directly opposed to this, and all classes of the people were infected with the licentiousness of prince and noble. The results appeared in crime, idolatry, and banishment. II. ITS . The calamity was to come chiefly upon those who had been unfaithful stewards of great responsibilities. Office which is thus abused will soon be taken away. According to responsibility will be punishment. He who causes to offend is worse than the offender, and will meet with corresponding severity of judgment. The nation outlives the dynasty. Unfaithful shepherds of the theocracy sink in ignominy and ruin, but God preserves a seed to serve him, and a generation to call him blessed. III. ITS . The deceived of God’s people, being distinguished from the deceivers, will undergo a kindlier discipline. The shepherd’s care, as the symbol of royal responsibility, is intended as an ideal corrective. It teaches the principle that the king exists for the people, and not vice versa. It is under Christianity that popular liberties, national development, and social purity have become the aims of rulers. In modern times there have been many who have illustrated this ideal of royalty; but Christ alone is the Head of redeemed humanity—the good Shepherd that lays down his life for his flock. In him the throne of David is eternally restored. Not yet do we see all things put under him, but the time draws nigh when he shall reign from shore to shore, and from the river even unto the ends of the earth. Ancient Israel depended for its very existence upon spiritual obedience to God’s Law. The Church of Christ in all its offices must respect his authority and be actuated by love to him. Its character and influence must be purely spiritual, or its message will be neutralized and soon perverted to unholy ends.—M. The Lord our Righteousness. I. THE OF GOD WOULD RULE IN THE MIDST OF HIS PEOPLE. The question of the singular or plural interpretation of the word "scion" need not trouble us. To the prophet it was enough to declare that the offspring of David would yet reign in righteousness. All lesser fulfillments of this prophecy are thrown into insignificance by the great Son of David, who so grandly fulfilled the essential conditions of the prediction. 1. Righteousness would yet become the law of human life. 2. This would be achieved through a personal influence. The King of men will wield a spiritual scepter, but his influence will be the more real. Righteousness will be manifested as a life and vindicated in sacrificial death. 3. The house of David would be restored in him as its offspring. II. THE OF GOD WOULD BE TO HIS PEOPLE. "The Lord our Righteousness," be it the title of Prince or people, is sufficiently significant to explain its own essential meaning. There would be a transfer of the righteous character of the Ruler to the ruled; their spirit and aims would be identical with his; and he would embody their ideal life and present it to God. Through him the Divine righteousness would be the possession of the least saint. This evidently could only be perfectly accomplished in Christ. Nothing less than a unity of spirit and life with Jesus Christ, through faith, could achieve such a result. III. THE OF GOD THUS AND WILL SAVE HIS PEOPLE. 1. The power of this righteousness. 2. Its desirability. 3. Its attainableness. The ideal future of Israel and the Church.—M. Jeremiah 23:16-18, Jeremiah 23:22 Trying the spirits. In Jeremiah 23:18 read, "For who hath stood in the counsel of Jehovah? Let him see and hear his word: who hath marked his word? Let him proclaim it." I. HEARERS ARE TO BETWEEN FALSE AND TRUE. A very serious permission. But not for an occasion only: to be exercised whenever the witnesses conflict. The essential principle of Protestantism. The prophet is one who speaks in God’s Name and reveals his will. The question, therefore, is of interest for all time; is exceedingly important, but not morally difficult. 1. The effect of false prophecy is disastrous. 2. Earnest and prayerful discrimination is the best safeguard against religious indifference. II. A TEST IS . It is a moral one. By their relation to the Law of Moses were the different prophets to be judged of. 1. The marks of the false prophet. His influence is an unrighteous one. He encourages evildoers, either by directly unrighteous teaching or through the indirect influence which he exercises. 2. The marks of the true prophet. He is as unmistakably in favor of morality and religion. He is distinguished: This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Again Jeremiah’s ungrateful task is to take up an attitude of direct opposition to the king (comp. Jeremiah 22:13-30), though, indeed, Zedekiah personally is so weak and dependent on others that he neither deserves nor receives a special rebuke. He and all the people that are left are likened to very bad figs, the good figs—the exiles—having been picked out and sent to Babylon, whence they will one day be restored. The vision is purely an interior process. This is indicated, not only by the phrase, "Jehovah showed me" (comp. Amos 7:1, Amos 7:4, Amos 7:7; Amos 8:1), but by the contents of the vision. Jeremiah 24:1 Two baskets of figs were set before, etc. (comp. Amos 8:1-3). The description is apparently based on the law of firstfruits (comp. Deuteronomy 26:2), where the "basket" is mentioned, though not the word here used. The baskets were set down in readiness to be examined by the priests, who rigorously rejected all fruit that was not sound. The princes of Judah. A short phrase for all the leading men, whether members of the royal family or heads of the principal families (comp. Jeremiah 27:20). The carpenters and smiths; rather, the craftsmen and smiths ("craftsmen" includes workers in stone and metal as well as wood; the Hebrew word is rendered "smith" in 1 Samuel 13:19). Jeremiah 24:2 Like the figs that are first ripe. The early spring fig was considered a special delicacy (comp. Isaiah 27:4; Hosea 9:10); "ficus praecox," Pliny calls it (’Hist. Nat.,’ 15.19, quoted by Trench). Tristram suggests that the "bad figs" were those of a sycamore tree. Jeremiah 24:5 Acknowledge them; or, rather knowledge (notice) of them (as Rth 2:10, Rth 2:19). Jeremiah 24:6 I will build them, etc. (comp. Jeremiah 1:10; Jeremiah 12:16). As the next verse shows. it is not merely outward prosperity that is meant, but spiritual regeneration. Jeremiah 24:8 And as the evil figs. (So Jeremiah 29:16.) That dwell in the land of Egypt. Those who had fled thither during the war (comp. Jeremiah 42:1-22; Jeremiah 43:1-13.); hardly those who had been carried captive to Egypt with Jehoahaz, who would presumably have been of the better sort, such as are symbolized by the good figs. Jeremiah 24:9 And I will deliver them, etc. (see on Jeremiah 15:4, and comp. Jeremiah 29:1-32.; Deuteronomy 28:37). Jeremiah 24:1-10 Two baskets of figs. I. MORALLY MEN ARE INTO TWO CLASSES. The two baskets of figs represent two classes of Jews: the basket of good figs, Jeconiah and his followers; the basket of bad figs, Zedekiah and his party. The great distinction between these was moral. There were princes in both classes; yet the one stood far higher in the sight of God than the other. 1. The deepest line of cleavage which runs down through all sections of mankind is moral; all other separating marks are more superficial. 2. There are in the main but two classes—the good and the bad—though, of course, within each of these great varieties occur. 3. Both of these classes tend to grow extreme. The good figs are very good, the bad are very bad. Character is tendency. As character develops it moves further on along the lines on which it is founded. Good men incline to grow better and bad men worse. Like the rivers which flow down the two sides of a great watercourse, lives that begin in similar circumstances and are near together for a season, if they once diverge, are likely to separate more widely as the years pass. II. THE REST MEN MAY BE THE . The good figs represent the Jews who suffered most severely from the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, who were torn from their homes, robbed of their property, driven into captivity; the bad figs represent the seemingly more fortunate Jews over whose head the tide of invasion passes, leaving them still in their homes and in quiet, and also those who escaped from it entirely by a flight into Egypt. We may often notice that very good people are not only not spared, but suffer the most severe calamities. The sinless One was a "man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." No greater mistake can be made than that of the three friends of Job. Great misfortunes are certainly not indications of great guilt; often of the reverse. 1. High character may directly invoke trouble. It rouses the opposition of the wicked; it feels called to dangerous tasks and to a mission which excites enmity; it maintains a fidelity that excludes many avenues of escape which would be open to men of lower moral principles. 2. God may bless and honor his better children by sending to them the severer trials. Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth. Therefore chastisement is an evidence of God’s love. Good men should understand this, and not be surprised at the advent of trouble, but expect it; not be dismayed at the incongruity of it, but recognize its fitness; not despair of themselves, and think that they must be hypocrites after all, nor doubt and distrust God, but submit to what is clearly foretold and wisely arranged. III. GOD LOOKS ON THOSE WHO SUBMIT TO HIS . The good figs represent those Jews who obey the message of Jeremiah and submit to the invasion of the Chaldeans as to a Divine chastisement; the bad figs stand for those Jews who resist. It requires faith to recognize the wisdom and duty of submission. On the face of it such conduct would appear unpatriotic and cowardly, while resistance would seem noble and brave. It may take more courage, however, to submit than to resist. There is a yielding which is calm and reasonable and really brave, since it involves the curbing of instinctive combativeness and the pursuit of an unpopular course-one sure to be misunderstood and to provoke calumny. The sole guide must be sought in the question of what is right, what is God’s will. We are not called to a fatalistic passiveness. There are circumstances in which self-defense or flight may be evidently right. What we are to submit to is not all opposition, all possible trouble, but God’s will, the trouble which we know he has sanctioned. All the good fruit of chastisement will be lost if we rebel against it. No greater proof of faith in the goodness of God and loyalty to the majesty of God can be found than a quiet, unmurmuring acceptance of his harder requirements. IV. THE HARDEST MAY LEAD TO THE RESULTS. The captives are to be restored. Those Jews who remain in the land are ultimately to be driven forth as "a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse." The short, sharp suffering will end in ultimate good. The temporary escape will be followed by final ruin. 1. God’s chastisements are temporary; they will give place to lasting blessedness. The present affliction is light just because it endures "but for a moment" (2 Corinthians 4:17). Even if they outlast the present life, what is this brief span of earthly trial compared with the blessedness of an eternity? 2. God’s chastisements work our good. They directly tend to produce the happier future. The tearful sowing is the cause of the joyful harvest. The spiritual improvement wrought in the soul by the discipline of sorrow is at once a source of future blessedness and a justification for it. "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth." 3. A culpable avoidance of Divine chastisement is highly dangerous. The escape from temporary trouble must incur greater future trouble; for (1) it prevents the chastisement from working the good in us which would have led to a happier future, and (2) it adds a new offence of direct rebellion against God which must invoke upon the head of the offender a terrible judgment. Jeremiah 24:6, Jeremiah 24:7 Prosperity restored. I. AFTER HAS BEEN RIGHTLY , GOD LOOKS ON HIS . He sets his "eyes upon them for good." Men shrink from the eyes of God as from a keen and fatal scrutiny. But God is not always looking as the Judge. He beholds his children with love. There is a wonderful tenderness in this gaze, like that of a mother fondly watching over her suffering infant—a deep pity for sorrow, an earnest care to ward off harm, a kindly will to bestow all real good. It is blessed indeed to be so beheld by God. There are men possessed of such great power and influence that some consider a favorable look from them sufficient to make their fortune. What must be the effect of God setting eyes on a man for good? II. WHEN GOD LOOKS ON HIS HE MAY SECURE THEIR . This will not always happen, for it will not always be for the real good of men. Still, it does often occur. We are too ready to confine the recognition of God’s action in our lives to the sterner sides of it. God sends prosperity as well as adversity. If he banishes, he restores; if he pulls down, he builds up again. And the joy of the restoration and the glory of the latter building exceed those of earlier times. If earthly prosperity comes from God it is real and solid. God can maintain it after he has bestowed it. He will build so that none shall pull down. The man who is innocently enjoying a prosperity sent by God need have no superstitious fears of a jealous Nemesis. He is not secure from trouble; but he has no special ground for apprehending it simply because he is happy at present. III. WHEN GOD LOOKS ON HIS HE WILL SECURE THEIR . This is seen in a restoration of a true knowledge of God. 1. It is good for us to know God. The knowledge of God is here represented not so much as a subject of duty as in the light of a form of spiritual blessedness. The loss of this knowledge leads to the darkness of a godless life. The enjoyment of this knowledge is eternal life (John 17:3). 2. A true knowledge of God is the recognition of God as he is—quite another thing from our common conception of his nature. Then we see and feel the grandeur, the mystery, the glory of "the eternal." 3. This knowledge of God depends on the condition of our hearts. The "heart" represents the whole inner life. When this is rightly disposed we can know God, and only then. What we need, therefore, is not a new revelation, but a change of heart. When our soul is in sympathy with God, when our spiritual vision is open, we can see indications of God’s presence and character which would otherwise be obscure. 4. The right condition of heart for knowing God must be produced by God. God promises to give them a heart to know him. He only can create the heart anew. The greatest blessing of redemption is that he will do this. IV. THE WELFARE OF GOD’S IS BY THE OF THE CLOSE BETWEEN HIM AND THEM. "They shall be my people, and I will be their God." This relation is twofold. God exercises paternal influences, they engage in filial duties. 1. God takes them under his care. They are his people, to be guarded and blessed by him. So Christians are God’s peculiar people (1 Peter 2:9). 2. They take God for their portion. He is their God—theirs to worship, serve, love, rejoice in. V. THE OF TRUE DEPENDS ON THE GENUINE RETURN OF GOD’S PEOPLE TO THEIR TO HIM. The restoration was not a mere compensation for the troubles of the exile. Happiness does not necessarily follow trouble. The father runs to meet the prodigal son when he returns, but cannot regard him favor-ably before this. 1. This return must be with the heart. Repentance, of all acts, must be genuine and heartfelt. A formal acknowledgment of God without a change of heart is a mockery and an insult to him, which can bring us no good. 2. This return must be with the whole heart. A partial return to God is no true return. He claims the whole heart or none of it. Jeremiah 24:10 Sword, famine, and pestilence. I. TROUBLE BEGETS TROUBLE. War devastating the fields, checking industry, robbing stores, etc; leads to famine; famine and war create horrible causes of pestilence. Trouble does not tend to relieve itself, but the reverse. The poor become poorer, the wretched more miserable. Hence the need of a salvation outside ourselves. II. TROUBLE IS . The full force is not often felt at first. One by one the blows fell upon Job. Thus each is felt most acutely. Though we can bear present calamities unaided, we still need a refuge for the future. III. TROUBLE IS VARIOUS IN FORM—sword, famine, pestilence. If we are not touched by one kind of trouble, we may fall under another. Of what avail is it to escape the sword, only to perish of the pangs of hunger or to fall a victim to the ravages of pestilence? Future punishment will probably be various in kind, yet so adapted to all varieties of character and condition that none of the impenitent will be able to escape. IV. TROUBLE MUST BE BY , NOT EVADED BY FLIGHT, We may flee from some trouble, but cannot from all. When this is judicial it is searching and penetrating, so that none can elude it. It is vain to rest in the assurance that we have been able to devise means for resisting many troubles. The army of them is so vast that no victory over scattered detachments can affect our ultimate condition. This fact should not induce despair, but urge us to turn to the full deliverance of Christ’s redemption (Romans 8:1). BY A.F. MUIR The two baskets of figs; or, predetermining influences. These are not to be understood of the opposite development of character in two sets of persons in slightly differing circumstances, but rather of the primary influence of Divine faith as contrasted with the want of it amidst the trials of life. The people left behind were disposed to felicitate themselves over their brethren who had been carried off into Chaldea, but this impression is corrected by Jeremiah. The exiles were the true people of God, and were to be under his constant supervision and loving care; the others were to be cast off, to become a prey to inner corruption and the unchecked destructive influences of the world. I. THE MYSTERY OF THE DIVINE . From comparatively similar circumstances to evolve distinct types of character and destiny. Out of the same clay to mold the saint and the sinner. It is the old lesson of the potter in another form. There is nothing in a man himself to account for God’s favor. He chooseth whom he will and rejecteth whom he will. Yet is it true that he willeth not the death of a sinner, but rather that all should come unto him and live. II. THE MANNER IN WHICH GRACE ITSELF. 1. Recalling. (Verse 6.) How unlikely under the circumstances! Yet rendered credible by the remarkable individuality of the Jewish people from age to age. Reconstituting. (Verse 6.) The figure is twofold—building and life-growth (cf. Ephesians 2:21, Ephesians 2:22). Spiritually recreating. (Verse 7.) The aim of the previous discipline; but the beginning of great national glory and blessedness. For connection of these processes, cf. Romans 8:28-30. 2. Circumstances are made to subserve a merciful purpose. The immediate condition of the Chaldean exiles might appear a harder one than that of their compatriots at home; but in the end this would turn to their salvation. Not only will God overrule all things for the good of his people, but he will use them for their spiritual education. The influence of circumstances is thus shown to depend for the most part upon the spiritual state of those who are surrounded by them. 3. Circumstances are appointed for the destruction of the obstinately impenitent. Moral reprobation and political annihilation were to come upon these. There would be no swerving or slackening in the execution of their sentence. This is agreeable with the character of him who hates sin with an eternal hatred. The climax of misery here indicated is but a faint suggestion of that which will follow upon rejection of the gospel. And yet how simple are the elements of such a punishment! God has but to withdraw his grace, and the inner depravity of nature will work unchecked its fearful consequences, accelerating and directing the external circumstances of life. And all this has another aspect, which is full of comfort to those who are spiritually inclined. The faintest dawn of repentance is the opening of the "door of hope;" and when the heart is changed the tendency of untoward circumstance at once is altered, and the positive blessings of God again return.—M. Calamity with God and without him. I. To THE CHILD OF GRACE. 1. It is a chastening. 2. A restoration. II. To THE UNGODLY. 1. The influence depreciating character. 2. A source of restlessness and fresh transgression. 3. An ever-increasing evil. 4. An ultimate destruction.—M. Punished for salvation; left alone for destruction. A general principle of God’s moral government. The flower of Judah, about to be deported to Babylon, are followed by the prophet with wistful gaze. They are the seed of the true Israel; whereas those who are allowed to remain quietly at home are to be of no account in God’s purpose. I. HOW OFTEN ARE THE FROM THE OF MEN! Jeconiah and his companions might have been pitied by their friends left behind. The outward position of any one is no index of his relations with God. II. PRESENT TRIAL MAY BE A PROOF OF DIVINE LOVE, AND PRESENT FROM IS NOT ALWAYS TO BE TAKEN AS AN OF DIVINE FAVOR. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." Punishment was needed to atone for the past and purify for the future. The exile in Babylon, with its deprivation of political and religious privilege, was a new point of view for the captives. It is a familiar experience to hear men who have done well in the world, or who have had a comparatively smooth life, say, "God has blessed us." This statement is often open to question. God may simply let alone those whom he has given up. The lethargy induced in many by good fortune is to be guarded against. Count them happy that "endure, as seeing him who is invisible." Inward depravity will soon work the destruction of those in whom it remains. III. THE GLORY OF THE DIVINE IN MAN IS EVOLVED FROM THE OF THE HUMAN. A mere remnant. How few of those who went forth would return! Children’s children might be blessed, but not they themselves. And even then it would require not only reorganization, but rebirth in spirituality. It is ever so. A profound and radical change is needed ere any one can become a member of the true eternal Israel. Israel after the flesh is sentenced to death, that Israel after the Spirit may live forever.—M. I will set mine eyes upon them for good. The distressed and afflicted for his sake he ever regards with special attention and interest. "The captives are dearest to God." Banished from Palestine, they are still "his banished ones," and he will make them to return. Those who are undergoing severe trials, in circumstances, in faith, etc; but who are truly seeking after God, are to be comforted with this word. It is a promise that has been gloriously fulfilled. It pledges— I. GOD’S CARE. 1. Protection. 2. Provision, temporal and spiritual. Although we see him not, he ever sees us and regards us with complacency and love. II. GOD’S FAVOR. This indicates interest, but because of something evoking it—the first germs of faith and repentance. When others see them not, he sees the longings of the soul and its efforts after better things; and he will further them. III. GOD’S . Although they were led away into a strange land and amidst an alien people, he would never lose sight of them; but, directing their footsteps, would bring them back again to the land they had left and to himself. It was a strange way, but it was God’s way, and his influence would be continually in them and upon them for good. It is the surest proof that God’s eye is upon us for good when his Spirit is within us. As many as are led of the Spirit are the children of God.—M. Jeremiah 24:7 The conditions and relations of salvation. I. THE ABILITY TO KNOW GOD IS THE GIFT OF GOD. Not more facts, external, historical, etc; are required. Not a new Bible—the letter of the Bible is probably completed already. Nor even a new mode of spiritual demonstration. But a new heart. We cannot make a new heart. God will save us by renewing: 1. The moral nature. 2. The whole life through it. II. THE OF CAN ONLY BE SECURED IN . "They shall return unto me with their whole heart." Complete salvation is impossible without complete faith. To believe—to believe simply, to believe wholly,—this is the condition of perfect salvation. III. THE IDEAL ISRAEL MUST EVER BE A . In the obedience of faith they shall be God’s people, and he will be their God. That upon which we depend in faith is that which we observe and respect in practice; it is the law and inspiration of life. Christ leads us to the Father that he and we may be one in God; not merged, confounded with Deity, but in eternal and ever-blessed subordination to him.—M. BY S. CONWAY The two baskets of figs; or, our character and destiny independent of our circumstances. I. THE SYMBOLS . The two baskets of figs—one very good, the other very evil. But: 1. They had each the same advantages and disadvantages. The same seed, soil, training, climate, sunshine, and other influences teeming on them. 2. They were of directly opposite character. (Jeremiah 24:2.) II. THE PEOPLE BY THEM. The men of Judah and Jerusalem. Now: 1. The circumstances of all these were the same. Parentage, religion, teachers, disciplines, privileges, opportunities. 2. But some of these people were symbolized by the good figs, and the other by the evil. Those who had been carried off to Babylon were the good; those who remained still in Jerusalem were the evil. 3. The reverse results might have been looked for. For the good had been dealt with more sternly than the evil. How terrible and sad their lot appeared! Torn away from all their wonted privileges; made to endure a fate which others deserved far more than they; surrounded with idolaters and blasphemers of God. But the evil continued in the possession of all those aids to religion and piety of which those others were deprived. So that the circumstances of the good were less favorable, and those of the evil far more so. Exile, which might have been thought to injure the captives, had done them good; whilst exemption from it, which might have been thought to benefit the evil, had wrought them harm. "With the exiles were some of the choicest spirits of the nation. Ezekiel, second only to Jeremiah himself in the prophets of this epoch; and, probably, the ancestor of Mordecai; and Daniel, with his three companions." "The exiles became humble, repentant, reformed. The resident Jews became insolent, self-secure, defiant. The former became worthy of comparison with the first ripe figs; the latter as the ’naughty figs, which could not be eaten.’" III. THE LESSONS TAUGHT THEREBY. That character and destiny do not depend on circumstances. We should have thought that either all would be alike, or else that the characters and destinies would have been the reverse of what they were. 1. Let the good who may be placed in adverse circumstances take encouragement from this fact. They can surmount and triumph over all the evil influences which surround and oppose them (cf. verse 7.) 2. And the evil are to take warning. Prolonged privilege and opportunity have no necessary saving power. Such advantages may leave them worse than before. It was so here. IV. OBSERVE THE GREAT OF THE TRUTH TAUGHT HERE IN CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH. 1. Christ was "as a root out of a dry ground." How utterly opposed to all prospect of his becoming great, and his Name above every name, were the early circumstances in his history! And yet he has triumphed over all. 2. And so with the history of the Church. It was small as "a grain of mustard seed," feeble as "sheep amidst wolves," was as a thing of naught and despised. And yet what has it not become, what will it not become? And what is true of Christ and his Church shall be true likewise of all that are his. "Fear not, little flock," said our Lord; "it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom."—C. BY J. WAITE A heart to know the Lord. It was "for good" that God sent the captive portion of his people "into the land of the Chaldeans" (Jeremiah 24:5.) The germs of the better life of the future were preserved in them, and their very tribulations were the instruments of his gracious purpose and blessings in disguise. In the "evil figs"—the refuse left behind—there was nothing worth preserving (Jeremiah 24:8). Of all the beneficent Divine purposes, this had in it the promise of highest good—"I will give them an heart to know me, that I am the Lord." I. A TRUE OF GOD HAS ITS SEAT IN THE HEART. Intellect cannot solve the mystery of his being. Reason alone cannot even demonstrate his existence. "Who by searching can find out God?" "The world by wisdom knew not God." It is a matter of pure spiritual sensibility. Moral sympathy is the true key to this knowledge. Reverence, humility, love, trust, submission, affections of the heart, are its conditions. Even right ideas of God depend very materially on the state of the heart towards him. The exhalations of a vain, frivolous, corrupt, or carnal heart pervert the soul’s vision and obscure his glory. Only as our hearts are purged from every form of earthly defilement can we behold him as he is. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." II. GOD HIMSELF CAN ALONE IMPART THIS . "I will give them," etc. It is a matter of direct Divine revelation; a Divine science in which mere human teaching is of little avail. A secret, silent, gracious power above all natural influences can alone awaken in us those moral affections which lie at the root of it. A true knowledge, like a true Christian faith, must stand "not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God." The blindness of the man of science to the deeper meaning of nature, and of the skeptical philosopher to the manifestation of God in Christ, and of the worldling to the Divine presence in his own life, does but indicate the lack of this power. God must unveil himself to us, by drawing our hearts into lowly and loving fellowship with himself, before we can truly know him.—W. BY D. YOUNG The good and bad figs. I. THE FIGS . We cannot, of course, say why figs should be chosen rather than another fruit, though the choice can hardly be a mere accident. Some reason probably appeared to the observant of that time which we are without sufficient information to discover. Possibly the goodness of good fruits was more obvious against the badness of bad ones, in the case of the fig than in the case of other fruits. It is to be noticed also that the figure chosen to set forth the difference between the good and the bad in Israel is taken from fruit. It was something presented as the result of growth and in connection with culture. The question was suggested how such a difference should come between the good and the bad. For if trees of the same sort grow in the same soil and have the same attention, and the same external influences, how comes some of the fruit to be very good and some very bad? Notice also the sharpness of the distinction. These fruits were either good or bad. To be excluded from one is to be included in the other. There is no third, no medium class. This exactly agrees with the way of speaking in the New Testament, especially by Jesus himself: e.g. the seed in the good and bad ground, the sheep and goats, the good kinds of fish and the bad ones, the five wise and the five foolish virgins. It is of the first importance to bear in mind that the imperceptible gradations, as we reckon them, count for nothing with God. There are only two kinds of hearts, the good and the bad. II. THE ON THAT CLASS IN ISRAEL SET FORTH BY THE GOOD FIGS. Painful external experiences cannot destroy the blessing coming from satisfactory internal character. These people represented by the good figs might say, "If we are indeed as good figs, why make us pass through such pains?" To this it might be answered, in the first place, that it was because of this very goodness that God thus treated them. They were being pruned and cleansed that they might bring forth more fruit. Secondly, when they looked on the fate of those represented by the bad figs, even captivity in a distant land would be seen as a blessing. God bends every word that he here speaks through his prophet so as to form a total of strong consolation and hope. 1. Though these people are called captives of Judah, yet this is only the conventional mode of description. In reality, Jehovah himself sends them into the land of the Chaldeans. So Joseph was made to feel that it was God who had brought him into Egypt. 2. God’s eye is upon his people for good. That which God sees to be good he always regards for good. Whosoever has, to him is given more. Note, too, that the people were not merely remembered, as if God had stayed behind in the land of Israel. He was equally in Israel watching over it against the day of his people’s return, and in the land of the Chaldeans watching over his faithful ones there. 3. There is to be in due time a restoration. He who sends away can also bring back. The external circumstances of his people are completely under his control. He was speaking to those in whose history was written down all the marvelous things of the Exodus from Egypt. 4. There is to be a Divine building and planting. What others had built God had pulled down, what others had planted he had uprooted. Every plant not of the heavenly Father’s planting must be rooted up. All this was done, not for any delight God took in the ruin and the wilderness, but that a nation might be built up in righteousness, and bring forth only good fruit. 5. The giving of a true knowledge of God. God must give this knowledge, for it can only come to a renewed heart. The mere exhibition of God’s name and person to the natural man is not enough. There may be very elaborate intellectual conceptions of Deity without the slightest profit or comfort. When the renewed heart begins to know, then God begins to be truly known. His love must not only be set before us, but must be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us. III. THE CURSE ON THOSE SET FORTH BY THE BAD FIGS. There is the greatest possible contrast between the treatment of good fruit and bad fruit. And so there was the greatest possible contrast between the treatment of the people taken to Babylon and the treatment of those remaining at home and nearer home. Upon the surface and at the first aspect it might seem as if these latter had the best of it. And, indeed, there might be no immediate way of making clear the difference. But a difference there assuredly was, and every succeeding year would manifest and emphasize it the more. In the mean time here stood the contrast between the good and bad figs, which would be quite enough for the eye of faith. How the history of the Jewish people justifies the bitter words of Jer 24:9 and Jeremiah 24:10! Again and again the Gentile has treated the Jew according to the words of this prophecy, and found in them and similar words a justification of his treatment, not, of course, that the prophecy did really justify the treatment, but God could speak beforehand of the way in which human passions would assuredly work.—Y. This chapter may be illustrated by a comparison of it with Jeremiah 46:1-28. There Jeremiah exults ever the destruction of a nation (Egypt) which was one of the chief enemies of God’s people, and on hearing or reading the inspired eloquence of the prophet the heart of a Jew could not but be moved with the liveliest sympathy. But it is another strain which meets us in this chapter, and one which to a Jew would certainly neutralize the favorable feelings which prophecies like that referred to must have awakened. Here Jeremiah announces that the last moment of grace for Judah is past, and the time for judgment come. The long-suffering of Jehovah has been exhausted; the fall of the commonwealth cannot any longer be delayed. Such was the strange destiny of the prophet; he was sent to "pull down" and "to build," but the destructive element (as Jeremiah 1:10 suggests) was largely predominant. Specially predominant is it in this important chapter, in which the prophet begins to fulfill the mission to the heathen with which twenty-three years ago he had been entrusted. One by one, "all the nations" directly or indirectly connected with Israel are called up to hear their punishment. There is no indulgence, no respite; only a gleam of hope in the promised final destruction of the tyrant-city Babylon (verses 12-14). The prophecy falls naturally into three parts, verses 15-29 forming the center. The date assigned to this chapter in the first verso is remarkable; it is the fatal year of the battle of Carchemish, which brought Syria and Palestine within the grasp of Babylon. Jeremiah 25:1 The first year of Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah 25:3 From the thirteenth year; etc.; alluding to the chronological statement in Jeremiah 1:2. The three and twentieth year; counting nineteen years under Josiah and four under Jehoiachin, and including the three months of Jehoahaz. Jeremiah 25:4-5 (Comp. Jeremiah 7:25; Jeremiah 11:7; Jeremiah 35:15.) They said; literally, saying. The prophet mentally resumes the statement of Jer 25:4. He hath sent his servants the prophets." Turn ye; rather, return ye, conversion being the return of the sinner to his natural home. Jeremiah 25:9 The families of the north (comp. Jeremiah 1:15, note). And Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant. This is the rendering of the Targum, the Syriac, and the Vulgate, and corresponds with the reading of a few extant manuscripts. The received text, however, reads, "and unto Nebuchadnezzar," etc. Neither reading is satisfactory. The latter one is intolerably harsh; the former makes Nebuchadnezzar a mere adjunct of the tribes of the north. In the other passages, moreover, where this king is solemnly entitled "my servant," the clause is the most prominent one in the sentence (see Jeremiah 27:6; Jeremiah 43:10). The words in question have a sort of family resemblance to the glosses which meet us occasionally both in the form of the Hebrew text represented by the Massoretic recension, and those by the principal ancient versions. The words are omitted by the Septuagint. My servant. Generally to be a "servant" of Jehovah or of any supposed deity is to be a worshipper. Thus Daniel is called by Darius, "servant of the living God" (Daniel 6:20), and thus Abdallah, "servant of Allah," has become a favorite surname of the followers of Mohammed. In the Book of Jeremiah itself (Jeremiah 30:10; Jeremiah 46:27, Jeremiah 46:28), and in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37:25), "my servant" is the form in which Jehovah addresses his chosen people; and in the second part of Isaiah the suffering Messiah is so styled. Here, however, a foreign king is thus entitled. How is this to be explained? Cyrus, no doubt, in Isaiah 44:28, Isaiah 45:1, is called "my shepherd" and "my anointed one;" but then Cyrus, in the view of the prophet, was a genuine though unconscious worshipper of the true God (Isaiah 41:25), whereas Nebuchadnezzar was known to be a polytheist and an idolater. We must, therefore, take "servant" to be applied to Nebuchadnezzar in a lower sense than to the other bearers of the title. The Hebrew ’ebbed, in fact, may be either "slave" in something approaching to the terrible modern sense, or in the sense in which Eliezer was one (i.e. little less than a son, and a possible heir, Genesis 24:2; Galatians 4:1), and which is still in full force in Arabia. An astonishment (see on Jeremiah 2:11). An hissing (comp. Jeremiah 18:16; Jeremiah 19:8). Jeremiah 25:10 The sound of the millstones. Modem travel enables us (so conservative is the East) to realize the full force of this image. The hand-mill is composed of two stones. As a rule, "two women" (comp. Matthew 24:41) sit at it facing each other; both have hold of the handle by which the upper is turned round on the ’nether’ millstone. The one whose right hand is disengaged throws in the grain as occasion requires, through the hole in the upper stone" (Dr. Thomson). "The labor," remarks Dr. Robinson, "is evidently hard; and the grating sound of the mill is heard at a distance, indicating (like our coffee-mills) the presence of a family and of household life" (’Biblical Researches,’ 2.181). Add to this the light of the candle (or rather, lamp), and we have two of the most universally characteristic signs of domestic life. No family could dispense with the hand-mill, and, as the sermon on the mount implies, the poorest household had its "lamp" (Matthew 5:15—the poverty of the family is indicated by the various uses to which the lamp-stand was applied). Comp. this verse with the imitation in Revelation 18:22, Revelation 18:23. Jeremiah 25:11 Shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Widely different opinions are held as to the meaning of this prophecy. The most probable view is that "seventy" is an indefinite or round number (as in Isaiah 23:17), equivalent to "a very long time." This is supported by the analogy of Jer 27:7, where the captivity is announced as lasting through the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar, his son, and his grandson—a statement evidently vague and indefinite (see ad loc.), and in any case not answering to a period of seventy years. Besides, we find the "seventy years" again in Jeremiah 29:10, a passage written probably eleven years later. Others think the number is to be taken literally, and it is certainly true that from B.C. 606, the fourth year of Jehoiakim, to the fall of Babylon, B.C. 539, sixty-seven years elapsed. But is it desirable to press this against the internal evidence that Jeremiah himself took the number indefinitely? Jeremiah 25:12-29 The judgment upon Judah and the nations. Jeremiah 25:12 Perpetual desolations. Thus, too, we read in Isaiah 13:20, that Babylon "shall never be inhabited." There is a dispute between Dr. Keith and Dr. Kay on the one side, and rationalistic commentators (e.g. Kuenen) on the other, whether these prophecies have received a circumstantial fulfillment. The truth is that authorities are not entirely agreed on the area covered by the site of Babylon. General Chesney remarks that, so far from being uninhabited, "A town of considerable population, villages, date groves, and gardens, are found still on the very site of ancient Babylon". Similarly M. Menant, a veteran French Assyriologist, remarks that "Hillah, according to M. Oppert, was a quarter of Babylon, probably that which was inhabited by the working population, without the precincts of the royal palaces. Numberless traces of ancient habitations indicate this origin of the modern town". Mr. George Smith, however, in his ’Assyrian Discoveries,’ simply states that, "A little to the south rose the town of Hillah," apparently assuming (what is impossible to prove, as the walls of Babylon have not yet been discovered) that Hillah lay just outside the city enclosure. But even he adds that it was "built with the bricks found in the old capital," which is, strictly speaking, inconsistent with the absolute abandonment of the site of Babylon implied in Isaiah 13:20-22. The dispute is an unfortunate one, as it tacitly implies that circumstantial fulfillments are necessary to the veracity of prophecy. The truth seems to lie in the mean between two opposing views. As a rule, the details of a prophetic description cannot be pressed; they are mainly imaginative elaborations of a great central truth or fact. Occasionally, however, regarding the prophecies in the light of gospel times, it is almost impossible not to observe that "the Spirit of Christ which was in" the prophets (1 Peter 1:11) has overruled their expressions, so that they correspond more closely to facts than could have been reasonably anticipated. Such superabundant favors to believers in inspiration occur repeatedly in the prophecies respecting Christ. They may, of course, occur elsewhere for a sufficient reason, but we have no right to be surprised if we do not meet with them. The general truth of the prophecy is that the empire of Babylon shall fall forever. As Dr. Payne Smith remarks, it was practically the work of one man (Nebuchadnezzar), and after his death it only lasted for a few years, during which its history is a series of murders and usurpations. Jeremiah 25:13 And I will bring, etc. Clearly this verse cannot have formed part of the original prophecy, but must have been added whenever the collection of prophecies against foreign nations finally assumed its present form (see introduction on Jeremiah 50:1-46; Jeremiah 51:1-64). It should be mentioned that the Septuagint separates the last clause of the verse, "that which Jeremiah prophesied," etc; and makes it the heading of the group of prophecies against the nations, which in the Hebrew Bible stand at the end of Jeremiah’s prophecies, but which, beginning with "Elam," the Alexandrian Version inserts at this point. Jeremiah 25:14 For many nations … shall serve themselves of them else; i.e. put forced labor upon them also. The same phrase is used of the conduct of the Egyptians to the Israelites (Exodus 1:14). Of them also; and "also" suggests that the calamity of the Chaldeans is a retribution (comp. Isaiah 66:4), as the next clause, in harmony with Jeremiah 50:29, Jeremiah 51:24, emphatically declares. Jeremiah 25:15 For thus saith, etc. Out of this verse and the following, to the end of the chapter, the Septuagint makes the thirty-second chapter, Jeremiah 25:1-38 being completed by the prophecy against Elam (Jeremiah 49:34-39). The symbolic act which the prophet is directed to perform is mentioned in order to explain the word of threatening just uttered. So, at least, we must understand it, if we accept the arrangement of the Hebrew text. But the connection is certainly improved if we follow Graf, and omit Jeremiah 25:11-14; Jeremiah 25:15 thus becomes an explanation of the threat against Judah and the other nations in Jeremiah 25:9-11. The wine, up of this fury; or, this wine-cup of fury. The wine with which the cup is filled is the wrath of God. The figure is not an infrequent one with the prophets and the psalmists (comp. Jeremiah 49:12; Jeremiah 51:7; Isaiah 51:17, Isaiah 51:22; Ezekiel 23:31-34; Habakkuk 1:16; Psalms 60:3; Psalms 75:8). Jeremiah 25:16 And be moved, and be mad; rather, and reel to and fro, and behave themselves madly. The inspired writers do not scruple to ascribe all phenomena, the "bad" as well as the "good," to a Divine operation. "Shall there be evil in a city, and Jehovah hath not done it?" (Amos 3:6). "An evil spirit from Elohim came upon Saul, and he became frenzied" (1 Samuel 18:10; see also Isaiah 19:14; Isaiah 29:10; 1 Kings 22:19-23, and especially the very remarkable prologue of the Book of Job). To understand this form of expression, we must remember the strength of the reaction experienced by the prophets against the polytheism of the surrounding nations. It was not open to them to account for the existence of evil by ascribing it to the activity of various divinities; they knew Jehovah to be the sole cause in the universe. To us, "sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought," such a doctrine occasions "great searchings of heart," and is sometimes a sore trial of our faith. But the prophets were not logicians, and their faith, compared to ours, was as an oak tree to a sapling; hence they can generally (see, however, Isaiah 63:17) express the truth of the universal causation of Jehovah with perfect tranquility. Because of the sword. Here Jeremiah deserts the figure of the Cup, and, as most commentators think, uses the language of fact. It is not, however, certain that "the sword" means that of God’s human instruments; Jehovah himself has a sword (Jeremiah 46:10; Jeremiah 47:6; Jeremiah 50:35-38; Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 34:5; and elsewhere), just as he has a hand (Isaiah 8:11; Isaiah 59:1) and an arm (Isaiah 40:10; Isaiah 53:1). All these belong to a group of childlike symbolic expressions for the manifestation of the Deity. Jehovah’s "sword" is described more fully in Genesis 3:24; it "turns hither and thither," like the lightning—a striking figure of the completeness with which God performs his work of vengeance (see also on verse 27). Jeremiah 25:17 Then took I the cup … and made all the nations to drink. It is too pro-sale to suppose either that Jeremiah made a journey to "all the nations," or that he actually went through the form of presenting the cup to the ambassadors who (it is conjectured, comp. Jeremiah 27:3) had come to Jerusalem to take measures against the common foe (so J. D. Michaelis). But the supposition arises (as Keil has well observed) out of an imperfect comprehension of the figure. It is not a cup with wine which the prophet receives from Jehovah, but a wine-cup filled with the wine of God’s fury, which wine is no more a literal wine than the "sword of Jehovah" is a literal sword. The "making all the nations to drink" is simply a way of expressing the prophet’s firm faith that the word of Jehovah will not "return unto him void "—that a prophecy once uttered must fulfill itself; and "sent me," in the last clause, merely means "entrusted me with a message" (comp. Proverbs 26:6). For the fulfillment of this detailed prediction, see on Jeremiah 46-51. Jeremiah 25:18 The kings thereof (see on Jeremiah 19:3). As it is this day. As to the meaning of this phrase, see on Jeremiah 11:5. The words evidently presuppose that the prediction has already been fulfilled (comp. Jeremiah 44:6, Jeremiah 44:23); consequently, they cannot have stood here in the original draft of the prophecy. An early editor, or even Jeremiah himself, must have inserted them. They are omitted in the Septuagint. Jeremiah 25:19 Pharaoh king of Egypt. After leaving Judah and Jerusalem, the prophet turns to the far south—to Egypt; then he ascends to the south-east (Uz), and the south-west (the Philistines); thence he passes to the east (Edom, Moab, Ammon); and thence to the west of the Holy Land (Phoenicia). This suggests the maritime lands "beyond the sea" (including especially Cyprus); a sudden transition brings the prophet to the Arabian tribes (Dedan, etc.), from whence he passes by the road of the northeast (Elam, Media) to the indefinitely distant north. Last of all, in solitary grandeur or infamy, Babylon is mentioned. Jeremiah 25:20 The mingled people; Septuagint, καὶπάνταςτοὺςσυμμίκτους: Vulgate, et universes generaliter. The Hebrew ‛erebh probably means, not "mingled [i.e. ’motley’] people," as the Authorized Version, but "foreign people," i.e. a body of men belonging to some particular nation intermixed or interspersed among those belonging to another. This explanation will account for the use of the word in all the passages in which it occurs (here and in Jeremiah 25:24; also Exodus 12:38; Nehemiah 13:3; ‹je-1› 1 Kings 10:15; Jeremiah 1:1-19:37; Ezekiel 30:5; and perhaps 2 Chronicles 9:14). The context here and in 1 Kings 10:15 seems to imply that the name was given especially to the tribes (probably Bedawin tribes) on the frontier of Judah towards the desert, though in Ezekiel 30:5 it is evidently applied to a people which in some sense belonged to Egypt. In Exodus 12:38 it may be doubted whether the phrase is used from the point of view of Egypt or of the Israelites; in Jeremiah 50:37 it is used of the foreigners in Babylon in 2 Chronicles 9:14 the Massoretic critics have pointed the consonants of the text wrongly (‛arabh, Arabia, instead of ‛erebh), but without injury to the sense; the Vulgate and Syriac have done the same in 1 Kings 10:15. The notion that the word means ’ auxiliary troops" arises (as Thenius on 1 Kings 10:15 remarks) from the free rendering of the Targum at 1 Kings 10:15 and Jeremiah 1:1-19:37. Uz. The land associated with the name of Job, and probably east or south-east of Palestine, and adjacent to the Edomites of Mount Seir (Lamentations 4:21). Of the Philistines. Observe, Gath is alone omitted of the five Philistine towns (Joshua 13:3; 1 Samuel 6:17). It had been reduced to complete insignificance (Amos 6:2), through Uzziah’s having "broken down" its walls (2 Chronicles 26:6), and is equally passed over in Amos (Amos 1:6-8), Zephaniah (Zephaniah 2:4), and Zechariah (Zechariah 9:5, Zechariah 9:6). Azzah; i.e. Gaza, the Septuagint form (the G representing the initial ayin), which is everywhere else adopted by the Authorized Version. The remnant of Ashdod. A significant phrase, which can be explained from Herodotus (2.157): For twenty-nine years Psamnutichus "pressed the siege of Azotus without intermission." We can imagine that he would not be disposed to lenient dealings with the town upon its capture. (An earlier and shorter siege of Ashdod is mentioned in Isaiah 20:1-6.) Jeremiah 25:22 Kings of Tyrus, kings of Zidon. Under the names of the two leading cities, the prophet includes the various dependent Phoenician commonwealths. Hence the plural "kings." The isles. The Hebrew has the singular, "the isle," or rather, "the coast-land" (more strictly, the region), i.e. perhaps either Tartessus in Spain, or Cyprus (which Esarhaddon describes as "lying in the midst of the sea," and as having two kings, ’Records of the Past,’ 3:108). Jeremiah 25:23 Dedan, and Tema, and Buz. Three tribes of North Arabia, bordering on Edom. The two former are mentioned as commercial peoples in Isaiah 21:13, Isaiah 21:14; Ezekiel 27:15, Ezekiel 27:20; Ezekiel 38:13; Job 6:19. Elihu, Job’s youngest friend, was of Bus (Job 32:2). All that are in the utmost corners; rather, all the corner-clipped (see on Jeremiah 9:26). Jeremiah 25:24 All the kings of Arabia. Not "Arabia" in our sense (which is never found in the Old Testament), but the desert region to the east and south-east of Palestine, occupied by nomad or "Ishmaelitish" tribes. The mingled people; rather, the intermingled people (see on Jeremiah 25:20); i.e. probably in this passage populations of a different race interspersed among the Aramaic tribes to which most of the inhabitants of the desert belonged. Jeremiah 25:25 Zimri. The Zimri were a people to the northeast of Assyria, against whom various Assyrian kings waged war. Whether they axe to be connected with the Zimran of Gen 25:2 seems doubtful; their locality hardly suits. Elam. Elam, one of the most ancient monarchies in the world (comp. Genesis 14:1-24.), is again coupled with Media in Isaiah 21:2. It was a region on the east of the lower Tigris, bounded westward by Babylonia, northward by Assyria and Media, southward by the Persian Gulf. To say that it is put either here or anywhere else in the Old Testament for the whole of Persia seems a mistake, as the Persians were hardly known before the time of Cyrus. Jeremiah 25:26 The kings of the north. The distant, mysterious north. Far and near, one with another. The Hebrew has, "the near and the far, the one to the other;" i.e. whether near or far in relation to each other, for of course with regard to Judah they were all "the far north." All the kingdoms of the world, etc. This is far from being the only instance in which a special judgment upon a nation or nations is apparently identified with a great final judgment upon the world (see Isaiah 2:12; Isaiah 3:13; Isaiah 13:9; Isaiah 24:1-12). The truth is that every great serf-manifestation of the Divine Governor of the world is a fresh act in that great drama of which the universal judgment will be the close. Hence the prophets, whose perspective was necessarily limited, seeing the cud but not all that was to precede it, speak as if the end were nearer at hand than it really was. The king of Sheshach, etc. This clause, however, is omitted in the Septuagint, and is too manifestly the insertion of an unwise copyist or editor. For, though perfectly true that Babylon was to suffer punishment afterwards, it is most inappropriate to mention it here at the end of a list of the nations which Babylon itself was to punish. "Sheshach," it should be explained, is the form assumed by the word "Babylon" in the cypher called Athbash (A=T, B=SH, etc.). It happens to convey a very appropriate meaning, viz. "humiliation" (comp. Isaiah 47:1). A similar instance of cypher allegory occurs in Jeremiah 51:1. "Sheshach" occurs again in Jeremiah 51:41, where, however, it is omitted by the Septuagint. [Dr. Lauth, of Munich, thinks that Sheshach is equivalent to Sisku, the name of a district in Babylonia; but the reading Sisku is uncertain.] Jeremiah 25:27 Therefore thou shalt say, etc.; rather, And thou shalt say, etc. This verse is probably a continuation of Jer 25:16, Jeremiah 25:17, Jeremiah 25:18-26 being apparently inserted by an afterthought. The message given to Jeremiah to deliver is that the judgment is both overpoweringly complete and irreversible. If God’s own people has not been spared, how should any other escape (comp. Jeremiah 49:12)? Jeremiah 25:29 I will call for a sword. It is probably that awful sword referred to in Jeremiah 25:16 (see note). Jeremiah 25:30-38 The judgment upon the world. Jeremiah 25:30 Therefore prophesy thou, etc. Babylon, like the smaller kingdoms which it absorbed, has fallen, and nothing remains (for nothing had been revealed to the prophet concerning an interval to elapse previously) but to picture the great assize from which no flesh should be exempt. As the lion suddenly bursts, roaring, from his lair, so Jehovah, no longer the "good Shepherd," shall roar from on high (comp. Amos 1:2; Joe 3:16) even upon his habitation, or rather, against his pasture, where his flock (Jeremiah 23:1) has been feeding so securely. He shall give a shout. It is the technical term used at once for the vintage-shout and for the battle-cry. In Isaiah 16:9, Isaiah 16:10, there is a beautiful allusion to this double meaning, and so perhaps there is here (comp. Jeremiah 51:14). Jeremiah 25:31 A noise. The word is used elsewhere for the tumultuous sound of a marching army (see Isaiah 13:4; Isaiah 17:12). He will plead; rather, he will hold judgment. Jehovah’s "contending" sometimes involves the notion of punishing, e.g. Ezekiel 38:22; Isaiah 66:16. In 2 Chronicles, 2 Chronicles 22:8, the same verb in the same conjugation is forcibly rendered in the Authorized Version, "to execute judgment." Jeremiah 25:32 A great whirlwind; rather, a great storm (as Jeremiah 23:19). The coasts of the earth; rather, the furthest parts of the earth. The storm, as it appears on the horizon, comes as it were from the ends of the earth; perhaps, too, there is an allusion to the distant abode of the foe (comp. Jeremiah 6:22). Jeremiah 25:33 The slain of the Lord; i.e. those slain by the Lord, as Isaiah 66:16, where his sword is further spoken of as the agent (see on Isaiah 66:16). They shall not be lamented, etc.; parallel to Jeremiah 8:2; Jeremiah 16:4. Jeremiah 25:34 Wallow yourselves in the ashes. Supply rather, in the dust (comp. Micah 1:10), as more suitable to the figure (see on Jeremiah 6:26). The shepherds, and the principal (or, noble ones) of the flock, are, of course, merely different forms of expression for the rulers. The days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are accomplished; rather, your days for being slaughtered are fulfilled; and I will scatter you (or, dash you in pieces). This is the reading of an old and valuable manuscript at St. Petersburg, and is partly favored by the pointing; it is adopted by most modern critics, the form in the text being ungrammatical. Pleasant; or, precious (comp. Daniel 11:8, Authorized Version). Compare the figure in Jeremiah 22:28. Jeremiah 25:36, Jeremiah 25:37 The prophet seems in his spirit to hear the lamentation to which in Jeremiah 25:34 he summoned the "shepherds." A voice of the cry should be, Hark I the cry (omitting "shall be heard"); the clause is an exclamation. Hath spoiled; rather, is spoiling (or, laying waste). The peaceable habitations; rather, the peaceful fields (or, pastures). Are cut down; rather, are destroyed; literally, are brought to silence (comp. Jeremiah 9:10). Jeremiah 25:38 Close of the prophecy with a fuller enunciation of the thought with which the paragraph was introduced. He hath forsaken; comp. Jeremiah 25:30, and notice the impressive non-mention of the subject (as Jeremiah 4:13, etc.). Their land; i.e. that of tile shepherds. The fierceness of the oppressor. A various reading, supported by some manuscripts, the Septuagint and the Targum, and accepted by Ewald, Hitzig, and Graf, and is the oppressing sword (so Jeremiah 46:16; Jeremiah 50:16). The text reading is very difficult to defend, and the punctuation itself is really more in favor of the variant than of the received text. Jeremiah 25:1-7 A melancholy review of twenty-three years of work. I. THE OF THE WORKER. A three and twenty years’ experience furnishes a good test of character. So long a time is quite sufficient to eliminate the accidents of passion and temporary enthusiasm, and to bring to light the general principles of a man’s conduct. These constitute his character; they reveal the true features of him. We should not judge a man by his latest action, perhaps a hasty and quite uncharacteristic one; to be fair, not to say charitable, we should consider the whole course of his life. To know ourselves we must look back on the years of our lives, and not pass a superficial judgment on our present mood. The character of Jeremiah, revealed by the test of twenty-three years of work under the most harassing circumstances, is worth our reverent study. Consider the salient points in it: 1. Fidelity. All this time he was working as God’s servant, in opposition to the spirit of the age, provoking enmity, calumny, haired. The bearer of a message which it must have been a pain for him to deliver, a message of denunciation and menace, Jeremiah boldly declared it and adhered to it, in spite of every inducement to follow the fashion of the prophets of flattery. We meet with men who are proud of representing the spirit of their age. Nothing is easier. Nothing is more simple than to be an echo, a reflection, a mouthpiece to the general voice. The difficulty is to utter a contrary voice, not out of stubbornness, or a spirit of willful antagonism, but out of calm fidelity to duty. This is the task of the great. 2. Perseverance. For three and twenty years Jeremiah had persisted in his unpopular course. We know that he continued equally staunch for many more years. Here is the great test. It is possible to be an Elijah, and stand alone facing the howling multitude of priests and slaves of Baal in one supreme moment of conflict and speedy triumph, and yet after this to flee to the wilderness, and to feel unequal to the task of constant fidelity, in season and out of season, through long dreary years, without the excitement of a dramatic scene of heroism, worn and fretted by incessant, petty, spiteful enmity. Yet this was the experience of Jeremiah. 3. Earnestness. "I have spoken," he says, "rising early and speaking." The prophet is not a passive martyr, nor a mere confessor who dares to speak out his conviction when it is directly challenged. He goes forth on a mission urging his message upon men. He is a model preacher. He is no perfunctory official droning through a dreary task, no mere professional preacher, honestly discharging his work, but with little interest in it, like a hired pleader. His heart is with his work. He has an end in view, and he sets himself with all his might to accomplish it. In all this the prophet reveals to us the long-suffering and earnest desire of God to deliver his children. All this while God was inspiring Jeremiah, as he had inspired a succession of prophets, to rouse and urge the people to repentance. II. THE RESULTS OF THE WORK. Apparent failure. "Ye have not hearkened, nor inclined your ear to hear." It would seem that all this labor, earnestness, persistence, and fidelity had been so much wasted work. 1. The preacher must not be blamed for apparent fruitlessness. No greater mistake can be made than that of judging a man by the manifest effect of his work. The most popular preacher is not necessarily the most faithful servant of God. The unpopularity and seeming failure of a preacher is not in itself a reason for condemning him. No fault can be found with the preaching of Jeremiah, yet it was not successful. Christ spake as never man spake, and "the Pharisees derided him." He was popular for a season, but ultimately "all men forsook him." The most important truths may be the least popular. 2. The preacher must not be too confident in expecting time to reveal the fruits of his work. Twenty-three years made no such revelation to Jeremiah. A faithful man may toil on through the long night of a whole lifetime of difficulty, and die without seeing the results of his labor. It is well to be prepared for this possibility. 3. The responsibility of rightly receiving a Divine message rests with the hearers. We are always lecturing the preachers. "Take heed how ye speak." These words are not in the Bible. Christ was more anxious about the hearers. "Take heed how ye hear." Of course the preacher has his high responsibilities, but so have the hearers. The poorest sermon of a good man who is trying to expound Divine truth may contain something of profit to a devout listener, who is more anxious to receive the good in it than to pass a barren criticism on its defects; for if the messenger is sadly wanting, and his language and thought as poor as possible, the message which he handles so badly is not the less God’s truth. But if the preaching of a Jeremiah, of a Christ even, is unheeded, what qualities in the preacher can command success with an unsympathizing audience? 4. Still no good work ultimately fails. Jeremiah did not speak for nothing. His message bore good fruit with many of the captives—perhaps with Daniel. Preserved to our time, it has been a blessing to generations. Jeremiah 25:5, Jeremiah 25:6 The chief purpose of prophecy. Jeremiah here sums up the general purpose not only of his own mission—extending now over twenty-three years—but of that of the whole series of Hebrew prophets. We may thus see the one great aim towards which all their labors were directed. I. IS . Jeremiah’s summary takes the form of an exhortation. The prophets were preachers, not philosophers. Their aim was not to satisfy curiosity but to affect conduct. In this they are an example to all preachers. The preacher’s duty is to lead men, not merely to teach doctrines. Still the exposition of truth is necessary to effect this end. The prophets did not content themselves with simple exhortations to good conduct. These exhortations needed the enforcement of clear conviction. Their authority was not magisterial (a mere command of superior power) nor priestly (an influence of spiritual rank erected on unquestioning faith), but reasonable (the authority of truth seen and felt). Hence their revelations of God and of the future. Yet these were all given for a practical end. The preacher should make his most abstract expositions of truth point towards some course of conduct. II. IS A CALL TO . This urgent call rings through the messages of all the prophets. It was revived by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:2), adopted by our Lord (Matthew 4:17) and his apostles (e.g. St. Peter, Acts 2:38; and St. Paul, Acts 17:30), and by all great reformers, such as Savonarola, John Knox, John Wesley, etc. 1. Men must be preached to about their own condition as well as about God’s will. We want a Divine revelation that we may know ourselves just as much as that we may know God. A large part of the Bible is occupied with revelations of human nature. 2. Together with these revelations there comes the call to turn and change. The result of the exposure of mankind to itself is not satisfactory. This exposure alone is a call to turn from our evil ways. The mere exposure, however, is of little use. A Juvenal is not a Jeremiah. A satirist is not a prophet. There must be the call to a better life, and a declaration of the way to find it. 3. The prophets imply that men not only need to change but can change. The most fundamental change of heart must be through the influence of God. Yet this is only possible when men freely and willingly turn to him in repentance. 4. The special sin denounced was apostasy from God; the special repentance called for was a return to God. These are always the fundamental elements of sin and repentance. III. IS A VOICE OF WARNING AND OF PROMISE. Evil is denounced to the impenitent; good is promised to the penitent. This is the simplest form in which the motives to repentance can be put. But the tracing out of it is not simple. It required an inspired prophet to detect the seeds of ruin in riotous prosperity and the dawning of a day of redemption in the stormy night of adversity. The prophets not only detect these facts, they discern the principles that govern them. Thus they speak for all ages. They show us how sin is ruinous; how God has a sure blessedness in store for his faithful children—a blessedness which is eternal. Nebuchadnezzar … my servant. A strange expression! It is not found in many manuscripts and versions. But it is more likely that dull officious scribes should erase such an "improper" phrase than that any should insert it in the manuscripts and Targum where it is preserved. We cannot suppose that Nebuchadnezzar is called God’s servant in consideration of any characteristics of his later career, such as the repentant state following his insanity recorded in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 4:33-37). The prophecy of Jeremiah belongs to a much earlier period. Nebuchadnezzar, a heathen, an idolater, entirely ignorant of the religion of the Jews, just appearing as the great conqueror and oppressor, and striking Syria dumb with terror by his victory at Carchemish—this man is called God’s servant. The expression is significant. I. GOD’S EXTENDS TO ALL MANKIND. He is not the God of the Jews only, nor of the Christians only, nor of the religious only. He is the God of heaven and earth, the Sovereign and supreme Master of all creatures. We talk of the godless heathen. They may be living without the knowledge of God, but not without his knowledge of them, his care, his influence. II. GOD CAN USE FOR HIS MEN WHO DO NOT KNOW HIM. Nebuchadnezzar did not know the true God. Yet he was an instrument in God’s hands for the chastisement of the Jews. Many a man is unconsciously working out God’s will even when he thinks he is fighting against it. God’s purposes are deeper than our thoughts. III. GOD CAN MAKE BAD MEN DO HIS WILL. Such men do not do God’s will in themselves, but by doing their own evil will they produce results which fall in with God’s larger designs. Of course this is no justification for their conduct, since our responsibility turns on our motives, not on the unexpected results of our conduct. It must not be supposed that God sanctions the wicked passions that drive a man to an action which God overrules for good. Nebuchadnezzar is to be punished for the very act in which God uses him as his servant (verse 12). Yet the relation between God and his wicked servants is wholly mysterious. IV. GOD OVER THE MOST TYRANTS. Nebuchadnezzar is the greatest monarch of the world. He is just inflated with one of the grandest victories in all history. Naturally he is an autocratic tyrant who makes an idol of his own will. This man is really God’s slave. God overrules all kings, shapes and molds all history, and manifests his providence in the great onward march of humanity. This fact should give us confidence in the midst of the darkest events. It should humble the great to feel that they are as nothing before God. V. THE OF GOD DO NOT KNOW THE OF HIS HIGHER SERVICE. AS they do not willingly serve, so they do not reap the spiritual joys of service. The service is nothing to them, though much to the world. The true servant of God knows his master’s will and delights to do it, sacrifices his own will and submits obediently to the higher will. To fulfill such service is the highest privilege of mankind. In the accomplishment of it is peace and blessedness (Psalms 40:6-8). The wine-cup of fury. I. THE WRATH OF GOD IS LIKE WINE. 1. It is powerful. The wine is strong drink. We are too ready to close our eyes to this aspect of the Divine nature. The love of God is so treated by some that it leaves no room for anger. But God is not weakly indulgent; if he were so, even his love would be found wanting, for there is no wrath more terrible than that of outraged love. 2. The anger of God produces terrible effects. The wine intoxicates. It cannot be a matter of no concern to us to know how God feels towards us. All affections tend to actions. The anger of a man is not likely to waste itself in aimless fury; it will flow out in deeds. God is a King whose wrath will find expression in acts of sovereignty, a Father whose anger must necessarily affect his treatment, of his children. If there are men at whose anger we may smile, there are others who cannot be safely despised. But who dare disregard the wrath of God? Once it is outpoured it must be overwhelming, must take possession of men. 3. It will not only produce outward distress, but inward confusion and helplessness, so" that they shall reel to and fro, and behave themselves madly." Therefore the man who is smitten by Divine wrath has not those internal sources of comfort and strength with which we try to hear up under outward calamity. II. THERE ARE TIMES WHEN THE WINE-CUP OF FURY IS POURED OUT. It is not always flowing. Though "God is angry with the wicked every day," he is forbearing, and restrains his wrath till it cannot longer be justly withheld. Then we may suppose that the longer it has been accumulating the worse will be its outflow. Men have been treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. Such seasons of the outpouring of the cup of fury may be noted in history; e.g. in the invasions of Nebuchadnezzar, the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, the sacking of Rome by Alaric. It is important to note that this happens in seasons. It is not always harvest. But the spring sowing prepares for the autumn reaping. We may be now preparing for an outburst of wrath. How foolish not to guard against it because it has not yet come! Delay of judgment is no excuse for doubt about it, for this is part of the Divine method of action. III. ALL THE GUILTY MUST DRINK OF THE WINE-CUP OF FURY. Jeremiah summons the various nations to partake of it. The Jews are not spared though they are the "elect people." The heathen are not excluded though they do not recognize God truly. God is still the impartial Father of all, and must execute judgment upon all classes, while, of course, he has due regard to the light and opportunities of each. "Religious" people will have to drink of the dreadful cup, if they are morally corrupt. Worldly people will also have to receive it, though they may profess to have nothing to do with God and his laws. There is no escape in the day of judgment. Men may refuse to taste of God’s love; they cannot refuse to partake of his wrath (verse 28). IV. THE BITTER CUP WHICH CHRIST DRANK IS AN TO THE WINS-CUP OF FURY. God could never have been angry with his beloved Son. He must have regarded it as he was in his pure goodness; could not have imputed to him sins of which he was not guilty, nor have looked wrathfully upon him when he was regarding him with nothing but love and approval. But Christ was so one with us, so took our place as our High Priest, that he must have felt, as the most guilty man never felt, the horror of the wrath of God against the sinful world of which he stood forth as the Representative. He drank to the dregs the bitter cup of spiritual woe as well as that of his bodily passion. The gospel of his grace proclaims to us that they who are liable to the outpourings of a Divine judgment on their sins may find through Christ’s sacrifice peace with God. By faith in Christ we are reconciled to God, and find that his anger is put away forever in the free pardon of our sins. The ineffectual palladium of a great name. Jerusalem was called by God’s name; yet Jerusalem was not to be spared in the general outpouring of the wine-cup of fury. The Jews were vainly trusting in their name. We are all inclined to think too much of mere names. Certainly there is something in a name; it may command respect, influence, etc. Yet this applies only in regard to human considerations; it can have no weight with God. Even with men it is less potent than its possessors would fain believe. The influence of it is slowly won, easily lost, and only recovered with the utmost difficulty, if at all. I. A NAME MAY BE GREAT BECAUSE IT WITH THE GREAT. It may indicate relationship to a family, a clan, a nation. We are proud of the name of Englishmen. St. Paul, professing himself a Roman, was able to claim the rights of Roman citizenship (Acts 22:25). But the name is here useful only in so far as the privilege it implies extends. St. Paul had a right not to be scourged, but none to save him from being beheaded by the order of the emperor. We may claim undue privileges because we bear the name of Christian, because we were born in Christendom, are citizens of a Christian state, are members of a Christian Church. These associations count for nothing before God. We shall "all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body" (2 Corinthians 5:10). It will be vain then to say, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy Name," etc.? If Christ must answer, "I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matthew 7:23, Matthew 7:24). II. A NAME MAY BE GREAT BECAUSE IT HIGH RANK, Social distinctions cannot be ignored while they exist, and in them the favored necessarily enjoy many amenities that are denied to the commonalty. But they are snares when they tempt their owners to expect peculiar privileges with Heaven. In spiritual matters we approach God, not as rich or poor, not as prince or beggar, but as man. Rank goes for nothing there; character is everything. This applies to ecclesiastical rank. They who hold high office in the Church are tempted to expect exceptional judgment. They will be judged, not as officials, not as popes, bishops, priests, but as men, and will find that their holy office will be no sanctuary when the awful sword of Divine judgment is unsheathed. III. A NAME MAY BE GREAT BECAUSE IT A GOOD . If the reputation is justly earned, the name is a real honor. "A good name," says the wise man, "is rather to be chosen than great riches" (Proverbs 22:1). Shakespeare’s Cassio exclaims, "Reputation, reputation, reputation!" Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial." Yet, if reputation is "got without merit," it is a poor refuge to flee to from before the all-seeing God. Even when it is solid and honest it stands only as a record of the past, and a presumption in our favor when our conduct is equivocal. But it does not mitigate the guilt of subsequent offences. We are judged by our conduct, not by our fame. It is vain to have a name to live if we are dead; the name will not galvanize us back into life. IV. A NAME MAY BE GREAT BECAUSE IT A GREAT . Men assume big names and flourish them before the world in pretended evidence of their own excellence, and the world, being too blind and too indolent to make very searching inquiries, commonly takes men much at their own reckoning. The advantage of such a deception can only be superficial and transitory. The foolish boast will soon be exploded. Before God it matters little what a man calls himself. The one question is as to what he is. Jeremiah 25:34-38 Howling shepherds. In the general calamity of the nation the shepherds are especially called upon to howl and cry and wallow in the dust. The shepherds are the leaders of the people. These leaders, therefore, are not to be exempt from the distresses of the common people; on the contrary, trouble is to fall upon them in an aggravated degree. I. HIGH RANK IS NO AGAINST TROUBLE. It may free a man from many annoyances, it cannot defend him from all kinds of calamity. It is chiefly a safeguard against the smaller vexations of life; the more serious troubles sweep over it unchecked. It is like a small breakwater that will keep back the little waves of a fresh sea, but is overwhelmed in the storm. When it is most needed it is of least use. Rank is no protection against disease and death, against general human calamities, such as the desolation of an earthquake, the ravages of a plague, the devastation of a war. Nevertheless men do trust to rank unreasonably, and find it a snare when their false confidence is exposed. II. LEADERS OF MEN SUFFER FROM THE THAT FALL UPON THEIR . The shepherd suffers with his flock. The patron is dependent on his clients. The king is great with the greatness of his people, and brought into trouble by his nation’s distress. This is more than sharing a general calamity. It is experiencing a trouble that is directly caused by the distress of dependants. History has proved the mistake of those tyrants who have thought to secure their own grandeur by the brutal degradation, the bondage and misery of their subjects. The truly prosperous sovereign is net the Pharaoh reigning in lonely magnificence over a nation of slaves, but the beloved ruler of a free and enlightened people. III. PERSONS IN EXALTED ARE LIABLE TO FROM WHICH MEN ARE EXEMPT. Not only are they not free from the common distresses of mankind, not only are they directly affected by the distresses of those beneath them; they are also subject to special dangers arising from their high and prominent position. 1. They are burdened with a responsibility that is proportionate to their elevation. If much has been given to them, much is expected of them. Every eye is upon them. Any mistake of theirs which might pass unnoticed in obscure men, is dragged into the full blaze of jealous criticism. If such men abuse a great trust they may expect to be visited with a great judgment. 2. They are liable to special attacks of animosity. Like officers in the field, they are picked out by opponents. Kings have dangers of assassination which obscure men need never fear. The highest tree catches the fiercest blast of the gale, while humble shrubs grow at peace in sheltered nooks. 3. They feel the blow of trouble most acutely. They who stand highest can fall lowest. Poverty is not the calamity to a born pauper that it proves itself to a bankrupt prince. BY A.F. MUIR Messages recapitulated. I. CAREFUL OF THE EXTENT OF HIS . (Jeremiah 25:1-3.) 1. The moral value of this is great. It is no vague indictment, but one made out with all accuracy and conscientiousness. We ought to take note of the extent of our privileges and opportunities, for we shall have to give an exact account of them all. 2. Its evidential value is equally great. The date of the prediction is thus fixed, and history becomes a long verification of his prophetic truth. II. OF HIS OWN AND OF GOD’S AND . (Jeremiah 25:3-6.) 1. God has been diligent. He has "risen up early." The welfare of his people is of intense interest to him. The delays of his dispensations are only seeming. No earnestness on the part of the creature can ever anticipate or outrun his love or readiness to provide. 2. His servant the prophet was so also. It was God’s Spirit in him that they heard. He was obedient to the heavenly Spirit, and announced its messages as they were received. III. THE AND OF THE NATION . (Jeremiah 25:3-7.) There is something very impressive in the repeated "Ye have not hearkened." It defines and characterizes the guilt of the apostate. There was not even the beginning of serious attention (Jeremiah 25:5, Jeremiah 25:6); and their indifference had become systematic and habitual. What wonder that God should have been provoked to wrath? And this is the sinner’s position today. It would be impossible to fathom the depths of our depravity by nature, or to trace it to its ultimate issues. IV. THE SPIRIT AND OF THE MESSAGE IS . How great is the long-suffering of God! The unbelief of the people had been marvelous, considering the signs which had been given. Another opportunity, however, was afforded ere the catastrophe should take place. No details of the teaching are entered into, but great plainness of speech is used. The emphasis is upon essentials and permanent principles. The "spirit of prophecy" is intensely moral; and this is why the "testimony of Jesus" represents it. It is the grand resultant of all the forces working through ancient prophecy, and casts its revealing light backward upon the prophetic page. These repentances so often urged but never forthcoming, these "returns" and obediences which were to crown with blessing and surround with Divine favor, are only possible through his Spirit. The future of the world, as of every individual and nation, is inextricably associated with the cause of righteousness, and therefore with. the gospel.—M. Jeremiah 25:7-11 Judgment plainly declared. The agents of the visitation are more precisely defined than hitherto, and the leader of the invasion is actually named. The extent also of the region to be devastated, and the time the captivity is to last, viz. seventy years, are set forth. I. THIS TENDED TO THE MORAL OF THE PEOPLE. A vague indefinite calamity or series of calamities would have failed to strike deeply enough into the conscience of the transgressors; whereas a precisely marked off and defined set of occurrences could not be misunderstood. 1. The nearness and inevitable character of the judgment are thereby realized. 2. It is seen to be imposed by the moral government of God. "My servant." God permits, nay, appoints, Nebuchadnezzar. II. IT THE PERIOD OF AS PART OF AN ORDERED WHOLE, WITH A AND OBJECT. Great as the trial would be, it was nevertheless a measured and therefore a bearable one. There need be no wild abandonment to despair. The believer could possess his soul in patience. The allurements of heathenism would lose much of their power. A quiet, reverent, and repentant study of the meaning of the dispensation would be encouraged; and in this way it would act as discipline for the future. We can never be certain as to the limits of our trials; but we have the assurance that our Savior, who has a fellow-feeling with his people, will not impose anything above what we are able to bear. And through the revelation of spirituality in the gospel, and the greater spiritualization of our hopes and aims through its teaching, we are able with greater calmness to contemplate our "light affliction, which is but for a moment." III. THE WAS THEREBY PROVED TO BE GENUINE, AND THE OF GOD BEYOND DISPUTE. As if conscious of this, Jeremiah for the first time calls himself "the prophet," when he has fairly committed himself to exact dates and personages. It would be open to the survivors of that predicted dispensation to denounce him an impostor, and to discredit the practice of prophesying. But the seer was certain; and the verdict of history confirms his forecast, and demonstrates that it was no ex post facto fabrication, but real Divine foreknowledge of events yet future.—M. Judgment beginning at the house of God. I. THE ORDER OF GOD’S . 1. It begins with his own people. 2. Reasons for this are: (1) The harmony of the Divine rule in the earth. The Church is his own house. It ought, therefore, to be in perfect order first. His authority ought to be recognized among those whom he calls his own. He will therefore deal with them first, and then with better grace address the impenitent and unbelieving world. (2) The purity of God’s character. He cannot endure wrong—cannot look upon sin. Yet he is to dwell in the Church, in individual believers. It is necessary, therefore, that they be made pure as he is pure. Their discipline must be immediate if they are to become vessels prepared unto honor. (3) The justice of God. Immediately the sin of the child is worse than that of the stranger, because it is done in the midst of light and privilege. Sharp and immediate chastisement is the only way in which he can show his sense of the wrong done (Amos 3:2). (4) The mercy of God. If it begins with the children of God, it is that they may the sooner be saved. He embitters the breast of the world to wean them (Leighton). It is because he loves he rebukes and chastens. But the grief of sin begins first in the breast of God and in the person of his Son. It is of the nature of Divine love to suffer for the sinful, even to die, that he may be made a child of grace. II. THE EXTENT OF IT. "All the inhabitants of the earth." Thus early—nay, from the first sin onwards—does he begin the judgment of the whole earth. The sin of one is but a symptom of the universal depravity of all. The oneness of the world in its fall and the evolution of its sin, is constantly declared in Scripture. 1. This is demanded by the justice of God. "Should ye be utterly unpunished?" It would be manifestly unfair that the child of God alone should suffer for that which is primarily a sin of all mankind. 2. It is founded upon the solidarity of the race. There is a universal kinship in sins. "In Adam (they) all die" (1 Corinthians 15:22). III. THE MEASURE OF IT. "A sword" (cf. Jeremiah 25:33). This signifies destruction, death. That which opposes itself to him will be utterly destroyed. He begins his judgment upon his own, but it passes from them and rests forever upon his enemies. The picture painted by Jeremiah (verses 30-38) is but one of many similar ones in the Bible. The utter holiness of God cannot endure the sinfulness of men; it must consume it and all that identify themselves with it. In the New Testament the horizon widens, and the spiritual world participates with the living upon earth in the sentence of the Judge. The first duty, therefore, of every awakened sinner is to flee from the "wrath to come." Whilst he remains unconverted he is a "child of wrath." Punishment has a different significance to him from what it would have if he were "in Christ." It is the same principle of solidarity which condemned us that now avails for our salvation. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22).—M. The vision of final judgment. A sublime and terrible description; corresponding with many others throughout the Old and New Testaments. I. IT SERVES A GREAT ETHICAL PURPOSE. The sense of wrong-doing is thereby intensified, and some idea is given of the awful consequences of sin and its hatefulness to the mind of God. II. AN OF THE OF SIN AND . By such visions as these the ages of the world are linked together and shown to be convergent in one point. There are not to be so many judgments of isolated offences, but one judgment, towards which all the world has looked forward. Sin increases with the lapse of time, and develops into a more pronounced opposition to truth and goodness only in final judgment can all its significance be comprehended and its issues be stayed. III. AS OF THE REALITY OF THE GIFT AND ITS END. This vision is corroborated by the universal instincts of man, on the one hand, and by the endorsement of Christ on the other. The various minor judgments which have intervened between that time and this are so many proofs of the correctness of the prophet’s intuition. And the manner in which he and other seers have laid chief emphasis upon this event exhibits the fundamental moral purpose of all prophecy. Its intention is to reveal the righteousness of God, and to lead men into its practice and love.—M. BY D. YOUNG A twenty-three years’ ministry. Here we get a statement, brief but not at all uncertain, of what had been done in the prophetic way during twenty-three years. Three parties are concerned in this statement: (1) God; (2) the prophet; (3) the people. I. GOD. Nebuchadnezzar, who is to act as the servant of God (Jeremiah 25:9) in the great overthrowing work, has just come to his throne, and is unconsciously preparing for that to which God had appointed him. Hence it was fitting that, just at this crisis, God should point back over the past and show how very much he had done to bring about a different result. Not that this comprehensive view was likely at the eleventh hour to make any change in Israel itself; but it is well that it should stand recorded in the history. It is well that we who come after should be made to see clearly how continuously God protested against the wickedness of his people. Jeremiah himself, out of his own experience, speaks as a witness of what had been going on for twenty-three years; and he knew further that he was only one out of many agents by whom God had been doing the same kind of work. II. THE PROPHET. Not Jeremiah peculiarly, but Jeremiah as representative of all the faithful prophets; those to whom he here refers as having been engaged in the same kind of service. He brings against the people a serious charge of persistent neglect; but it also involves a serious confession with respect to himself. A serious confession, but not a shameful one. Though his long ministry has not had the desired end, it is by no means a failure. For twenty-three years the work has been laid upon him of denouncing national apostasy and individual transgression, in all the varieties of it. The substance of this long ministry is written down and the spirit of the ministry made evident. We know the things he spoke of, and how he spoke of them; the enemies he made, the sufferings he endured, the pangs with which his heart was torn. In his ministry he gave himself, without stint. Nor does his work stand alone. He was not the first to exhort to repentance. He succeeded men who had been as faithful as himself, and engaged as long a time in the service of God. And yet, after so many remonstrances, the nation remains stubborn in its apostasy, infatuated as ever in its rapid descent to ruin. Hence we learn how chary we should be in talking of unsuccessful ministries. No ministry, whatever its other results may be, can be unsuccessful in the sight of God, if only there is unshaken fidelity to him. It is fidelity that he rewards, not obvious results. In spite of all the husbandman’s care, digging about the tree and dunging it, it may yield no fruit; but the fidelity of the husbandman deserves a reward all the same. Industry cannot overcome the bad elements in what is given him to cultivate. All who have to engage in preaching and prophesying duties must learn the lesson, that more is needed for success than mere perseverance. Perseverance is like the dropping water which wears away the stone; but what is here required, is that the stone should be changed as to its nature, not worn away. If Jeremiah had been able to prophesy twenty-three centuries, instead of twenty-three years, the result would have been the same. All he could do was to reiterate, in the ears of the people, the necessity of repentance. It is in the light of a passage like this that we learn more of what Jesus meant when he said he came to fulfill the prophets. It was his not only to accomplish their predictions, but do what they could not possibly do by all their appeals—turn the hearts of the disobedient to God. Compare the barren ministry of Jeremiah, prophet of Jehovah, with the fruitful ministry of Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ. Yet Paul did not speak one whit more earnestly concerning righteousness and repentance and submission to God. The difference lay in this, that Paul was not only a preacher, but when he preached there was a subduing and renewing Spirit. III. THE PEOPLE. This is a serious charge brought against them, that one man had been in their midst for all these years, with one message, never varying and never slackening, and yet that they had paid, as a nation, not the slightest heed to it. When Nebuchadnezzar did come, there was no chance for them to say that they had not received proper warning. They could not blame Jeremiah. Their very persecution of him was a witness against themselves. Thus there is a warning to those who are hearers of the gospel with all the voices with which it is addressed to them. It is not outside of themselves they must look for explanations of why the truths of the gospel have found no lodgment in their hearts. The cause is within. How many have been listening to the news of Jesus Christ for many more years even than twenty-three, and every year seems to bring a lessening probability that they will treat the message as having a practical concern for themselves!—Y. Nebuchadnezzar, the servant of God. I. THE WITH OTHER . Observe the mention, in Jeremiah 25:4, of those very different servants of God, the prophets (so mentioned elsewhere). God had sent many of them and many times, and hardly any attention had been paid to them. Higher motives had been appealed to in vain. Considerations of duty and prudence were thrown to the winds. And now the mighty king Nebuchadnezzar comes, with a very different sort of force—not looking at all like a servant of God; and yet he is just as much the servant of God as is any of the prophets. Indeed, king of a great people though he was, his rank in the service of God was not so high as that of the prophets. He appears in this place as nothing more than the final executioner of justice. II. A SERVANT BECAUSE THE SERVICE WAS . Nebuchadnezzar, despot as he was, would have been very wrathful if he had known exactly how he appeared in the sight of God. He had certain purposes of his own, and he succeeded in effecting them; but the very energy with which he worked for himself only made him to render his service to God more complete. And may it not be happening in the world, a great deal more frequently than we think, that the very success of selfish and domineering men is being so handled by God as all the more to serve his purposes? This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ ’S TRIAL AND . The prophecy in Jeremiah 26:2-6 is a summary of that contained in Jeremiah 7:1-15; the narrative, which stands in no connection either with Jeremiah 24:1-10 or Jeremiah 27:1-22, relates the consequences of that bold declaration of the word of the Lord. The present position of the chapter is only surprising to those who assume that the works of the prophets were necessarily arranged chronologically. How many violations of chronological order meet us in other books, e.g. in Isaiah. It is only reasonable to expect similar phenomena in the Book of Jeremiah. To estimate the circumstances of the prophecy aright, we must remember that in Jehoiakim’s reign a Chaldean invasion was the danger by which all minds were constantly preoccupied. Jeremiah 26:2 Jeremiah is to take his stand in the court of the Lord’s house; i.e. the outer court, where the people assembled (comp. Jeremiah 19:14), and preach unto all the cities of Judah; i.e. to the pilgrims who had come from the provincial towns (comp. Jeremiah 11:12). His discourse is not to be an eloquent appeal to the feelings, but a strict and peremptory announcement; he is to diminish (or, subtract) not a word (comp. Deuteronomy 4:2; Deuteronomy 12:32; Revelation 22:19). Jeremiah 26:3 That I may repent; literally, and I will repent; the idea or object is derived from the context. (On the Divine repentance, see note on Jeremiah 18:8.) Jeremiah 26:4-6 The contents of the discourse (see especially on Jeremiah 7:12-15). The priests and the prophets interfere, arrest Jeremiah, and accuse him of a capital crime. It would appear that some at least of the "false prophets" were priests; thus Pashur, we are told, was a priest (Jeremiah 20:6). Jeremiah 26:7-11 To all devout Jews this prediction of the destruction of the temple must have been startling; but to those who placed their confidence in the mere exist-once of a consecrated building (Jeremiah 7:4), it was like a blow aimed at their very life. Besides, were not the majority of the prophets of Jehovah of entirely another way of thinking? Did they not promise peace? And what could justify Jeremiah in announcing not merely war, but the downfall of the Divine habitation itself? Hence no sooner had the prophet concluded his discourse, than he was arrested, accused, and condemned to death. Jeremiah 26:8 Had made an end of speaking. They allowed Jeremiah to finish his discourse (of which we have here only the briefest summary), either from a lingering reverence for his person and office, or to obtain fuller materials for an accusation (comp. the trial of Stephen, Acts 6:12-14). All the people. The "people" appear to have been always under some constraint. As long as the priests and prophets were alone, they dominated the unofficial classes, but when the princes appeared (verse 11), the new influence proved superior. In verse 16 princes and people together go over to the side of Jeremiah. Thou shalt surely die. Death was the legal penalty both for blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16) and for presuming to prophesy without having received a prophetic revelation (Deuteronomy 18:20). Jeremiah’s declaration ran so entirely counter to the prejudices of his hearers that he may well have been accused of both these sins, or crimes. True, Isaiah and Amos had already predicted the destruction of Jerusalem (Isaiah 5:5, Isaiah 5:6; Isaiah 6:11; Amos 2:4, Amos 2:5; Amos 6:1, Amos 6:2); but it may have been contended that the timely repentance of Judah under Hezekiah and Josiah had effectually cancelled the threatened doom, and though Isaiah 64:10, Isaiah 64:11 evidently refers to a time later than Josiah, and represents the ruin of Jerusalem as practically certain, it would seem that the prophetic book (Isaiah 40-66.) to which this belongs (to say the least) was not generally known. Jeremiah 26:9 Were gathered against; rather, assembled themselves unto; i.e. constituted themselves into a legal qahal, or assembly (see on Jeremiah 26:17). Jeremiah 26:10 The princes. The term will include the members of the various branches of the royal family, who acted as judges (see on Jeremiah 21:12), and the "elders," or heads of families (see Jeremiah 26:17). Without the presence of the former, Jeremiah could only have had a mock-trial. Came up, etc. (see on Jeremiah 22:1). Of the Lord’s house; better simply, of the Lord. The gate is the same which is referred at Jeremiah 20:2. Jeremiah 26:11 This man is worthy to die; literally, a sentence of death (belongs) to this man. Jeremiah 26:12-15 Jeremiah’s defense. He is conscious that he has not spoken uncommissioned, and leaves the result. He urges the people to amendment of life, while there is time, and warns them that his own unmerited death will bring a curse upon themselves. Jeremiah 26:16-19 The truth makes an impression upon the princes and the people, who declare Jeremiah to be a true prophet, and therefore innocent. Jeremiah 26:17 The elders of the land add their voice in favor of Jeremiah, not, however, without first of all consulting the people whose representatives they are. The whole verse is thoroughly technical in its phraseology. The word (qahal) rendered "assembly" is the traditional legal term for the "congregation of Israel" (Deuteronomy 31:30); comp. verse 9, where the verb is the corresponding one to qahal. Thus, with all the faults of the government of Judah, which Jeremiah himself reveals to us, it was very far removed from the Oriental despotisms of our day. The "elders" are still an important element in the social system, and form a link with that earlier period in which the family was the leading power in the social organization. Originally the term denoted, strictly and in the full sense, heads of families; they have their analogue in the councils of the Aryan village communities. "References to their parliamentary status occur in Exodus 3:16; 2 Samuel 19:11; 1 Kings 8:1; 1 Kings 20:7. The institution lingered on during and after the Babylonian Exile." We find another reference to their quasi-judicial authority in Deuteronomy 21:2. Jeremiah 26:18, Jeremiah 26:19 Micah the Morasthite, etc. The "elders" appeal for a precedent to the case of Micah (called after his native place, Moresheth-Gath, to distinguish him from other Micahs), who had been equally explicit in his declarations of woe to Jerusalem, without incurring the charge of blasphemy. The prediction referred to is in Micah 3:12, the form of which agrees verbally with our passage. Jeremiah 26:19 Thus might we procure, etc.; rather, and we are about to commit a great evil against our souls (not merely "against ourselves"). The blood of the slain would cry for vengeance against his murderers, who would come to an untimely end, their "souls" being sent down to lead a miserable parody of a life (βίοςἄβιος) in Sheol or Hades. Jeremiah 26:20-23 The murder of the prophet Urijah. At first sight, these four verses appear to belong to the speech of the elders, but the appearance is delusive, (1) because the issue of the affair of Urijah cannot possibly have taken place "in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim" (Jeremiah 26:1); and (2) because the passage stands in no connection with what precedes, whereas it is related, and that very closely, to Jeremiah 26:24 (see below). The case is similar to that of certain passages in St. John’s Gospel, where the reflections of the evangelist are put side by side with the sayings of our Lord. Jeremiah, writing down his experiences at a later time, introduces the story of Urijah to show the magnitude of the danger to which he had been exposed. The notice of Urijah has an additional importance, as it shows incidentally how isolated a spiritual prophet like Jeremiah was, and how completely the order of prophets had fallen below its high ideal. We have no further knowledge of the prophet Urijah. Jeremiah 26:20 Kirjath-jearim; a city in the territory of Judah, on the west frontier of Benjamin. Jeremiah 26:21 His mighty men. The "mighty men" (gibborim) are not mentioned again in Jeremiah, and the Septuagint omits the word. But it is clear from Isaiah 3:2 that the "mighty men" were recognized as an important part of the community. From 1 Chronicles 10:10 it appears that the term indicates a position of high command in the army, which is in accordance with the notice in 2 Kings 24:16. Went into Egypt. Egypt was the natural refuge for a native of Palestine, just as Palestine was for a native of Egypt. The latter, however, proved to be not a safe asylum for Urijah, as Pharaoh was the liege lord of Jehoiakim (2 Kings 23:34), and the extradition of Urijah as a criminal naturally followed. Jeremiah 26:22 Elnathan. The name occurs again in Jeremiah 36:12, Jeremiah 36:25. Possibly this man was the "Elnathan of Jerusalem" mentioned in 2 Kings 24:8 as the father-in-law of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah 26:23 Into the graves of the common people; literally, of the sons of the people (comp. Jeremiah 17:19; 2 Kings 23:6). "The graves" is equivalent to "the graveyard," as Job 17:1. Jeremiah 26:24 Nevertheless the hand of Ahi-kant, etc.; i.e. in spite of the prepossession against prophets like Jeremiah which this incident reveals, Ahikam threw all his influence into the scale of toleration.’ The same Ahikam is mentioned in circumstances which reflect credit on his religion in 2 Kings 22:12-14. One of his sons, Gemariah, lent Baruch his official room for the reading of the prophecies of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 36:10); another was the well-known Gedaliah, who became governor of Judah after the fall of Jerusalem, and who was himself friendly to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 39:14; Jeremiah 40:5). The duty of declaring the whole truth. I. THE DUTY. Jeremiah is commanded to "diminish not a word" from the Divine message. A similar obligation rests upon every man who is called to speak for God to his fellow-men. The duty is urgent for two reasons: 1. Truth is a trust. Thus Timothy is admonished by St. Paul to keep that which is committed to his trust (1 Timothy 6:20); and the apostle speaks of the "gospel which was committed to my trust" (1 Timothy 1:11). 2. Truth is needed by the world, It is not a private monopoly; it belongs to mankind. The world is dying for lack of it. He who has possession of it and refuses to reveal it to others is like a man who has discovered a secret spring of abundant water and churlishly keeps his knowledge to himself though his companions are perishing of thirst. Divine truth is of practical moment. It is not a mere curiosity, to be exposed or hidden as its owner thinks fit, as though his treatment of it made little difference to other men. When the four lepers of Samaria found the Syrian camp deserted, their first impulse was to pillage it quietly and hide the treasures, keeping the great discovery secret; but wiser thoughts prevailed, and they hastened to acquaint the citizens with their unexpected deliverance (2 Kings 7:3-11). So every one who has seen the redemption of Christ has no right to keep his knowledge to himself while the world is in sore need of it. The Church is entrusted with the gospel, not for her own enjoyment alone, but for the good of the world. The same duty applies also to the possession of darker truths. It is evident, indeed, that a certain liberty and discretion are left with us, It is for us to arrange and present truth as it seems best to us; to give relative prominence to its various parts according to our idea of their importance; to lead men up to the reception of it by degrees. It may he that there are truths which the teacher sees, but which the scholar is not yet fit to receive. If they were declared to him he would not understand them, and they would only injure him. A wise teacher will reserve these. We act in this way with children. It may be right sometimes to do the same with those who are babes in knowledge. But is not this a violation of the duty of the text? By no means. For: (1) If we are sure the truth will be misunderstood we cannot really teach it; for to teach a thing is to make another understand and know it, not merely to speak out unintelligible words about it. We are not to cast our pearls before swine, though we are to remember that no human beings are to be regarded as hopelessly and forever swinish. (2) Truth may be with-holder, for a time with the object, not of suppressing it, but of the better leading them up to the ripe reception of it. (3) The vision of truth must be distinguished from the mission to declare it. No doubt the one directly leads to the other. But they may not be contemporaneous. Questions of method, order, seasonableness, come between. The duty is to diminish nothing of the prophet’s message. II. THE TO FAIL IN THIS DUTY. 1. Personal fear may tempt a man to "diminish" part of the Divine message. Jeremiah knew that the full utterance of his message would provoke violent opposition. He was warned not to shrink from declaring it on that account. In Christian lands and quiet times we do not feel the same terrible temptation to unfaithfulness. But it comes to us in another form. There are ideas which we believe to be true, but we fear they are unpopular; they will excite controversy, they will provoke ridicule, they will lead to neglect of the preacher. He is tempted to shun these truths that he may swim with the tide of popularity, but he is guilty of gross unfaithfulness if he thus shuns to declare the whole counsel of God. 2. It may appear that men will not receive the message. Of course, as has been remarked, we must use wisdom and discretion, seeking rather to convince men than to provoke them. But it may even be a duty to declare a truth as a testimony against men. In any case the responsibility for rejecting it will lie with them, as it should. But who can tell whether or no his work will be fruitless? The most unsympathetic hearers have sometimes been reached and affected and subdued by the truth which they came to mock or oppose. When the bow is drawn at a venture it may hit the most unlikely marks. It is certain that more good has been missed by our faithlessness in not" sowing beside all waters" than harm done by our rashness in blurting out truths in unseemly circumstances. 3. Certain truths may seem to be of no practical use. We are inclined to neglect these for those that are plainly profitable. Now, there can be no doubt that some truths are of more practical importance than others, and these should naturally receive our more earnest attention. Bat it is a mistake to neglect any truth on this account. Truth should be loved and taught for its own sake. It is degraded when it is regarded solely from a utilitarian standpoint. It is well that men should be true philosophers—lovers of wisdom. Moreover, it is impossible to tell what will be the future practical influence of a truth. Some of the most abstruse scientific inventions have led to results of great, though unexpected, human advantage. If research were confined within the limits of the evidently practical, it is certain that many of the most important discoveries—discoveries of the greatest use to man—would never have been made. Thus, if electricity had not been studied for purely scientific purposes we should never have had the telegraph. We do not know all the effects of Divine truth. It may not affect others as it does us. It may have special effects in the future, not felt as yet. It is our duty to preserve and transmit it to the ages when it may bear most fruit. 4. Some truths may appear difficult and mysterious. Of course, if a truth is wholly unintelligible, it cannot be taught. We are only uttering words when we try to expound it. But without being unintelligible it may be mysterious, it may be inexplicable; it may come, so to speak, with trails of dark shadows. The temptation is to leave this and only touch what is clear throughout. But the very sense of mystery may be beneficial. So much of the truth as is clear may be useful. If we are convinced that a thing is true, we may accept it without explaining the whole rationale of it. The mystery may grow clearer as we practice what we know of the truth. In any case the Christian teacher is God’s ambassador, commissioned to declare his Master’s message entire, unmutilated, whatever opinions he may have of the utility of it. Jeremiah 26:8-19 A scene in a Jewish court of law. We have here a graphic picture of the procedure under the Hebrew criminal law, for it would appear that Jeremiah was indicted and tried in accordance with correct legal order. The details of such a trial are not unimportant to the student of constitutional history. But they are also full of human interest. The law-court is a strange mirror of character. Many as are the objections to the publication of police news in the daily papers, it does at least serve to open our eyes to the eccentricities as well as the enormities of our variegated human world. Let us see what light this trial of Jeremiah throws upon the various persons concerned. I. THE . The leading accusers are priests and prophets. The priests, also, were foremost in the accusation of our Lord. Jeremiah had threatened the temple; it is not wonderful that temple officials should be enraged with him. Religious persecution is generally instigated by the professional clerical class, whose vested interests have been attacked by the reformer. The prophets were directly opposed by the teaching of Jeremiah. If orthodoxy is to be decided by the vote of the majority, they were the orthodox of their day. They were annoyed by the contradiction of the greatest man of their order. Unable to answer him, they tried to suppress him. The conduct of these men may suggest some general lessons, viz. (1) fidelity to the ordinances of worship is no proof of fidelity to God; (2) professional religiousness may be far removed from religiousness of character; (3) they who claim to be regular teachers of religion may Be the last to recognize fresh truth; (4) they who are interested in a controversy are bad judges of the merits of the case. II. THE ACCUSED. 1. Jeremiah remains faithful to his message. He reiterates it with new emphatic warnings. His defense is that he is sent by God to speak as he has spoken. He rests on innocence, truth, Divine authority. With such a plea he dare not recant. The true servants of God will know that they ought to "obey God rather than men," and therefore, like St. Peter and St. John, that they "cannot but speak the things which they have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20). 2. Jeremiah showed indifference to his own life (verse 14). He was a brave man, though his enemies accused him of advocating a coward’s policy. It is noble thus to have strength to act on the conviction that truth is more precious than life. 3. Jeremiah warned the people of the consequences of injustice (verse 15). This he did more for their sakes than for his own. Nothing can be more fatal to a country than the corruption of justice. III. THE JUDGES. The princes and elders seem to have the position of judges. They are cool and impartial. In the Jewish state the office of judge came with birth and rank. The most radical friend of the people may see that the superior culture and freedom from popular passions of these men may have fitted them in some measure for their work. Unhappily, Jeremiah has exposed another side of their character. It speaks well for them, however, after the severe castigation he had given "the shepherds" (e.g. Jeremiah 25:34-38), that they had the magnanimity to lend the prophet an impartial hearing, in spite of the virulent opposition of the priests. But possibly these two classes of leading men were not on the friendliest of terms with one another. Even if this be the case it is well that, unlike Herod and Pontius Pilate, they did not come to an agreement through the sacrifice of an innocent victim. Some of the elders cited the precedent of Micah’s case. We see here the value of such an illustration. It serves to detach the principle under consideration from the prejudice of the passions of the hour. IV. THE JURY. The assembly of the people seems to have acted as a jury. The priests and prophets present their accusation to them and the princes. The people and the princes pronounce the opinion that Jeremiah is innocent. The elders address themselves exclusively to the assembly of the people. This assembly shows the weakness of a popular concourse. The people are swayed from side to side. First they side with the priests, then with the rulers. It also shows its advantages. The people are open to impression; they do not care for formal consistency to a previous conviction; they like to see fair play. When their broad human instincts are appealed to they respond rightly. The story of an obscure martyr. I. MEN MAY DO GOOD SERVICE IF THEY FOLLOW GOOD LEADERS. Urijah had no new message; but he followed Jeremiah fully and firmly. Accordingly, though not especially inspired, he was able to prophesy "in the Name of the Lord." It is more important to be true than to be original. It is the duty of the Christian teacher to speak in the Name of God, but only according to the teaching of prophets and apostles, and above all, Jesus Christ. If we do this we can speak "with authority." II. SMALL MEN MAY EXERT GREAT POWER WHEN THEY ARE ON THE SIDE OF RIGHT AND TRUTH. Urijah is an insignificant personage, yet all the court is in dismay at his preaching. There is irony in this fact, if not intended by the language with which it is described. We have "Jehoiakim the king, with all his mighty men, and all his princes," alarmed and enraged at the preaching of one obscure man. What a testimony to the power of truth! Magna est veritas et prevalebit. III. OBSCURE MEN MAY SUFFER WHEN GREATER MEN ARE SPARED. Urijah is killed; Jeremiah is acquitted. The Jews were overawed by Jeremiah; Urijah was an enemy small enough to be made a victim without danger. There is something terribly humiliating to human nature in this. How often do we see the same meanness choosing the underling rather than the leader for spiteful but safe revenge! IV. IT IS SAFER TO FACE DANGER THAN TO FLEE FROM IT. Jeremiah held his ground, and his life was spared; Urijah fled to Egypt, and he was dragged back to Jerusalem and ignominiously slain. The dauntless courage of the one man overpowered opposition; the cowardice of the other tempted it. It is always better even for ourselves to be brave and faithful. After his previous recantations Archbishop Cranmer could feel little of the triumph of a Ridley and a Latimer in the flames of his martyrdom. A friend in need. Ahikam proves himself to be a true friend to Jeremiah by standing by him in the hour of danger. He is not like Joseph of Arimathaea, who was unheard of till he came and begged the dead body of his Lord. When the danger was greatest, he first made himself known on the side of the prophet. I. HE WAS JUST. Jeremiah had been maligned. But Ahikam knew him to be innocent. To have allowed him to perish would have involved complicity in the murder of the prophet. Yet how many would have washed their hands and contented themselves with taking no active part in a public crime! It is not enough to refrain from joining in an injustice; duty requires us to resist it, II. HE WAS . Jeremiah was unpopular. Though the unanswerable truthfulness of his defense secured him a verdict of acquittal at the regular trial, there can be no doubt that his life was in imminent peril from unscrupulous conspirators, now that the general sentiment was against him. It is a proof of staunch fidelity to stand by a man when he is unpopular. There is little merit in showing friendship for men who are fawned upon by fashion. III. HE WAS . He could only defend Jeremiah at the peril of his own life. By siding with the prophet he allowed his name to be associated with all that was disliked and feared in the persecuted man, and he must have known this. For a person in high station to come out in this way by himself and defend a solitary, persecuted man required no little boldness. IV. HE WAS USEFUL. Ahikam could not prophesy; but he could save a prophet’s life. Possibly but for him Jeremiah’s mission would have been cut short. To him, therefore, we owe the possibility of all the remainder of the great prophet’s work. It is noteworthy that Ahikam had shown respect for the prophetic order before this, when, with his father and others, he went on an important mission from King Josiah to consult the prophetess Huldah (2 Kings 22:12-14). Many a man who can do little directly may be the means of securing immense good by fostering and furthering the work of others. It would be happy for us to think less of our own prominence and more of the accomplishment of God’s will, no matter who may be the honored instrument. We may look beyond the human friend and see the hand of Providence in this deliverance of the prophet. God raises up helpers when we least look for them. Among all the blessings of life none should command more thankfulness to God than the gift of good friends. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 26:1-3 God’s mercy shown in his messages. I. IN THEIR BEING . It was substantially the same message as had been delivered before and been rejected. The question was not finally closed. Jehoiakim might show a disposition to repent and alter the policy of his father’s government. In any case a new chance is afforded him and his people. God is slow to anger (Romans 10:21). The invitations of his love are still extended to us, notwithstanding the sins of the fathers and our own repeated violations of his Law (Hebrews 4:6-9). Even the backslider is addressed with frequent warnings and appeals—a proceeding which would have no meaning apart from God’s reserved purpose of grace. II. IN THEIR . It was not only at the middle or end of Jehoiakim’s reign, when he might have thought himself involved too deeply to retrace his steps, but at the very beginning. With a new king a fresh opportunity is offered for the nation also to return to its allegiance. Similarly does he stand at the threshold of every life and the opening of every career. He has "risen up early" and anticipated the transgressor in his evil way, or guided his faithful child into the paths of peace (cf. John 1:9). III. IN THEIR . "Stand in the court of the Lord’s house, and speak unto all the cities of Judah … diminish not a word." To declare "all the words of this life" is the commission of Christ’s servants, and to do this "in season and out of season." The exact situation of men, and the relation into which sin has brought them with respect to God, must be plainly stated; there is no room for flattery. It is absurd to suppose that such a policy is clue to vindictiveness. It can only be explained on the hypothesis of an earnest and thorough-going scheme of salvation. Sinners require to be faithfully dealt with, in order to awaken their conscience and constrain them to take advantage of the means provided for their deliverance. IV. IN THEIR OF HIS TO SAVE. It might almost appear weakness, yet is not Jehovah ashamed of this long-suffering. The attribute of mercy does not detract from the dignity or authority of Divine character; rather is it its glory. This forbearance and hesitation to inflict punishment can be attributed to no base motives. It is in harmony with his behavior at all times. How important is it that the repentant sinner should know the merciful disposition of him with whom he has to do l It is essential in every preaching of the gospel that this impression should be produced. The failure of one generation, again, is no reason for another being condemned before probation. God is "not willing that any should perish" (2 Peter 3:9)—M. Jeremiah 26:1-17, Jeremiah 26:24 The prophet of God arraigned by the nation. Jeremiah’s position, as that of all prophets, was necessarily a public one; to every man is he sent with the message. It is inadmissible for him to soften or lessen what he has to speak, which is nothing else than an indictment of the entire people (verses 4-6). In default of their repentance his arraignment by them is, therefore, all but inevitable. Indifference could not well be feigned; words like his were certain to produce an effect. I. HIS . It is tumultuous and threatening. He is treated as a criminal. The people, under the influence of his enemies, the priests and the prophets, said, "Thou shalt surely die," and were "gathered together against" him (verses 8, 9). It was to be expected that the priests and the prophets should have been his accusers (verse 11), and they already anticipate an unfavorable verdict. It is the educated and influential amongst the laity who are his judges (verse 10)—a fortunate thing for him, as the event showed. They seem to have been more open to conviction, as they were probably better acquainted with the moral condition of the court and the political situation. The opposition of men is to be expected by the follower and witness of truth, for "the carnal mind is enmity against God" (Romans 8:7). But some will ever be found, if not convinced by him, yet, through the work of the Spirit, open to conviction. There is nothing which true religion demands in these crises but a fair hearing and an impartial judgment. II. HIS DEFENSE. He declares the reality of his mission—"the Lord sent me" (verses 12, 15); his faithfulness to his instructions, and the merciful aim which he had in view (verse 13); his helplessness and indifference to personal consequences (verse 14); and his own innocence of any evil design against the nation. God’s servants, when thus arraigned, ought to be gentle and yet faithful to their message; the issue is to be left to him. The fear of man is to be forgotten in the fear of God and the enthusiasm of salvation. III. HIS . 1. The verdict is sensible and wise (verse 16), and receives the adhesion of the people. It is the false prophets who are most obstinately opposed, who would probably have aroused the popular prejudices, had it not been for the interference of certain elders who recalled previous instances in point (verses 17-23); and the strong personal influence of Ahikam, son of Shaphan. We are reminded of our Savior’s experience at the bar of Pilate (Matthew 27:19-25). 2. The most prominent feature of the judgment is its consequence. God’s children must frequently be disappointed in their appeals to men and their expectation of results from his Word. His ways are hidden, inscrutable, and hard to acquiesce in. A clear and intelligent verdict is not to be expected from those who are not prepared to yield themselves to God’s authority. The clearest and most faithful expositions of truth will frequently appear to fail of immediate effect. The servant of God is to care chiefly to deliver his soul; his personal safety may be left to God. God can raise up influential friends for his people in critical times, but he will work out his schemes in his own way.—M. Jeremiah 26:6 Spiritual prerogative not inalienable. The utterance of these words is the chief charge against the prophet; only, as in the case of Stephen (Acts 6:13), the statement is mutilated in the accusation, the condition of the prophecy being entirely ignored (Jeremiah 26:9, Jeremiah 26:11). The principle of indestructible consecration is still clung to by many in the face of the plainest declarations of Scripture. It may be well, therefore, to discuss its bearings in the present instance. I. THE OF ITS . It was Divine grace to which it was due; but for this Jerusalem would have been like other cities. This favor had to be continued from moment to moment, being indeed only secured by the continued indwelling of the Holy Spirit. What was due to grace could be freely withdrawn by its Donor. As a matter of history, the most sacred places of Israel were repeatedly ruined and profaned. This destruction is matter of ancient prophecy, as in the present instance. II. THE TERMS OF ITS TENURE. The repeated warnings and injunctions given prove that the consecration of the sacred places depended upon their occupancy by God’s Spirit, and this in turn upon the faithfulness of his people. Either these had no meaning or the grace could be taken away. Jeremiah said, "If ye will not hearken to me, then will I make this house like Shiloh." The testimony of 1 Kings 9:6-8 is precisely similar (cf. Psalms 78:60; Jeremiah 7:12). III. ITS OWN NATURE. Strictly speaking, all things made by God are good and holy, but they may be desecrated, in a secondary sense, by being misused, profaned, or defiled. Institutions, buildings, or material or mechanical structures of any sort, are at best but secondary receptacles of Divine grace. "God dwelleth not in temples made with hands." It is the person occupying these who is the true temple, and when he is defiled by sin or unfaithfulness there can be no virtue inherent in the places which he frequents. Consecration is alone transmissible through the operation and presence of the Holy Spirit, and ceases with the withdrawal of the same. It consists primarily in the personal character through which it is expressed, and only secondarily in places and things, through the uses and practices carried on by holy men in connection with them. To the unholy, therefore, every place and thing will be unholy, and vice versa (Titus 1:15). Material edifices, organization, and official prerogative, are nothing apart from this personal consecration associated with them; and the loss of that involves the loss of usefulness, of peace, and of sacredness, even in connection with that with which they have been most identified.—M. Jeremiah 26:8, Jeremiah 26:9 The perils of prophesying. I. THE PROPHET OF GOD MEETS WITH . II. HE IS IN DANGER. 1. The responsibility of the judgments predicted is attached to himself. This is due to a false principle of association, having its root in human ignorance and depravity. Not even God is responsible. The sinner must blame himself (Galatians 4:16). 2. The worst consequences are threatened. Hatred to God expresses itself in hatred to his servant. It is, therefore, violent and in defiance of all justice. Transgressors think to escape judgment by denying it and destroying its witnesses. III. IS . The verdict was but a half-hearted one, and did not meet with general assent. The worst charges are brought against Christian men who are faithful to their convictions; and it is not always the case that their groundlessness is made clear. This is part of the "reproach of Christ."—M. The defense of the witness for the truth. I. AN APPEAL TO . The message repeated in its baldest form. Its genuineness insisted upon, and its reception earnestly urged upon men. A high moral standpoint is maintained, and there is no compromise or apology. He stands at the bar of human conscience. II. TO LAWFUL . He hands himself over to them to deal with him as they will; is careful to state his case as God gives him ability; and appeals to no unlawful means of deliverance. III. OF THE WHOLE MATTER TO GOD. God sent him—that is sufficient. He has been faithful to his instructions; is really not to be judged by man, but leaves all with God.—M. Help raised up for God’s servants in times of peril. I. OF WHAT SORT IT IS. 1. Unexpected. 2. Opportune. 3. Effective. 4. Not what man would choose. II. WHAT IT TEACHES US. 1. The infinite resources of God. 2. The weakness of evil. 3. Those who will not willingly obey God are made to serve him unwillingly. 4. God chooses his own way of dealing with his servants and his truth.—M. BY D. YOUNG Jeremiah reckoned worthy of death. I. WHO THEY WERE THAT THIS . There is already a statement in verse 8 that priests, prophets, and people had laid hold on Jeremiah with a threatening of death; but we must allow something for the feelings produced on the first reception of an exasperating and humiliating message. The case is worse when the priests and prophets, having had some time for consideration, however short, press upon the princes and people a demand for the death of Jeremiah. The lead the priests and prophets here take goes a long way in showing who were mostly responsible for the deplorable state of things in the land. If things were to be put right, these two classes of men must be conspicuous in repentance. Those who were so ready to sentence Jeremiah to death were really most of all deserving of death themselves. He had simply spoken words against the city and the temple, words which were not his own; those who condemned him had so lived that their life had been a sedulous undermining of all that constituted the prosperity and glory of their country. II. WHAT IT WAS THAT THE . Jeremiah had prophesied against the city. Observe, not simply that he had spoken blasphemous and contemptuous words against the city; but that he had prophesied against it. Thus did the priests and prophets show how little they understood the nature of true prophecy. They did not understand that when the Lord sends forth a man to speak, he puts a word in his mouth which shall commend itself to all who love truth and certainty. To the mind of these priests and prophets everything began with this postulate, that nothing must be said against Jerusalem and the temple. And to them it was no sort of answer that the sins of Jerusalem deserved and demanded that something should be said against it. The good name of Jerusalem, however lacking in any sort of correspondence with reality, had become a sort of point of honor. Thus we see how the pride of men goes before their destruction. A conventional sense of honor leads them into paths thickly strewn with stumbling-blocks. These men had become so stuffed with spurious patriotism that they could not bear to have Jerusalem spoken against. Hence they are logically compelled to imply that Jeremiah is a false prophet, and that God has not spoken at all. They were as those who shut their eyes, and then say there is nothing to be seen. III. THE DOOM THEY INVOKED. The man who speaks against Jerusalem is reckoned worthy of death. We must not, of course, measure this judgment by our notions of what may require the death penalty. To speak against a parent was by the Law of Moses to incur the death penalty. As the Apostle James uses many forcible expressions to illustrate, great is the power of the tongue; and a bad man may do mischief with his tongue worthy of the severest punishment men can inflict. If Jeremiah had gone about among the people stirring them up to rebellion and national discord, there would have been nothing very astonishing in an attempt to put him to death. But he gave no exhortation to the people save what each one could carry into effect without the slightest injury to any one; nay, rather the obedience of each would be to the real and abiding advantage of all. He spoke not of anything he himself intended to bring about, but of what was going to happen altogether irrespective of him. His death, supposing he were slain, would make no difference; nay, it would only help to proclaim his message louder and more abidingly. Those who feel themselves attacked by the truth, strike out recklessly with the first instrument they can get hold of; but though they may seem thus to destroy God’s agencies, it is found in the end that they are efficiently promoting his work. They that were scattered abroad by the great persecution which arose at the time of Stephen s death, "went everywhere preaching the Word."—Y. Jeremiah 26:16 Jeremiah reckoned not worthy of death. The contrast is very decided between verse 11 and verse 16. In verse 11 there is what appears an irresistible and deadly accusation, coming from men who hardly knew a check of any kind. In verse 16 there is the answer of those to whom they speak, refusing to ratify their demand. What has happened between? Only the appeal of one who was strong in the consciousness that he had been a faithful servant of God. If we consider his words carefully, we shall see that underneath them there are three considerations, of which the first is more important than the second, and the second more important than the third. I. We may say that, first of all, HE IS OF THE GOD WHO HAD SENT HIM. That which threatened him at the same time insulted and tried to thwart Jehovah. Not that Jeremiah was careless about his own safety, but the glory of his God was paramount in his thoughts. He had in him the true spirit of apostleship; the claims he had to make were not his own claims; he was a sent man, and sent of God. Just in proportion as a man feels that God has sent him, must be his distress to find that others do not recognize the credentials of the messenger and the importance of the message. On one side the prophet was dealing with God, on the other with men. Every day deepened on him the impression of God’s intimate presence with him; and yet this same God who was so much to him was nothing to these people; the name that thrilled and subdued his susceptible heart, was perhaps the least potent of sounds in their ears. Hence the need of appealing to them again and again, if perchance there might be roused in them some sort of apprehension that they were dealing, not with a brother man, but with the almighty and holy God. While they were all absorbed in considerations of their own territorial dignity, God in his justice was comings, ever nearer. Whatever happens to the people or to the prophet himself, that prophet will at all events exalt God before them to the latest hour of his existence. If he has to die, the message of God shall live more gloriously in his closing hours. II. HE IS OF THE OF THIS PEOPLE. Though at the present moment it is he who seems to be in danger, he well knows that his peril is but a surface trifle when compared with that attaching to the scowling enemies who are crowded around him. He can be rescued, if so it please God; but who is to rescue those who are striding onwards, ever more swiftly, to a righteous doom? God can deliver the prophet from his enemies, for the prophet himself interposes no obstacle to his deliverance; but these people of Judah and Jerusalem interpose insurmountable obstacles, in that they will not amend their ways and doings and obey the voice of God. More than that, it seems as if they were about to add a fresh obstacle by shedding the innocent blood of God’s latest messenger. The persecutor is always in greater peril than the persecuted. Physical pain and physical death are transitory and unreturning ills, but the evildoer has to face the worm that dieth not. Compare with the words of the prophet here the words of Jesus as he was being led to crucifixion: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children" (Luke 23:28). III. HE IS OF HIS OWN PRESENT . (See verse 14.) This verse reveals a calm, intermediate position between the reckless fanaticism that even courts death and the spirit that turns back the moment threatening is heard. "I am in your hands," says the prophet. He admits their power to the fullest extent, and he does not in any way dare them to the exercise of it. He is neither anxious for life nor afraid of death. This surely is the spirit to be gained if one would be a true witness for God. Jeremiah seems to speak here as one who had gained, for the moment at least, something of the calm of eternity. And his very calmness must surely have been a considerable element in determining the rapid change of feeling among the multitude. Perfect presence of mind, when it comes from an all-sufficient Divine stay within, must have a wondrous power in checking those whose fury is roused by an attack on their base and selfish interests,—Y. Jeremiah 26:17-23 An argument from history. A prophet, a king, and a people belonging to a past generation are brought forward to justify the conclusion to which the princes and the people here had come. Here, then, is an eminent instance of what a practical study history may become. One must be so acquainted with the past as to seize just that completed event which will cast light on the duties and necessities of the present. I. AN OF A PROPHET’S MESSAGE. No word could have been more provocative of resentment than this. It threatened those to whom it was spoken in the closest possible way. It meant that they were to be subjected to their enemies, driven from their homes, and deprived of their most substantial possessions. The message being such, what comfort Jeremiah might obtain from recollecting that his predecessors treading his thorny path before him were now remembered in such an honorable way! Micah had been faithful to his God, his message, and his audience; and the impression of his faithfulness is still deep when something like a century has elapsed. These people now listening to Jeremiah were thus made responsible for Micah’s words as well as Jeremiah’s. What harmony there is in true prophecy! False prophets, from their very position, cannot be got to agree; but here Jeremiah’s words at once recall to mind Micah’s similar words, and help to drive them with a deeper impression into some at least of this subsequent generation. Thus also, reciprocally, Micah’s words help Jeremiah’s. And not only was there harmony between the prophecies; there was harmony between the characters of the prophets as well. All the prophets would have understood one another perfectly if they had been gathered together in one assembly. II. AN OF HOW A PROPHET SHOULD EVER BE . Jeremiah is able to look back on a man of like spirit with himself in. the prophet Micah, but the present leaders of Israel have their thoughts turned to a very different king from Jehoiakim. We can guess how Hezekiah behaved toward Micah from the way in which he behaved toward Isaiah. The narrative here concerning the fate of Urijah seems to be introduced to show that, though Jeremiah escaped from peril at the hands of these priests and prophets, their nature and the nature of Jehoiakim remained the same. When Hezekiah heard the truth, bitter as it was, he humbled himself and averted doom. But Jehoiakim and his profligate and rapacious circle hated every one who spoke the truth. Hence it was not enough for them that Urijah fled; they followed him and brought him back to suffer their vengeance. Thus it is made evident how Jehoiakim was a man of very different spirit from Hezekiah.—Y. I. THE EVIDENT PERIL OF . A large Body of the people had been somehow influenced to take his side, but how long their favorable mood of mind might continue, who could tell? There was no Hezekiah on the throne to encourage such a feeling and make it permanent. Moreover, there is an ebullition of fury which is fatal to one who, as far as the record enables us to judge, occupied a far less prominent position than Jeremiah. If Urijah was slain, how could Jeremiah hope to escape? We must try to get a distinct impression of all the peril in which Jeremiah was in order to appreciate the services rendered to him by Ahikam. II. THE TIMELY HELP OF AHIKAM. Nothing is told us save the bare fact of protection, We must not assume that Ahikam was fully in sympathy with Jeremiah. We have no means of judging as to his character and his motives, as to the risks that he ran, and the ultimate results to him. The one clear thing is that at this time he was a man of power, and was for some reason disposed to shield the prophet. It may be that, if we could lay bare and analyze his motives, they would be found very mixed as to their kind. But, whatever the motives, the practical service was the same. Jehovah could, of course, have protected his servant by supernatural means, but it is his principle of working not to employ the supernatural when the natural would serve the purpose. Hezekiah could do more than Ahikam, seeing that he turned to God and kept hack the dreadful visitations. But Ahikam did all that was necessary for the present occasion. Compare the position of Ahikam here with that of the Duke of Lancaster towards Wickliffe and the Lollards.—Y. This and the two following chapters are closely connected. They all relate to the early part of the reign of Zedekiah, and con-rain warnings arising out of the deepening gloom of the political horizon. It must, however, be noted that there is evidently some mistake in the first verse of Jer 27:1-22, and also that the contents of Jer 29:1-32 point to a somewhat earlier time than Jeremiah 27:1-22; Jeremiah 28:1-17 (viz. the first or second year of King Zedekiah). To understand the circumstances of Jer 27:1-22; we must remember that Zedekiah had accepted the throne as the vassal of Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kings 24:17). The self-righteousness and formalism of the people, however, would not allow them to remain quiet under such a humiliation. Deuteronomy, it seemed to them, had promised success and prosperity to an obedient performance of the Law, and the priests and the prophets assured them that these conditions had been complied with. In the fourth year of Zedekiah (comp. Jeremiah 28:1) the popular discontent was still further stimulated by the presence of ambassadors from the neighboring nations, who had come to organize a common movement against the common enemy. Jeremiah believed that he could not give more forcible expression to the Divine warnings of which he was the bearer than by a symbolic act akin to that related of Isaiah in Isaiah 20:2. He appeared in some public place, where the ambassadors would be sure to pass, with a yoke upon his neck, and in this strange guise delivered an impressive exhortation to the foreign visitors. It would appear as if Jeremiah’s exertions on this occasion were successful, so far as Judah was concerned; for we are informed (Jeremiah 51:59) that, in the fourth year of his reign, Zedekiah took a journey to Babylon, doubtless to renew his oath of fidelity to the King of Babylon. It is instructive to compare this chapter as given in the Hebrew Bible with the form in which it appears in the Septuagint. We must net too hastily assume that the Greek is incorrect, but examine in each case which form gives most force and expressiveness to the prophecy. Jeremiah 27:1 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim. The Syriao substitutes for, "Jehoiakim" "Zedekiah," to bring the passage into conformity with Jeremiah 28:1, where the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah is expressly mentioned. But is this emendation sufficient? Can the fourth year be called the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah," When that reign lasted altogether only eleven years? Is it not probable that the transcriber has inadvertently copied the heading of Jer 26:1-24, which corresponds verbally with Jeremiah 27:1, except that "unto Jeremiah" is wanting? Jeremiah 27:2 Make thee bends and yokes; rather, bands and poles; i.e. the bands which secured the two pieces of wood placed respectively above and beneath the neck of the ox, so forming a yoke. Hence, in Le Jeremiah 26:13, we find the phrase, "the poles [Authorized Version wrongly, ’the bands’] of your yoke." It is clear from Jeremiah 28:10 that this account is to be taken literally. Jeremiah 27:3 And send them, etc. The letter of the text certainly suggests that Jeremiah actually delivered a separate yoke to each of the five ambassadors. Some commentators, however, finding such an act almost incredible, suppose the statement to be allegorical, and the "sending of the yoke" to mean the declaration of the subjection of the nations to Nebuchadnezzar which follows, somewhat as in Jeremiah 25:15 the "causing all the nations to drink "means the utterance of a prophecy of woe to the various peoples concerned. But we can hardly pronounce upon this passage by itself. We have to consider whether a whole group of similar statements is or is not to be taken literally. It may be enough to instance Jeremiah 13:1-7. Which come; rather, which are come. Jeremiah 27:5, Jeremiah 27:6 Jehovah is the Creator and Proprietor of the earth and all that is therein. Therefore he can give any part of it to whomsoever he will. Therefore, Jeremiah being his trustworthy prophet, the kings are called upon to take notice that Jehovah has transferred their kingdoms to Nebuchadnezzar. Observe, in Jeremiah 27-29. the form employed is not "Nebuchadnezzar," but "Nebuchadnezzar" (so also Jeremiah 34:1; Jeremiah 39:5). (See on Jeremiah 21:7.) Jeremiah 27:6 My servant (see on Jeremiah 25:9). The Beasts of the field; i.e. the wild beasts. This last feature indicates the unlimited character of Nebuchadnezzar’s power. Jeremiah 27:7 Him, and his son, and his son’s son. This is intelligible only if the seventy years predicted by Jeremiah in Jeremiah 25:11, Jeremiah 25:12, Jeremiah 29:10, are a round number. Nebuchadnezzar died in B.C. 561, and was succeeded by his son Evil-Merodach, who, after two years, was put to death by Neriglissar. In B.C. 555 Laberosoarchod (?) became king, but after nine months a usurper belonging to another family, Nabonedus or Nabunita, ascended the throne, which he occupied till B.C. 538, the year of the fall of Babylon. "Seventy years," taken literally, only brings us to B.C. 555, seventeen years short of the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. Until the very time of his land come; rather, until the time of his own land come. Nebuchadnezzar cannot ensure his realm against captivity. Shall serve themselves of him (For the meaning of the phrase, see on Jeremiah 25:14.) Jeremiah 27:9 Your dreamers; rather, your dreams. So in Jeremiah 29:8 the "dreams" of the people are expressly distinguished from the utterances of the prophets and soothsayers. In our passage the "dreamers" are appropriately mentioned between the "diviners" and the "enchanters," because the skill of the soothsayers partly lay in the interpretation of dreams (comp. Genesis 41:8; Daniel 2:2). Jeremiah 27:10 To remove you far; or, more distinctly, that I may remove you far. So Isaiah 6:12, "(Until) Jehovah have removed men afar off." The deportation policy of the Assyrians and Babylonians was overruled by God for his own deep purposes. Jeremiah 27:11 The nations that bring their neck, etc. The Hebrew has, "The nation that shall bring its neck," etc. Jeremiah 27:12-15 But the warnings of Jeremiah were not confined, far from it, to the neighboring kings. Zedekiah had received a precisely similar message. Bring your necks. The plural is used, for Zedekiah was but an individual among a number of much more vigorous personalities (comp. on Jeremiah 22:2). Jeremiah 27:16-22 The warning to the priests and to the rest of the people. The last four verses of this section appear in a much shortened form in the Septuagint, and it must be admitted that the description is singularly lengthy. It is, therefore, quite conceivable that this is one of the cases in which the Hebrew text has been disfigured by willful interpolation. On the other hand, it is also possible that the description was filled out by an editor, e.g. by Baruch, conscientiously for the benefit of later readers. Jeremiah 27:16 The vessels of the Lord’s house; i.e. the golden vessels which Solomon had made, and which Nebuchadnezzar had taken away (l Kings 7:48-50; 2 Kings 24:13). Now shortly. These words are wanting in the Septuagint, and, considering that the Greek is also without the prediction in Jeremiah 27:22, that the vessels of the temple and of the palace should be brought back in the day of visitation (which seems inconsistent with Jeremiah 52:17), the question arises whether the words "now shortly" here are not due to a hasty copyist. Jeremiah 27:18 But if they be prophets, etc. The "false prophets," so Jeremiah declares, have neglected one of the principal functions of a prophet, viz. intercessory prayer (comp. on Jeremiah 7:16). Seeing that a part of the sacred vessels had been carried to Babylon, ell true prophets ought to intercede with Jehovah that those still left might be spared. The end was that the remaining vessels were carried off on the capture of Jerusalem (2 Kings 25:13). Jeremiah 27:19 This and the two following verses are thus given in the Septuagint: "For thus saith the Lord … and the rest of the vessels which the king of Babylon took not, when he carried Jeconiah captive from Jerusalem; they shall come to Babylon, saith the Lord." This shortened form throws a light on the fact of the absence of "now shortly" in Jeremiah 27:16 (see note). The pillars, etc.; i.e. the two bronze pillars called Jachin and Boaz (1 Kings 7:21). The sea; i.e. the molten "sea," or basin (1 Kings 7:23). The bases (1 Kings 7:27). Jeremiah 27:5 The rights of the Creator. This address on the rights of the Creator is made to heathen men because God has rights over all men, and because they who cannot yet understand his higher character may be able to recognize his natural rights. I. THE OF THE RIGHTS OF THE CREATOR. 1. They rest on the fact that all things that exist were created. It is a fundamental axiom of science that everything that has a beginning must have a cause. The universal testimony of experience is against the notion that existences could spring forth spontaneously from nothing, or that organisms could come of themselves from a lawless chaos. The theory of an endless chain of causation is illogical. If this is regarded as cyclic we have nothing to account for the motion of the whole cycle. The notion is parallel to that of a wheel revolving because the several parts of the circumference press on those which are before them—a mechanical absurdity. If, however, the chain is regarded as infinitely long, we have another absurdity. Since it is made up of finite links each of which is no perfect cause in itself, we have not solved the question, we have only driven it buck to the infinite distance. It is the grand lesson of the first chapter of the Book of Genesis—whatever we may think of the details of that chapter—that it comes to our rescue with the assertion of a personal Creator, the only doctrine that will fit the requirements of the case. 2. The rights of the Creator rest on the fact that all things were created by his energy. We do not know what subordinate agencies God may employ. But in any case the fundamental power must be his. He cannot delegate powers of creation in the sense of investing any beings with them without any dependence on his power. The power must be God’s, though the channel through which it flows may be some lower agency. The doctrine of evolution would not touch this fact. The important question is not as to the method of creation, but as to the originating power. This lies behind the question of design. It is the question of primitive causation. Whether with successive sudden emergencies or through gradual development, it is equally true that God has created the world by his great power and by his outstretched hand. II. THE NATURE OF THE RIGHTS OF THE CREATOR. They are absolute. We know nothing like them among men. A man is supposed to have a right to dispose of the work of his own hands. But his work is not creation, if he has built a house he has not made the ground on which it stands, nor the stone and wood of which it is constructed. But by Divine creation we understand not merely building up the materials of the universe into new forms, but the original making of these materials and the determination of the laws of nature. From this fact comes the right of God to dispose of his creation as he thinks fit, to give the world and its contents to whomsoever he pleases. But in admitting this we are saying that he will do that which is best for the world itself. For God is just and good and merciful. He will please to do that which is right, and that which will bless his creatures. God exercises his rights through his will. If creation reveals the rights, Christ reveals the will. Through this higher revelation we see reasons for acquiescing in God’s exercise of sovereignty, not with mere resignation to the inevitable, nor even only with dutiful yielding to recognized law and authority, but with thankful submission to the care of a merciful Father. Thus we see that the exercise of God’s rights is limited by his character; limited by his justice, so that he can never dispose of things arbitrarily or cruelly; limited by his love, so that he will dispose of them so as to secure the welfare of his children. This is a consideration of the first importance. The neglect of it has led to the interpretation of such words as those of our text so as to represent God as an arbitrary, capricious Sovereign, who may be feared and must be submitted to, but cannot be loved or freely adored. Jeremiah 27:6, Jeremiah 27:7 God’s disposal of man’s possessions. I. GOD HAS A RIGHT TO DISPOSE OF MAN’S . He made them, and they are always his, only lent to be withdrawn or transferred when he wills. If the Lord gave, he has a right to take away (Job 1:21). If he takes much, we should be thankful for what he leaves—for this even we have no claim. Nations should feel that God has rights over them. Their liberties are subject to his government, their territory to his disposal. II. GOD DOES DISPOSE OF MAN’S . He exercises his right. He is no roi faineant. God does not reserve his interference for the last Day of Judgment. He is always working among the nations. In a national disaster we should recognize the hand of Providence; so should we in the advent of national glory. God does not only overthrow; he appoints, prospers, gladdens. III. GOD DOES NOT ALWAYS GIVE THE POWER TO THE BEST MEN. Nebuchadnezzar was a bad man; yet God gave him the largest dominion in the world. We may believe that he was best suited for the work that was required of him. His mission was to be a scourge of the nations. An angel would find himself ill at ease in such a work. In appointing a hangman we do not expect to get the most high-souled person in the kingdom for the post. God can overrule the evil nature of bad men and make it serve some good end, as we can employ the refuse of one factory as useful materials in another. IV. GOD DOES NOT ALWAYS GIVE THE MOST TO THE BEST MEN. We see bad men enriched, good men pauperized. Goodness seems on the whole to be favorable to temporal prosperity, but with innumerable exceptions. Therefore we must conclude that God does not value earthly prosperity so highly as we value it. He regards it as subordinate to higher interests. V. GOD’S OF MAN’S DOES NOT HINDER THE FREE OF MAN’S POWERS. God gave Nebuchadnezzar his powers, but the king put these forth of his own will. By his daring, his energy, the use of his resources, he won his brilliant victories and conquered his vast dominions. God works through our work. He gives to the diligent. VI. GOD’S OF MAN’S DOES NOT LIMIT MAN’S . It Nebuchadnezzar got his territory by violence and rapacity, he was not the less guilty because God assigned it to him. For he was responsible for his own actions and their motives, irrespective of any unknown design that God might work out through them. We cannot throw the blame of our misconduct on the providence of God. He overrules the issue of our actions, but he does not fetter or force the choice of our wills. The duty of non-resistance. Again and again in various forms Jeremiah recurs to the advice of submission to Nebuchadnezzar. In the present instance he addresses it to representatives of foreign nations, and urges it as politic, while to the Jews he was more anxious to show that it was in accordance with God’s will. Viewed from various standpoints there were several grounds for non-resistance. I. THE WELL OF GOD. This was the highest reason. It could not be fully appreciated by the heathen; yet even they were reminded that the Creator was the supreme disposer of the destiny of nations. The condition of the Jews, however, was peculiar. They were living under a theocracy. The prophets were the ministry of the Divine King. Their utterances were revelations of law for the government of the people. To resist Nebuchadnezzar in opposition to these utterances was to rebel against the decree of the supreme Sovereign of the nation. We do not stand in the same outward circumstances. But we should learn that the first thought in public as well as in private affairs should be as to what is right, what is God’s will; and all considerations of glory etc; should be subordinate to this. We cannot learn God’s will from oracular teachers but we can ascertain it from a devout study of revelation, prayer, and honest thought II. SOUND POLICY. Events proved that Jeremiah was politically as well as morally right. Religious duty lies nearer to useful policy than either fanatic dreamers or worldly statesmen are able to see. History shows that all resistance to the mighty flood of the Babylonian invasion was futile. Timely submission alone could secure a mitigation of its violence. It is foolish for a nation to flourish empty notions of glory above considerations for the welfare of the people. The loyal statesman will care less for the fame of a great name, or the splendor of brilliant achievements, than for the peaceful prosperity of his fellow-countrymen. The first interest of a nation is this peaceful prosperity. There may be times when to maintain it self-defense becomes a duty. But when self-defense cannot secure it, when it is rather hindered than helped by resistance, it is foolish to resist for the sake of mere pride. III. MORAL GOOD. The Jews were taught that the invasion by Nebuchadnezzar was sent by God as a chastisement for sin. To submit to it was to submit to profitable correction. In the end the nation might hope to be the better for it. We have no right to complain of troubles which our own misconduct has brought upon us. We may" count it all joy" that we have fallen into tribulation if this works our higher and lasting good. Temporal distress should be patiently borne in the prospect of eternal blessedness, material adversity calmly endured when this is the menus of securing inward spiritual good. Prophecy tested by prayer. I. IT IS THE DUTY OF A PROPHET TO PRAY. He should be spiritually what the priest can only be ceremonially, the mediator between man and God. Mediation has two sides. It implies the work of the intercessor as well as that of the prophet—the speaking to God for men as well the speaking to men for God. The former work, however, is in more danger of falling into neglect. It is more spiritual, it requires more humility, it gains less credit from men. But no prophet can even discharge his mission to men aright unless he is also a man of prayer. God reveals himself to those who seek him. Revelations from Heaven are vouchsafed to those who live in communion with Heaven. II. IS FOR PRAYER AS WELL AS FOR , The true prophet is the inspired man; he also has the first requisite for prayer. We need inspiration for prayer to bring us into sympathy with God. Prayer is more than asking for the satisfaction of our wants—it is communion with God; and communion implies sympathy. Like the bird which soars aloft because its wings rest on the surrounding air, we can only rise heavenwards as we bear ourselves up through an atmosphere of heavenly thought. Without the breath of God’s Spirit in us we cannot withdraw from the world and attain to the vivid consciousness of spiritual things. For prayer involves the rising above our common, our ordinary life. Thus we may understand the mission of the Spirit as an intercessor. Christ intercedes for us with God. The Holy Spirit intercedes for God in us, helping our infirmities, teaching us what we should pray for, and how to pray, and breathing into us yearnings deep and unutterable (Romans 8:26). III. PRAYER WILL BE AND TO GOD’S WILL. If the prophets were inspired they would not ask for the impossible; they would not pray for that which they knew was contrary to God’s will; they would not utter prayers of greed and pride. Inspiration does not make a man irrational; on the contrary, it makes him see facts as they are. If these prophets were inspired they would see the folly of asking back the lost vessels. Inspiration is concerned with the present and the future. It is foolish to waste time in lamenting the irretrievable. Let us see that we preserve what still remains with us, and secure what is best for the future. It is absurd to be boasting of great things when we cannot secure small ones. If the prophets could not protect the vessels in Jerusalem, much less could they recover those which had been already removed to Babylon. They might be uttering great prayers about the lost treasure; but while they made no prevailing prayer to secure the treasure still in hand they only exposed their own incompetence. IV. PRAYER AND ITS RESULTS ARE TESTS OF A MAN’S . If it can be said of a person, "Behold, he prayeth!" we may know much of him. Prayer is the barometer that rises or falls with the changing tore of the spiritual atmosphere. When we "restrain prayer" this is a sad sign that our better life is failing. It is useless to boast of spiritual attainments such as those of the professional prophets; these are nothing but delusions if the prayer-test reveals a condition of spiritual deadness, the results of prayer are a further test. We cannot say that a particular prayer is not acceptable to God because it does not bring us the particular thing we seek, since we are always making foolish requests, and God mercifully deals with us according to his wise and good will rather than according to the letter of our language. Still, if no answer is ever received to prayer, something must be wrong. Either all our prayers are mistaken, which shows we could not be receiving the help of God’s inspiration; or our spiritual condition is one of separation from God, in which condition no prayer could be answered. If not in every detail, yet in the main, religious experience may be tested by the facts of life. The prophet must find his prediction confirmed by history. The man of prayer must show some fruits of his devotion. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 27:1-22 Divine judgments not to be resisted. A conference of ambassadors from neighboring nations had been held at Zedekiah’s court to consider plans of revolt against Nebuchadnezzar. The king himself and a patriotic party were bent upon resistance. This movement Jeremiah checked at its very outset by his symbolical warning. I. GOD IS RULER OF ALL THE OF THE EARTH. He made them, and controls their destinies. Of the earth he says, "I have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me." His control over human interests, possessions, and destinies is absolute and unlimited. II. EVEN THE UNGODLY MAY BE OF HIS . "Nebuchadnezzar, my servant,"—a remarkable title when applied to a heathen prince. The character of the authorities, the agents, and the instrumentalities by which we are opposed is not in itself a reason for resisting them if they are evidently of Divine appointment. In such a case we should be fighting against God. Moral evil is ever to be resisted and witnessed against, but that which God appoints must be acknowledged and submitted to. III. IN SUCH CASES WILL CLEARLY SHOW WHETHER THE IS OF GOD OR NOT, AND NOW WE MUST BE GUIDED IN OUR CONDUCT. The advice of the prophet is not to be interpreted as an expression of mere political prudence. It was the moral significance of Nebuchadnezzar’s supremacy to which he appealed. In default of revelation our own conscience and common sense must be our guides. 1. In cases of unmistakable Divine dispensations the law of submission is clearly taught. Of this class is the rule of submission to the powers that be; of cheerful contentment with one’s lot in life, so far as it seems beyond our own legitimate control or to be providentially arranged. 2. The ordinary miscellaneous trials and difficulties of life are not to be regarded in this way. Where there is not witness of conscience enjoining submission, energetic effort must be made. The Bible is no book of fatalism. It inculcates self-help, manly fortitude, and believing, intelligent enterprise. IV. AND MAY BE GRANTED TO MEN EVEN WHILST UNDER DIVINE . 1. Injunctions. To be punished does not mean to be cast off; quite the contrary. And therefore, if there be any gracious purpose in the dispensation, it is well that it should be explained. False prophets have foretold favorable turns of fortune with mischievous effect. These must be contradicted, and their tendency expend. The Bible is full of instruction to the perplexed in all ages, and the Spirit of God still speaks to the hearts of his children. 2. Signs. Sometimes these will be of one kind, sometimes of another. Here a crucial test was proposed, viz. the challenge to the false prophets to bring back the vessels of the temple from Babylon. If God heard their prayer, then it would appear that their advice was sound. Signs will never be wanting to those who earnestly seek to know God’s will 3. These are to be sought through prayer and waiting upon God.—M. Prophets tested by prayer. I. BY THIS THEIR WAS . Prayer is one of the most vital indications of the presence of spiritual life. It is only by constant devotion and spiritual intercourse with God that any one can be truly acquainted with him or know his will. The taunt of the prophet is to the effect that they are not over addicted to this practice, but prefer to indulge in political trifling and bombast. They had no pleasure in the exercises of true piety; and it might be were even afraid directly to invoke Jehovah. It was the neglect of the latter by themselves and their idolatrous followers which had entailed the present evils upon Judah. The prophet points out, therefore, the true method of discovering the will of God, and of restoring, not only the vessels to the temple, but the exiles to their land. II. THEIR WOULD BE TESTED BY THE OF THEIR . This is the most disinterested form of prayer. By betaking themselves to it, instead of prophesying lies, they would do real service to the nation. Because he who can effectually intercede: 1. Is a source of blessing to all who are about him. He has true sympathy and insight, and can bring down forgiveness even upon the undeserving. The grandest promises of Holy Scripture are encouragements to this practice. 2. Is thereby acknowledged and accepted by God. As Elijah provoked with a similar challenge the prophets of Baal, so Jeremiah taunts his enemies with their spiritual impotency. The restoration of the vessels under the circumstances would be nothing short of a miracle, and supernatural aid would be required. He alone is truly great who can prevail with God. And the greatest of the prophets is he who makes intercession for mankind according to the Divine will.—M. BY D. YOUNG Jeremiah 27:1-11 Jehovah’s consideration towards some neighbors of Israel. I. GOD THE NATURAL OF A . Nebuchadnezzar and his hosts are not to drop from the clouds on the land of Jehovah’s people whom Jehovah has now doomed. These hosts come from a distant land, and have many intervening lands to pass through; and how can they pass through in any but a destroying, impoverishing fashion? If the King of Babylon is to reach Jerusalem, the lands here mentioned must assuredly suffer from him scarcely less than Judah itself. And naturally they will prepare to meet him. Alliances will be formed; resources will be accumulated; the greatest strain will be put on every one in order to make the defense successful. These attacked people cannot assume that, because Babylon is such a mighty power, it is folly to think of resisting it. Thus they seem to have sent to Zedekiah, hoping to make a confederation strong enough to drive the invader back. II. NATURAL AS THE MIGHT BE, IT WAS DOOMED TO CERTAIN FAILURE. Doomed, not because it was the strength of many against the weakness of few, but because God’s great purposes required that any scheme of defense should be a failure. If the defenders had become as the invaders in point of strength, and the invaders as the defenders, this apparently decisive exchange of resources would have left the result unaffected. III. The struggle, therefore, being vain beyond all doubt, THE TRUE WISDOM WAS NOT EVEN TO ATTEMPT IT. These nations, persevering in a vain struggle, were only committing self-slaughter. If the issue had been in any way uncertain, self-respect would have said "fight." But the issue was clear; and to make it clear and impressive by some visible symbol, God commands his prophet to send these yokes to the kings of the nations by their messengers. When the yoke is seen on the neck of the ox laboring at the plough or drawing the wagon, that yoke signifies, not only submission, but a submission that is inevitable. The ox is made for the service of man, and although when young it may rebel and defy for a while, it must submit at last. The superior intelligence and the ordained master cannot but conquer. And what the ox is in the hands of man, that every nation, even the strongest and bravest, is in the bands of God. Babylon, conqueror and spoiler as it was, was no more free from God’s yoke than any of the nations it defeated. It is quite compatible with the carrying out of God’s great purpose that there should be the most striking disparities in the temporal conditions of both individuals and nations. That Babylon should be the victor and these other nations the vanquished, was in his eyes a matter of very secondary moment. He cannot recognize, as a state of things to obtain even a modified permanence, that any nation should have the right to any particular territory. Men count it a great matter that they can show a title, as they call it, to a piece of land. This simply means that for the purposes of present society it is better for one particular person to have the piece of land than any one else. But wars and revolutions make short work of these so-called rights of property. The Lord has given the earth in trust to the human race, and one division he puts here and snottier there, cue man here and another there. From the throne where Jehovah sits in his righteousness, human patriotism and mere territorial pride are esteemed as nothing more than the feelings of ignorant children. We also, as taught of God, must become less interested in the traditions and rivalries of the kingdoms of earth, and more interested in that great procedure of God by which the whole earth will become a part of the kingdom of heaven.—Y. Hananiah’s false prophecy; his reprimand from Jeremiah; and his fate. The preciseness of the date in verse 1 is to emphasize the supernatural character of Jeremiah’s prediction. The latter was uttered in the fifth month of the fourth year of Zedekiah, and Hananiah died in the seventh month of the same year (verse 17). Jeremiah 28:1 In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah. It seems strange that the fourth year of a reign which only lasted eleven years in all should be called "the beginning. Is it not probable that the clause was interpolated here by a later copyist on account of Jer 27:1, where at present a similar clause (see note) is found? Originally placed in the margin as a gloss upon the words "the same year," it would very easily find its way into the text. Hananiah … the prophet (see on Jeremiah 27:15). Gibeon. This was a priestly city (Joshua 21:17), so that Hananiah was probably himself a priest like Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:1) and Pashur (Jeremiah 20:1). The modern El Jib, on an isolated, rocky hill, doubtless represents the ancient Gibeon. In the presence of the priests and of all the people. Apparently the event took place on either a new moon or a Sabbath, when the people would throng to the temple. Jeremiah 28:2 Hananiah opens his prophecy with the usual formula, claiming Divine inspiration in the fullest sense. His message is short and sweet: I have broken—i.e. I have decreed to break (the perfect of prophetic certitude)—the yoke of the king of Babylon. Had Hananiah stopped here, he might, perhaps, have escaped Jeremiah’s indignant rebuke. But with light-hearted arrogance he ventures to fix a time close at hand for the event, which, no doubt, was destined to occur, but after a long interval. Dr. Payne Smith suggests that he probably cherished the belief that the confederacy then on foot (Jeremiah 27:3) would defeat Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah 28:4 And I will bring again … Jeconiah. Hananiah thus directly contradicts the assurance of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 22:26, Jeremiah 22:27) that Jehoiachin would not return, but would die in a foreign land. Has he a political object in his favorable prognostication for the deposed king? Does he, in short, belong to a Jehoiachin party opposed to the friends of Zedekiah? The view is possible, and may seem to be confirmed by the emphatic repetition of the fall of Nebuchadnezzar, the liege lord of Zedekiah. Still there is evidence enough in modern history that the return of an exile is not necessarily tantamount to his reinstatement in his office. Jeremiah 28:5-9 Jeremiah’s reply. He heartily wishes that Hananiah’s prediction were capable of fulfillment, but it runs directly counter to the declarations of all the older prophets. "War, and evil, and pestilence" was their constant burden, for the people to whom they prophesied were unworthy of the golden age of felicity in which the prophets so firmly believed. Only by a terrible judgment could the people of Israel be purified for the Messianic age. This appears to be what Jeremiah means by verse 8. True, he speaks of "countries" and "kingdoms" in the plural, but all the great prophets include the nations best known to them within the range of their preaching, and even of their Messianic preaching. Isaiah, for instance, threatens sore judgment upon Egypt and Assyria, and yet he holds out the cheering prospect that Egypt and Assyria will have a part in the Messianic felicity. Thus Hananiah’s prediction has probabilities very strongly against it He not only prophesies "peace,’ but attaches no condition to his promise, which, therefore, has double need of verification by the event (comp. Deuteronomy 18:22). Jeremiah 28:10, Jeremiah 28:11 Instead of any rejoinder, Hananiah has recourse to violence, tears off and breaks the yoke on Jeremiah’s neck, and repeats his declaration of the fall of Nebuchadnezzar within two years. Jeremiah meekly suffers. Jeremiah 28:12-17 No long time after this the prophet is commissioned to tell the bitter truth more fully than he had done before, and to warn Hananiah of his coming punishment. Jeremiah 28:13 The yokes of wood; rather, a yoke of wood. The word rendered in the Authorized Version" yokes" means properly "poles," two of which, with the "bands," composed a "yoke" (see on Jeremiah 27:2). But thou shalt make; rather, but thou hast made. The sense in which Hananiah is said to have made "a yoke of iron" (we should render in the singular) comes out in Jeremiah 28:14. The point is that there was a certain justification for Hananiah’s violent act, but not that which he supposed. Jeremiah’s wooden yoke was really an inadequate symbol; the prophet was too tender to his people. Thus God made the truth appear in still fuller brightness from the very perverseness of its enemy. Jeremiah 28:14 The beasts of the field (see on Jeremiah 27:6). Jeremiah 28:15 The prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet. In one sense Hananiah was a prophet as much as Jeremiah. He claimed to have received the prophetic call, and God alone, who searcheth the heart, could pronounce upon the justice of his claim. Whatever training was regarded as necessary for the office he had probably gone through, and now for a number of years he had been universally recognized as a member of the prophetic class. Probably he had those natural gifts, including a real, though dim and not unerring, "second sight," which seems to have formed the substratum of Old Testament prophecy; but he certainly had not the moral backbone so conspicuous in Jeremiah, and he lacked that intimate communion with God (this became dear on the present occasion) which alone warranted the assurance that "Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath sent me." Jeremiah 28:16 I will east thee; rather, I song thee away. Possibly, as Hitzig suggests, there is an allusion to the preceding verse, in which the same verb occurs. Thou hast taught rebellion; literally, thou hast spoken turning aside. To "speak turning aside (or, ’rebellion’)" is a phrase of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 13:6), where it is used, as here, of opposition, not to Jehovah, but to revealed truth. Jeremiah 28:1-17 The story of Hananiah the prophet. Hananiah, priest and professional prophet, now presents himself as the rival and opponent of Jeremiah. A rude and shallow man, he probably thrusts himself forward unasked, as the representative of the popular prophets of smooth things whom it is the true prophet’s painful duty to refute and rebuke. His own conduct and Jeremiah’s behavior to him are both clearly brought before us in this chapter. I. THE CONDUCT OF . 1. He utters a pleasing prophecy. He promises a speedy overthrow of the tyranny of Nebuchadnezzar. Even Jeremiah heartily echoes the wish that the prediction could be true. It is always easiest to prophesy smooth things, to soothe and flatter rather than convince men of sin and persuade them to accept the darker truths. 2. Hananiah speaks with great positiveness. He boldly claims the authority of God for what he says (verse 2). His assertions are definite, minute, inherently consistent. Daring assumptions such as those of Hananiah carry the unthinking as by storm. A brazen face, a loud voice, a positive assertion, are enough to convince many people without the slightest ground in reason. You have only to say a thing very strongly and to repeat it very often, and the mere force of utterance will make way for it where calm, measured reasoning quite fails. Hananiah is definite in detail. People have a tendency to believe what they can understand clearly and imagine vividly. We must be warned, therefore, (1) that they who make the loudest claims to speak for God may have least right to do so; (2) that the truth of a statement must be measured, not by the vehemence with which it is asserted, but by the strength of the grounds on which it rests; and (3) that the reality of things cannot be ascertained by reflection on the consistency, clearness, and fullness of our subjective ideas about them. 3. Hananiah manifests a stupid insolence under contradiction. He cannot reason with Jeremiah, he cannot refute the great prophet’s words, he has no new thoughts to contribute; he can only repeat his former assertion with loud words and passionate actions. He is a poor, unintellectual creature, whose notion of controversy is like that of foolish people we sometimes meet with—people who imagine that to argue is just to repeat an assertion with dogged obstinacy. Hananiah loses his temper and behaves with rudeness to Jeremiah. The last refuge of the helpless controversialist is insolence and abuse. II. THE OF TO . 1. He heartily assents to the false prophet’s desire for the happiness of the nation. "Jeremiah said, Amen: the Lord do so," etc. (verse 6). He had been accused of a traitorous wish to see his country humiliated. No charge could be more false. The preacher who feels it his duty to threaten Divine punishments to wicked men should not be accused of wishing them evil. He may speak with grief and regret, as God also punishes reluctantly (Ezekiel 33:11). 2. Jeremiah appeals to the example of the older prophets. He is true to their teaching, while Hananiah contradicts it. This appeal should be unanswerable to one who, like Jeremiah’s opponent, professes to be the successor of these men. Amongst men who believe in the Bible the appeal to Scripture should be a first resort. How can a Christian teacher maintain his ground if he is contradicting this highest authority? Jeremiah was fond of "the old paths," the traditions and examples of earlier prophets. There is a consistency in prophecy, a common spirit, common ideas and principles in the prophets, and in revelation generally. 3. Jeremiah appeals to the confirmation of facts. (Verse 9.) He dares to await the verdict of history; he challenges Hananiah to do the same. We are too hasty in following the loud and pushing popular spirits of the hour. Wait and see the issue of their work when the first excitement has died away. 4. Jeremiah meets the insolence of Hananiah with quiet courtesy. He calmly reasons with him at first. When he finds his opponent proof against arguments which only rouse his temper, he quietly leaves him. There are times when men are too heated for argument, and there are men with whom it is always useless to argue. Under such circumstances the interest of truth, our own rightful dignity, and charity to our opponent, caution us to leave him in silence. 5. Jeremiah reiterates his prediction at a later time, with more stringent threats, and pronounces a solemn sentence of death on Hananiah. This he does after receiving fresh communications from Heaven and under the urgency of a Divine commission. It is always our duty to forgive our enemies; but if they are also the enemies of God, we may recognize the justice of God’s judgment on them. It is to be noted that Jeremiah did not compass the death of Hananiah; he only foretold it, and this under a Divine impulse. The words of Jeremiah were verified. Hananiah died long before events proved the futility of his own prophecy. Perhaps this was best for him. His death is a solemn warning to people who may be tempted to sacrifice truth for popularity. Jeremiah 28:8 An appeal to ancient prophecy. I. THE OF THE APPEAL. Several important principles are here illustrated. 1. The value of a precedent. Novel circumstances demand novel actions. The spirit of progress should teach us to improve on the conduct of our forefathers. Yet the most radical progressionist must often see the use of a precedent. It is an appeal from the confusion and excitement of the moment to an example which can be studied more calmly. If the precedent is respected by both parties of a quarrel, there is in it a common meeting-place for a reconciliation. The Bible is useful to us in this way for its great examples. 2. The duty of referring to Scripture. Jeremiah did not simply refer to antiquity; he referred to ancient prophecy—to the authority of a series of inspired teachers. This is the justification of our appeals to the Bible. It is not that the Bible is an old book, but that it is the fountain of special Divine illumination. 3. The unity of Scripture. The most original thinkers have usually started on the foundation prepared by their predecessors. But such men as Kepler and Newton have left their teachers far behind, and exposed the error of much of their teaching. It is different with the Bible. Here, too, there is the progressive development of thought, the growing light of revelation. But while the outer husk of the earlier ideas of the Bible is cast aside, those ideas themselves are not discarded, but enlarged and glorified by a fuller evolution. Definite laws are changed, but vital principles remain. Thus there is a marvelous unity in the Bible. II. THE RESULT OF THE APPEAL. This led to a confirmation of the darker view of the future. It was a sad result. It is only too true that the old prophets were preachers of repentance, threatening wrath and judgment. Their visions of the brighter future were few compared with their more stern predictions. The former, too, referred to distant times, the latter to circumstances of immediate interest. It is a terrible thought that an inspired view of human nature should lead so many great and good men to this gloomy conclusion. If these men rose from their graves and lifted up their voices in our own cities would they completely change their tone? Such a man as Thomas Carlyle seemed to realize something of the spirit of these old Hebrew prophets, and to him the condition of the modern world suggested the gloomiest forebodings. Happily, we do not look to the verdict of a prophet for our salvation. Christ has coma we listen to the teaching of apostles as well as to that of prophets. We have a New Testament. If the prophet exposes our sin and threatens our ruin, the gospel teacher points to the remedy in the redemption of the world by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jeremiah 28:13, Jeremiah 28:14 Yokes of iron. Hananiah broke the wooden yoke which Jeremiah wore in token of the approaching servitude of the Jews. In return he was told that the real yoke of Babylon would be much more severe—a yoke of iron. I. FACTS ARE MORE THAN . If the rule of Babylon really would be as a yoke of iron, what was the use of circulating milder views of the future? We are too much inclined to judge of ideas by their fitness for our own previous notions, instead of testing them solely by their consistency with facts. II. THE FUTURE MAY BE WORSE THAN WE EXPECT. There are dreadful events in past history. May there not also be dreadful events in future experience? Life is not a harmless plaything, nor the earth a thornless garden. There are terrors, judgments, agonies, in this strange world of ours. Who knows what may be in the next? This much we should all know: God is not the easy, indulgent Being of lax principles that shallow optimists fancy him to be, but wisely firm as well as infinitely merciful where mercy can be justly exercised. III. NEGLECT OF TIMELY WARNING WILL FUTURE . If the yoke of wood is broken, a yoke of iron shall be forged to take its place. The longer we delay hearkening to the warnings of God the worse must be our future punishment, because our sin is increasing while we remain impenitent; because to sin against light, against admonition, is to sin more plainly and willfully; and also because the rejection of a warning sent in mercy is itself an act of resistance to the will of God. This year thou shalt die. It is a great mercy that God has hidden from us the date of our death. If this were known all life would be deranged; some would grow reckless, some negligent of their highest duty till death was near, some despondent and unfit for all work, some overclouded with grief for the approaching separation from loved friends. We may be thankful, therefore, that God keeps the secret to him-soil "Our times are in his hand." Still, it may be profitable for us to question ourselves how we should act if such a revelation were made—if an angel came to us with the message, "This year thou shalt die." What would be the effect of such a message? I. IT WOULD URGE US TO PUT OUR AFFAIRS IN FOR DEATH. We should wish to "put our house in order," to see that all was left right and straight for those who come after us, to do all in our power to provide for those who are dependent on us. But none of us knows but that he may die this year. We should not, therefore, delay in providing for those who will be left. It is foolish for a man not to make his will till he knows he is dying. Cruel injustice has often been done through the postponement of this duty until too late. II. IT WOULD URGE US TO BE READY FOR ANOTHER WORLD. It would matter little what happened to us for the few months that remained of our earthly course. This life would then seem a poor shadow, its treasures not worth a thought. All anxiety would be fixed on "that undiscovered country." But we do not know but that we shall die this year; and we do know that life is fast fleeting. Should we not be ready in any case? Should we not feel as pilgrims and strangers, and seek for better treasures than those of earth, which all lie a prey to thief and moth and rust? Besides, spiritual preparation for death is not the simple, mechanical thing it appears to be in conventional language. Do we know we shall ever be able to fit ourselves for another world if we postpone all considerations of this momentous subject? It should be remembered, too, that he who is not fit to die is not fit to live; that spiritual condition which is real preparedness for heaven is just the condition for serving God here; if we are rightly living now we are fit to die—then and only then. III. IT WOULD URGE US TO A OF OUR LIFE’S WORK. It would be a call to earnest effort to redeem the short remainder of our days. There would be much that we should desire to see finished. It would be sad to let the task fall from our hands unaccomplished. But the same appeal is made to all of us. Life is short, and the work of life is great. There is much for the longest life to do. In any case there is no time for idle postponement of service. Every day has its duty; neglect this, and you can never return to it without neglecting the duty of the morrow. Let us all "work while it is day," seeing that "the night cometh, when no man can work" (John 9:4). IV. IT SHOULD NOT TROUBLE THE WITH ANY FEAR. To him death has lost its sting. The natural human shrinking from it may remain, but this should be overwhelmed by the thought of the home beyond. For him to die is to end "the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to," and to enter the rest, the safety, the joy of heaven. But to the spiritual man it is more than this. All his better days he has been seeking to be nearer to God; for God he has been panting and yearning. Death will be the fruition of this his heart’s hunger; it will make him "forever with the Lord." Earthly ties will still be strong, but he will feel that all is well that is God’s will. If God’s will be that he live, he will rejoice in the privilege of service; if it be that he die, he will feel this as "gain," so that, "whether he live or die, he is the Lord’s." "Lord it belongs not to my care Whether I die or live; To love and serve thee is my share, And this thy grace must give." BY A.F. MUIR How to answer those who oppose the truth. Where the light is there will be the deepest shadow; the truth is ever sharply defined against falsehood. Just when it was most important that the will of God and the real position of Israel should be ascertained, there were many striving to deceive and misrepresent. The behavior of Jeremiah on this occasion was twofold. I. TO HUMAN AND . 1. With moderation. "Amen: the Lord do so." Under such trying circumstances the behavior of the prophet is praiseworthy in the extreme. The contradiction and indignity to which he had been subjected might have excused a hot rejoinder. He is willing to have the dispute settled in a very effectual way. Meanwhile he is careful to make it clear that he too desired what his opponent had prophesied. This was the disposition of the Master, and should be copied by all his disciples. "A soft answer turneth away wrath;" "The servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men." 2. By an appeal to the great principle that the event will determine the truth of their predictions or the wisdom of their conduct. (Verses 8, 9.) This was an appeal to the conscience of his opponent. 3. Quiet submission to the will of God. "And the prophet Jeremiah went his way." When there is no sign of reasonableness in our antagonists, or no prospect of immediate success, it is well to submit quietly and to wait God’s time. This is the test of spiritual reality. True Christianity will show itself in earnest, unobtrusive actions and patient waiting for Christ. The most eloquent enforcement of the gospel is a quiet, consistent life. II. AS . Whilst he had no direct message he was silent. But God, who will not leave his servants without a witness, and who resents the slightest dishonor to which they are subjected, came to his rescue. The whole attitude of the prophet is now changed. With certainty he recovers also his vivacity, energy, and fearless power of denunciation. He is now the minister of judgment. 1. To the nation. The yoke of wood gives place to one of iron. The complicity of the people in the guilt of the false prophet must be punished. Their resistance to the will of God and disbelief of his servant involves them in a heavier sentence. So it is with all impenitence and rejection of God’s Word. The position of the transgressor cannot remain the same. With each step he plunges into deeper guilt and more fearful judgment. 2. To the originator of the offense. In this case the sentence is proportionately heavier and more immediate. Death is pronounced against the offending prophet with terrible brevity and clearness. There is ever a distinction between offenders and those who cause them to often& Primacy in disobedience will ensure a special and unmistakable mark of God’s anger. This announcement of doom, simple as it was in itself, must have been appalling to its hearer, whose inner sense of degradation and falseness would enhance its force. It is possible that the time and manner of this communication may have been intended to awaken repentance; failing which it was carded into effect. All around us such judgments are taking place, and it is well for men to examine what manner of spirit they are of ere they presume to occupy sacred offices or to set themselves against the laws of God’s kingdom.—M. Presumption increasing with impunity. The meekness of Jeremiah’s reply emboldened the false prophet, and he forthwith proceeded from words to actions. The symbol appointed by God was publicly removed from the shoulders of Jeremiah and destroyed. Opposition to the spirit and will of God could scarcely go further. The interpretation given to the action reveals how false and dangerous the position assumed. I. THE OF GOD ARE AT AS WITH THE OF SATAN. The action was so sudden and unexpected that Jeremiah had but little to say, and eventually went his way, sad but silent. Everything seemed to favor his opponent. The "patriotic party" was enthusiastic, and not to be restrained. The wisdom of this world is prompt and versatile because it is unprincipled; and it is bold because it is profane and unbelieving. Yet this is the condition under which the followers of the truth are to contend. II. THE OF SATAN ARE THEREBY TO MORE , AND COMMIT BEYOND RECALL. Hananiah’s case illustrates this in two ways, viz.: 1. Sacrilegious action. Touching the person of the prophet. Deliberately destroying the yoke which he must have known was of Divine appointment. 2. Its definitive interpretation. He not only rebelled against the Lord, but committed himself to a prediction with a fixed date, and one that must soon arrive. The necessity of the position he had assumed was upon him. Woe to the prophet of lies who ventures upon definite and verifiable prophecies! There is no halting-place to those who begin systematically to oppose God’s truth. They must ere long be caught in their own snares. With the sense of reverence the fear of consequences is forgotten and caution is discarded. III. BY SO DOING THEY HASTEN THEIR OWN . The triumph is brilliant but short-lived, and purchased at terrible cost. Let sinners pause when their crimes are made easy for them and excess follows upon excess. The motion of the rapid may but precede the fall (Jud Jeremiah 1:8-13). When human resources and precautions are exhausted, it may be a sign that God will undertake his own cause. His servants are justified at such a time in looking for and invoking his help, which is likely to be of a very signal and determining kind.—M. BY D. YOUNG A false prophet and his fate. I. ’S . Note his direct challenge to the true prophet. He seeks out Jeremiah in the house of Jehovah, "in the presence of the priests and of all the people." A prophet was, of course, bound to make his utterances in public, but Hananiah waited his chance until he found an opportunity of bearding the hated Jeremiah in as open a way as possible. He speaks explicitly in the Name of Jehovah. He is not afraid to take the great Name in vain. Let us be warned lest we heedlessly utter, under the pretended authority of God, what is nothing more than the daring imagination of our own hearts. The false prophet Ventures on the very figure which had been employed by the true prophet. It would almost seem as if Jeremiah had habitually borne something in the shape of a yoke, and if so, it must have been a very irritating sight to the false prophets. Little wonder that, under the pretence of a prophetic mission, he ventured on the removal of this yoke. Above all things, there is the confident assertion with respect to time. Notwithstanding all the manifest difficulties of the achievement, Hananiah is not afraid to say that in two years Judah will again be firmly resting on its old foundations. Thus from all these indications of presumptuous action, we have an illustration of how confident heretics are in their error. Too often we are doubtful and partial in our statements of truth. We lack that faith and that thorough-going assertion of the truths God has revealed which are so necessary to make those truths full of operative and irresistible force. Hananiah here is as confident as he can be in all his deadly errors. He has not the least fear of plunging into the greatest responsibilities with regard to definite predictions. He passes from the ground of mere expostulations and remonstrances, and ventures on statements which in a very short time must either make him or ruin him. Let us learn from our enemies, and labor to be confident and determined in our assertion of truth, seeing there is no lack of determination on the part of those who have cast in their lot with error. II. ’S . It is very noticeable that Jeremiah does not meet him in anything of an angry or denouncing manner. It would have well pleased the true prophet to see the predictions of the false prophet brought about; for it is made abundantly evident that the sufferings of his country were an unspeakable grief to Jeremiah. An angry reply served no good purpose. The true prophet could manifest a dignified patience, and leave time to vindicate both the validity of his prophetic claim and his fidelity in speaking the truth. Meantime, he can only recommend Hananiah to consider well the lessons of history, and how the prophets of old had spoken of stern dealings with many wicked nations. Unfortunately, bad men are hardly ever discriminating students of history. Hananiah was here given an opportunity of repentance, if only he had chosen to avail himself of it. But so full was he of his own devices that gentle treatment only increased his audacity, and he drew public attention more than ever to himself by removing the symbolic yoke from Jeremiah’s neck. That he was allowed to do all this should teach us a lesson of patience and trust when we see wicked men pursuing, undisturbed, their chosen path. They are only climbing higher that their ultimate ruin may become more widely manifest. III. ’S DOOM. The first result of his presumptuous conduct is to bring a more emphatic prophecy with regard to the captives. The second is to bring s sentence of death on the false prophet himself. He who has dealt rashly with the ordering of times and seasons is to know by a bitter experience that God has these times and seasons in his own hands. He is to die within the year. Notice the sin which he is charred with committing. He is doomed to death, not simply for the falsehood or the profanity, but for this, that he had taught rebellion against Jehovah. His words were an incitement to make a useless and premature attempt at liberation. God’s prediction with regard to the captivity in Babylon had in it the nature of a command. IV. ’S DEATH. It came very quickly. Two months at the outside was the space between the utterance of a false rebellious statement and the confirming of a true one. The death came at such an interval as was very impressive. Compare the relations between Jeremiah and Hananiah here with those between Peter and Ananias. Both Hananiah and Ananias dealt presumptuously with the holiest of things.—Y. Despised and rejected at home, Jeremiah turned his thoughts to those distant brethren in captivity, whom he had already likened to "good figs, very good" (Jeremiah 24:3, Jeremiah 24:5). He had heard with sorrow that they could not readily submit to their altered circumstances; Judah, with its consecrated associations, was still too near to them in spirit. Probably a rumor of the expected confederacy (Jeremiah 27:3) had troubled their minds, and the discontent was increased by the pernicious discourses of prophets and sooth sayers similar to that Hananiah of whom we have just heard. Two of these in particular are mentioned, and a terrible fate is held out to them. The appendix (verses 24-32) deals with another prophet of the same type, who had not, indeed, offended so deeply as his companions, but had stirred up those at home to persecute Jeremiah in revenge for the preceding letter. The chapter is evidently, what it professes to be, a letter, at any rate in substance. From the looseness of its structure (see especially on verses 16-20) it has been thought to have been dictated, like those Epistles of St. Paul, of which it may be regarded as a precursor (Ewald). The date seems to be a little earlier than that of the two preceding chapters (comp. verse 2 with Jeremiah 24:1); the messengers in verse 3 are therefore not to be regarded as Zedekiah’s companions in the journey mentioned in Jeremiah 51:59. Jeremiah 29:1 The residue of the elders; i.e. the surviving elders. Some may, perhaps, have died from natural causes, some by violence, some from grief. Jeremiah 29:2 The queen; rather, the queen, mother (see on Jeremiah 13:18) The eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem. A marginal gloss appears to have intruded itself into the text, for there is no other passage in which the "eunuchs," or, "chamberlains," are called "princes of Judah." Jeremiah 29:7 Seek the peace of the city, etc. Interest yourselves in the "peace" or welfare of the city, whether Babylon or any other place where ye may be in exile, and pray for its welfare, for your own well-being is inseparable from it. Jeremiah 29:8 Let not your prophets and your diviners, etc. It seems as if the Babylonian "Jewry" were a copy of that at home. It had not only its "princes" and its "elders," but its "prophets" and its "diviners," who encouraged the same false hopes as those in Judah (comp. Jeremiah 27:9; Jeremiah 28:2). Your dreams which ye caused to be dreamed; or, which ye cause yourselves to dream (comp. Jeremiah 27:9). Jeremiah 29:10 Seventy years (see on Jeremiah 25:11). At Babylon; rather, for Babylon. A long period, such as seventy years, is appointed for Babylon "to enjoy" the fruits of her ambition; when this is over (comp. Genesis 15:13-16), God will pay heed to his people. Visit you. To "visit" frequently has the sense of "taking notice of," or "paying heed to" (e.g. Jeremiah 23:2). My good word. "Word," equivalent to "pro-raise;" the allusion is to Jeremiah 24:6. Jeremiah 29:11 For I knew the thoughts, etc.; i.e. though seventy years must pass over you in exile, yet do not apprehend that I have forgotten you, for I know full well what my purpose is towards you—a purpose of restoring to you "peace" and prosperity. An expected end; rather, a future and a hope; i.e. a hopeful future (comp. Jeremiah 31:17, "There is a hope for thy future"). That unexpectant apathy which is the terrible accompaniment of so much worldly sorrow was not to be an ingredient in the lot of the Jews. Jeremiah 29:12 And ye shall go and pray unto me. "Go," that is, to the places "where prayer is wont to be made." The clause seems to refer to common prayer for a common object. Comp. striking passages in Solomon’s prayer (1 Kings 8:48), and in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 4:29, Deuteronomy 4:30). Jeremiah 29:15-23 Jeremiah’s denunciation of two leading false prophets at Babylon, with a digression on the fate of Zedekiah and Jerusalem. Some eminent critics maintain that verses 16-20 are an interpolation, and this view is certainly supported By the omission of these verses in the Septuagint. It must also in fairness be admitted that the natural connection of verse 15 is with verse 21, not with verse 16. But it does not follow that verses 16-20 are an arbitrary interpolation. They may be regarded either as a digression in the original letter, or as inserted by an after-thought when the substance of the letter was brought into its present form. Jeremiah 29:16 Know that thus saith the Lord; rather, Surely thus saith the Lord. Jeremiah 29:17 I will send upon them, etc.; alluding to Jeremiah 24:10. Vile figs; literally, figs exciting a shudder. The figure involves an allusion to Jeremiah 24:2, Jeremiah 24:3. Jeremiah 29:19 But ye would not hear. The prophet, by a very natural illusion, falls out of the style of letter-writer into that of the prophet. For the moment he fancies himself addressing an audience of his countrymen (comp. Jeremiah 25:3, Jeremiah 25:4, Jeremiah 25:7, Jeremiah 25:8). Jeremiah 29:21 Zedekiah. The name is into-resting; it shows that this prophet belonged to a family which took pleasure in the thought of Jehovah and his righteousness. Doubtless, too, he did so himself; but he under-estimated the demands of that righteousness, which extended to the heart as well as to the outward conduct. Jeremiah 29:22 A curse; i.e. a formula of cursing (comp. Isaiah 65:15). There is here a play upon words, such as the Biblical writers delighted in, partly with the view of assisting the memory. "A curse" is in Hebrew kelalah, and "to roast" is kalah. Roasted in the fire. "Casting into the midst of a burning fiery furnace" was a common punishment both among the Assyrians and the Babylonians, see e.g. ’ Records of the Past,’ vol. 9. p. 56; and comp. Daniel 3:1-30. Jeremiah 29:23 An important and melancholy addition to our knowledge of these false prophets. They were not only misleading prophets, but immoral men in their private capacities. Villainy; rather, folly, as the word is always rendered elsewhere. The phrase "to commit folly in Israel" is always (except Joshua 7:15) used of sins of unchastity. Jeremiah 29:24-32 A threatening oracle against the false prophet Shemaiah. Great excitement had been caused among the so-called prophets in Babylon by the emphatic language of Jeremiah. Accordingly one of them, named Shemaiah, wrote letters to the Jews at home, and especially to a high official called Zephaniah (see on verse 26) to put a stop to Jeremiah’s bold agitation. Zephaniah, however, was not the man for whom Shemaiah took him, and read the letter to the intended victim. Upon this, Jeremiah received a special revelation, announcing dire punishment to Shemaiah and his family (according to the principle of the Divine government described in Exodus 20:5). Jeremiah 29:24 To Shemaiah; or, of, concerning (as the same preposition is rendered in Jeremiah 29:16, Jeremiah 29:21, Jeremiah 29:31). The oracle itself speaks of Shemaiah in the third person (Jeremiah 29:31, Jeremiah 29:32). The Authorized Version, however, can be defended by its accordance with Jeremiah 29:25. The Nehelamite. This is evidently a patronymic, but whether of the family or the locality of the bearer cannot be decided. The analogy of "Jeremiah of Anathoth" (verse 27), however, favors the view that it is local. Jeremiah 29:26 In the stead of Jehoiada the priest. Some (Grotius, Hitzig, Graf) think that this Jehoiada was the famous high priest of that name, who is said to have "appointed officers over the house of the Lord" (2 Kings 11:18; 2 Chronicles 23:18). It is true that Zephaniah was not literally the successor of Jehoiada, but he was so in the same metaphorical sense in which the scribes are said by our Lord to "sit in Moses’ seat" (Matthew 23:2). It is safer, however, to suppose that another Jehoiada is meant, of whom we have no further information. It is not said that either Jehoiada or Zephaniah was high priest, and as the special object of the elevation of the latter is said to be the supervision of the temple police, it is more probable that Jehoiada and he were successively "second priests," or, to use a phrase which seems to be synonymous, "deputy governors in the house of the Lord" (Jeremiah 20:1). The passage may thus without violence be harmonized with Jeremiah 52:24; 2 Kings 25:18, where Seraiah is called "the chief priest" and Zephaniah "the second priest." It is possible that Jehoiada ’had been favorable to the better class of prophets. In this case there will be a delicate hint to Zephaniah that God had his own purpose in promoting him to honor, viz. that unruly prophets like Jeremiah might be held in with a tighter hand (Ewald). That ye should be officers; rather, that there should be officers. Zephaniah himself was an "officer" or "deputy" (see above); but he was also "chief in the house of the Lord," and had the appointment of inferior "officers," whose duty it was to preserve order in the temple. To understand the following words, we must remember that the outer court of the temple was a favorite place for prophetic teaching (comp. Jeremiah 7:2; Jeremiah 26:2). For every man that is mad, and maketh himself a prophet; i.e. to keep an eye upon "madmen" and prophetizers. The term "mad" is used in a disparaging sense (as 2 Kings 9:11; comp. Hosea 9:7), with regard to the apparently senseless behavior of those who were overpowered by the spirit of prophecy. In earlier times, no doubt, the phenomena of prophecy were more violently opposed to everyday life than in Jeremiah’s time; but such symbolic acts as appearing in public with a yoke upon his neck would at least excuse the application of the epithet even to Jeremiah. It is more than probable, however, that it was not so much the abnormal actions as the contents of Jeremiah’s prophecies which stirred up such vehement opposition; observe how in the next verse only the sound of these descriptive nouns is retained ("which maketh himself a prophet"). It was the making prophecy a reality which disturbed the men of routine, and Shemaiah well knew this when he made this appeal to Zephaniah. There was no harm in being nominally a "prophet," but to "make," or rather, "show one’s self as a prophet," to be an energetic prophet, a prophetizer,—this was wormwood to those who cried, "Peace, peace," when there was no peace. In prison, and in the stocks; rather, in the stocks (see on Jeremiah 20:2) and in the collar. The meaning seems to be that Jeremiah was subjected to both forms of punishment at once. Jeremiah 29:27 Reproved; i.e. threatened with punishment. Jeremiah 29:28 For therefore, etc.; i.e. the consequence of Jeremiah’s not having been kept within bounds by authority is that he has even ventured, in his fanatical zeal, to trouble the exiles in Babylon. This captivity is long; rather, It (is) long; a more forcible expression. Jeremiah 29:29 And Zephaniah the priest, etc. This should rather be printed as a parenthetical remark. Jeremiah 29:30-32 Then came the word of the Lord, etc. A fresh introduction of the Divine oracle was rendered necessary by the long description of Zephaniah’s letters. The reason for Shemaiah’s punishment, however, is stated here a little differently. Of course, it was equally contrary to the will of God to deliver a false prophecy and to stir up persecution against his true prophet. Taught rebellion (see on Jeremiah 28:16). Jeremiah 29:4-7 How to make the best of adversity. Jeremiah advises the captives in Babylon to take a course that is eminently brave and wise. The first inclination would be to stir up a useless revolt, the second to sit down in sullen despondency. When trouble overcomes us we are tempted to follow one or other of these courses—to rebel or to despair. Jeremiah teaches us, as he taught the Jews of his day, that neither is right. He indicates a better way, I. SUBMIT TO . We are not required to court trouble, nor to yield weakly when we might successfully throw it off. But when it is plainly inevitable resistance is wrong as well as foolish. 1. It is foolish. Why dash our heads against the prison walls? The brain will suffer before the granite. The Jews could not successfully revolt against Babylon; to live on the eve of rebellion, as restless conspirators, would be dangerous and futile. The mistake of such misplaced patriotism was seen later in the wretched failure of the fanatic attempts of the Jews to throw off the yoke of Rome. The folly of the Jews would be the greater that the lengthy duration of the Captivity had been predicted and revealed as a Divine judgment. When we know the providential assignment of adversity, to resist this is to resist the power of Heaven. 2. This resistance is wrong. The Captivity was ordained by God (verse 4). It was sent as a wholesome chastisement. To those who understood the teaching of the prophets on this point, rebellion was at once disobedience to God’s will and the refusal of a useful corrective. We should remember this when we grow impatient under trouble, and learn to bow silently before the will of our King and our Father, to receive without complaining the discipline which is intended to cleanse and strengthen our spiritual life. II. SEEK THE COURSE UNDER THE DARKEST . The captives could not return home. They were not, therefore, to treat the land of their exile as a hopeless desert, but to build and plant and eat the fruit of it. 1. How often trouble is worse in prospect than in experience! The Captivity loomed in the distance as a very purgatory; when it came it was found to contain many of the fruits and flowers of quiet happiness. 2. Our lot in life will be very much what we make it for ourselves. If we treat it as a "waste, howling wilderness," it will be that to us. But the hardest lot will prove to have many alleviations for him who searches for its mercies rather than for its grievances. Surely it is best to do this. Mourners are inclined to nurse their sorrows with a melancholy satisfaction in aggravating the pain of them, or as though any abatement of grief were a sacrilege. But we should learn a more robust treatment of adversity. There is no virtue in distressing one’s self beyond necessity. III. CHERISH HOPES FOR THE FUTURE UNDER THE MOST TRYING PRESENT . The Jews were to remember the promise of the restoration. They were not to allow their race to die out (verse 6). A great future was still before them. History has confirmed the prediction of the prophets. The scattered and ruined people were recalled to their homes. From the stock of the despondent exiles there sprang not only all that was great and good in later Jewish history, but also Jesus Christ and Christianity. In our darkest moments we should not forget that, though not a ray of light has yet appeared on the horizon, the sun will surely rise and the day return. Christianity is peculiarly a religion of the future; it encourages us to press forward to the golden age which is yet to come. IV. FIND OUR BY SEEKING THE WELFARE OF OTHERS. "Seek the peace of the city … for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace." The alien was to act with the loyalty of a citizen. Though a nation may be under the unrighteous rule of a conqueror, it should still remember that it has duties to the government under which it lives, and claims of charity in regard to the people of the superior power. If it is our duty to seek the peace of a strange city, how much more are we bound to interest ourselves in public duties for the good of our own country? Private citizens will find their personal condition improved through the successful discharge of public duties. The citizens reap the fruits of the peace of the city. In ministering to others generally we shall discover the secret of our own blessedness. Civic duties. From the duty of the Jews to the cities of their exile we may deduce the still more urgent duties of citizens to their own city, I. ONE OF THE FIRST OF A PEOPLE IS PEACE. There are times when war is necessary and right—to defend the hearth and home, to save the weak from oppression, etc. But such war must only be the means for securing a bettor, more lasting peace. The glory of war is an empty dream. The people gain little and suffer much, though the kings may win fame and power. II. PEACE IS TO BE SOUGHT BY THE ACTION OF . Individual men cannot wage a war or declare a truce. But the units constitute nations. If each is peaceable the nation is peaceable. Insignificant people have vast power for harm if they choose to execute it. It should be understood that seditious conduct is not only a political offense; it is a sin in the sight of God, a cruelty to the many people whom it disturbs and injures. III. PRIVATE MEN HAVE PUBLIC DUTIES. We all reap benefits from the state. It is mean to accept them without taking our part in bearing the burdens of the state. There are people who deny the right of Christian men to take part in "worldly politics," yet these people are glad to avail themselves of the protection and other advantages which are provided for them by the secular government they affect to despise. The neglect of public duty evidences a narrow and selfish disposition, IV. PRIVATE MEN ARE BY PUBLIC . We are members one of another. There is a general harmony and health of the whole body, over and above the well-being of each member, when all work together for the mutual good. As individual men, we have great reason to be thankful for the general prosperity of the nation and for the maintenance of public peace. V. WE SHOULD OUR DUTIES TO THE STATE THOUGH WE MAY NOT APPROVE OF THE . To be in opposition is no excuse for being in sedition. Unless we can change the government it is foolish and wrong to revolt against it. The nation is larger than the government. Seventy years. I. SEVENTY YEARS ARE A LIMITED TIME. Babylon was to tyrannize for a limited period only; the Jews were to suffer for a limited period. 1. God has set a limit to the triumph of evil. The storm rages; yet God says to it, "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further." The lions roar, but they are chained. Wicked men fling the reins to their passions, break through all restraints of respect for the wilt of God and appear to be at liberty to work evil and revel in the fruits of sin ad libitum; but God has put bounds about their course. In due time he will lay his hand upon them and arrest them. 2. God has set a limit to the duration of trouble. The sorrow of God’s people is temporal; their blessedness will be eternal. Every trouble is weighed and measured by God. "Our times are in his hand." II. SEVENTY YEARS ARE A SHORT TIME IN THE HISTORY OF A NATION. The Captivity was to last for seventy years; prosperity had been enjoyed for hundreds of years before this, and would return and endure long after. The troublesome times are conspicuous, while the quiet times glide by unnoticed. Hence we are likely not to note how much more we have of the latter. History reads like a record of wars and commotions, because the happy but dull annals of prosperity do not contain many striking events. It is much the same in private life. For most of us the blessings greatly outnumber the troubles, the times of quiet far exceed those of distress. Yet it is difficult to recognize this, because what hurts us impresses our memory more than what pleases us. III. SEVENTY YEARS ARE A . Few, if any, of the first captives would survive the exile. To the individual man it was as bad as if it were perpetual. Yet if they were true patriots the national hope must have been a great comfort in the darkness of personal suffering. And the patriotic hope of Israel was one of the grandest features in the Hebrew character. We are all too selfish in our hopes. Christians should consider the cause of Christ and the interest of humanity as of far more importance than their private prosperity. If in the end Christ will triumph, and the world will be lifted out of the sin and sorrow which have overwhelmed it, should not we rejoice, though our lot may not be to live till this is accomplished? Moses rejoiced in the Pisgah-view of the land he could never enter; Simeon was glad at seeing the infant Savior, and could depart in peace with the assurance of a redemption not yet accomplished. Still, the Christian may have a great personal hope beyond this. Seventy years!—but a span compared with eternity! When these swift days have flown the door will be opened to the infinite ages of eternity. What if the little life be tempest-tossed? The voyage is short, the haven is near (2 Corinthians 4:17, 2 Corinthians 4:18). God’s thoughts concerning us. I. GOD THINKS. If God exists he must be a thinking being. To apply the name "God." to a stream of tendencies, a collection of laws, the totality of being, etc; is to misapply it. Either God is personal or there is no God, for the conception of personality is essential to that of divinity. If God is a person he may be "without parts or passions." The anthropomorphic ideas of repentance, wrath, etc; may be as much mere metaphorical images as those of the eyes and the hands of God; but thinking is essential to the nature of what we understand by a person, by a spiritual being. Unless God thinks, he is no spirit, no person. II. GOD THINKS ABOUT US. As far as he is revealed to us in the Bible and in Christ, and as far as we may verify this revelation by experience, he is directly concerned with his works and his children. His thoughts are not to be imagined as only consisting of vast abstractions, infinite ideals. They may soar to lonely heights where no finite intellect can follow, but they can also stoop to humble concerns of human life. He is but an imperfect thinker who is so absorbed with philosophic speculation that he has no room in his mind to consider his family. The greatest thinker will be wide as well as lofty, able to take in small details in addition to grand abstractions, and, above all, wise to apply the highest thinking to the simplest practical necessity. It is a great comfort for us that God so thinks. With sublime ideas of eternity, and innumerable cares of the universe in his infinite mind, God has yet room for thoughts about us, and condescension to concern himself with them. III. WHAT GOD THINKS ABOUT US IS OF GREAT TO US. 1. God thinks what is true and wise and good. If, therefore, we can know God’s thoughts about anything we shall see the thing in its true light. Our thoughts are blinded by prejudice, colored by passion, limited by ignorance, broken, fragmentary, perverted. God’s only are clear and perfect as truth. 2. God’s thoughts are the prelude to his actions. If we know what he thinks concerning us we know how he intends to act. God’s thinking is not the contemplation of the philosopher, it is the consideration of the king. We forget this when we are so very anxious about what the world will think of us and so very indifferent about God’s thoughts concerning us. A brave man will learn to dare the world’s misjudgment, its scorn, its condemnation. But who can face God’s thoughts if they mean evil to us? IV. GOD THINKS OF PEACE US. So Jeremiah saw in the case of the Jews; so we may see for all mankind how that Christ "has broken down the middle wall of partition between us." Even when God finds it necessary to punish his desire is to bless, and when he chastises it is in mercy, that he may reclaim. But this is not seen at the time. There are things which prevent us from seeing that God’s thoughts are of peace. Thus—the peace is not yet enjoyed; when God chastises us it looks as though he meant evil to us, because we feel the blow before we see the good fruit of it; we cannot see God’s thoughts, and must accept them in faith, waiting for a later confirmation of experience. Yet if God does think thoughts of peace concerning us, is it necessary for us to know the exact nature of them? They are known to him if they are not known to us, and he can carry them out without any previous understanding of them on our part. V. GOD S OF PEACE WILL BE . God promises that he will make "a future and a hope." God’s best thoughts are not memories, but hopes, promises, intentions. The grandest page of revelation is prophecy. But though these thoughts refer to the future, we must not lose faith in their practical interest. 1. The realization is delayed by our fault, not by God’s will. He thinks, intends peace. But he is hindered from carrying out his intention by our conduct. He waits to be gracious. If, therefore, we prepare ourselves for the accomplishment of God’s thoughts, there is nothing further to prevent us from enjoying the peace they presage. 2. God is as great in power as he is wise and good in thought. He has bestowed upon us the noble but perilous faculty of free will, and we cannot measure the limits of this faculty. Yet we may rest assured that by some means the infinite God can and will ultimately accomplish all his great designs of peace for his children. Jeremiah 29:13 Seeking God with the whole heart. I. GOD MUST BE FOUND BEFORE BE CAN BE KNOWN AND ENJOYED. "He is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being." Yet this natural nearness of God may be unrecognized by us, and may not be sufficient to bring us into the spiritual communion with him. The God of nature may be "the unknown God," or he may be recognized and yet not enjoyed as the "Portion" of the soul. 1. Sin hides the vision of God, and drives the soul into remote spiritual banishment from God, even though it cannot affect his physical presence. 2. Our natural limitations of thought and experience surround the idea of the Divine with mystery, and make us feel that though God is partly known there are still ways of God that are far beyond our ken, so that we exclaim in bewilderment and distress, "Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself!" (Isaiah 45:15). II. TO BE FOUND, GOD MUST BE FOR WITH THE WHOLE HEART. 1. He must be searched for. God does discover himself to men unexpectedly, as to Hagar in the desert and to Moses on Horeb, though we may rest assured that even such exceptional revelations were made to souls whose habit it was to seek after him. Nevertheless before such experience, God draws near to those who do not seek him, to urge them to search and find him (Isaiah 65:1). He seeks us before we seek him. Our search is the response of our hearts to his invitation (Psalms 27:8). But this search must be made. The promise of finding is attached to the condition of seeking (Matthew 7:7). The prodigal must return to his father before he can receive the welcome home. Men are waiting for God to visit them, reveal himself to them, do something that will bring them back to him. They may wait forever, and in vain. God is waiting for us. It is our part to arise and seek him. 2. This search must be with all the heart. The reason why we are disappointed of the answers of our prayers is often that our prayers are so insincere, so cold, so half-hearted. It is reasonable to expect God, the all-seeing, to answer our prayers, not according to the vigor of the language, but according to the fervency of our desires. If we value the knowledge and communion of God aright, we shall seek him with all the heart: (1) with the heart, i.e. sincerely, spiritually, inwardly, not with mere formal inquiries; and (2) with the whole heart, i.e. with singleness of purpose, intensity, earnestness. III. THE REWARD OF SEEKING GOD WITH ALL THE HEART WILL CONSIST IN FINDING HIM. 1. The search will be successful. God may not be found at first, or, being found, may not be recognized in the way expected. But Scripture and experience both testify to the utility and fruitfulness of the soul’s search after God. If we have not yet found, that may be because (1) we have not sought with "all the heart;" or (2) have not sought in the right way as far as our light and knowledge have indicated it—i.e. humbly, penitently, and as Christians through Christ. 2. The success of the search will be its own reward. The finding of God is described as a blessing of the restoration. It will bring other and lower benefits in its train (Jeremiah 29:14), but it is itself the greatest boon. "Blessed are they that seek God with all the heart, for they shall find him,"—that is enough for a perfect beatitude. To find God is to find our light, our rest, our home. To know him is life eternal; to commune with him is the joy of heaven. Jeremiah 29:20-32 Shemaiah. I. HIS ACTION. 1. He is irritated at the letter of Jeremiah. From Babylon he writes back in a rage. It is foolish to be thus angry with those who tell us unpleasant truths, but it is very common. 2. He describes Jeremiah as mad. People often depreciate the intelligence of those who differ from them. Weak men set down strong words to the excitement of the speaker because they have not the imagination or the nerve to receive them as true. 3. He urges the temple officials to arrest and punish Jeremiah. We have here another instance of the common effort to suppress those whom we are unable to answer. II. HIS MORAL CONDUCT. 1. He usurps the name of a prophet, though he is not sent by God. His pretence to speak in the Name of God is unwarranted. A prophet is one who acts as God’s messenger, as an apostle is one who acts as the messenger of Christ. No man has a right to enter the ministry of Christ unless he is called to it, nor to speak as God’s ambassador unless he is convinced in his conscience that he is sent by God. 2. He deceives the Jews into "trusting in a lie." It is not only that he falsely claims to be a prophet; his prophetic message is also false. Truth is sacred; to tamper with it is a sin, but to deceive others to their hurt increases the sin. 3. He instigates revolt against God. If it is wrong to utter a falsehood to serve a good end, it must be more wrong to do so with a bad intention. But all false religious teaching tends to induce disobedience to the will of God. III. HIS DOOM. 1. He is to be punished. The evil that he discredits shall fall upon him. This is a severe but an appropriate punishment for a deceiving prophet. 2. His children are to share his doom. There is a great mystery in the hereditary character of punishment, and it is increased in some respects by the fact that tendencies to sin are also hereditary. But the fact is as clearly visible in nature as it is revealed in Scripture. 3. He is not to see the joy of the restoration. They who refuse wholesome chastisement cannot receive the happy fruits that follow it. It is natural and reasonable that the willful rejection of Divine warnings should be followed by a severe judgment. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 29:1-14 Duties and consolations of God’s captivity. I. THEIR DUTIES The imposition of definite lines of conduct and policy upon the exiled, was one proof that they were not cast off; the promise of deliverance was another. Although amongst the heathen, they were not to be as the heathen; neither were they to be wholly given over to despair. As children of God they were to exhibit the virtues of: 1. Industry. (Jeremiah 29:5.) Misanthropy and despair are the parents of idleness; Divine faith endues men with energy. The exiles had a testimony to bear before the heathen. It was a present duty to achieve an honest independence. 2. Domestic attachment. (Jeremiah 29:6,) The family, with all its joys and responsibilities, is still to be cared for. If the present be forfeited the future is still capable of being redeemed. The new generations would reap the advantages of which the fathers had been deprived. 3. Public spirit. (Jeremiah 29:7.) They were not to abstain from the duties of citizenship merely because they were amongst heathen conquerors. Even there they might exert an influence for good. The fundamental law of God’s kingdom is to seek the good of all men. Work faithfully rendered to the commonwealth would not be vain or without its reward. Even the heathen and the men of this world can appreciate good citizenship. That a distinctive work and testimony still remained to the Church as a Church, is no reason for neglecting those less direct and more general duties which so powerfully commend the religious profession that inculcates them. 4. Cheerfulness. This is not so much to be classified along with the preceding as to be understood as the spring and governing principle of them all. What more natural than a spirit of resentment under the circumstances? How easy to hang the harp on the willows! But this would only be to misunderstand God and thwart his purposes. He seeks the happiness and prosperity of his people—even here and now, and notwithstanding the discipline to which he may be subjecting them. Not resignation merely, but cheerful acquiescence and Co-operation, are, therefore, to be expected of his people. "I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it." II. THEIR . These were partly to consist in the natural results of the course of conduct enjoined, or the happiness inseparably associated with the observance of it; but chiefly in the anticipation of the future. 1. A definite term was set to their captivity. (Jeremiah 29:10.) It was one that could easily be verified, and was not too far distant to extinguish hope. Some of those who as children were taken to Babylon, might in their old age return to the land of promise. There is measure as well as meaning in all God’s discipline. He never imposes upon his people a burden greater than they can bear. The darkest night is illumined by light beyond. When the sorrow, their sorrow is not without hope. 2. The present was linked with the future. They might be comforted in the fulfillment of their daily tasks by the knowledge that everything done in obedience to God and the spirit of true benevolence would have its influence upon the promised deliverance. At the very worst, what was done in this disposition would not retard that event or rob it of its fullness of blessing. In like manner the children of God are assured that this earthly life is but a "sojourning," and that "all things work together for good." This life will have an immense influence upon the complexion of the next. The duties of every day are therefore to be attended to in the full conviction of their absolute worth and avail in the sight of God. They have the promise not only of the life which now is, but of that which is to come. 3. Spiritual blessings were promised. (Jeremiah 29:11-14.) The good will and faithfulness of God; the restoration of religious communion; the gathering and reconstitution of the theocracy.—M. Jeremiah 29:12-14 Signs that God’s favor is restored. I. WHAT HE DOES IN HIS PEOPLE. 1. In turning their hearts to himself. They had been worshipping Baal and the gods of heathendom. Only now and then did they offer a haft-hearted worship to Jehovah. The idolatries that pandered to their lusts were uppermost in their thoughts, and it was only occasionally, in seasons of desperate need, they bethought themselves of Jehovah. Now he was to assume a higher place in their regard. Their views of life, its purposes and destinies, would be elevated, and he would become their chief desire. The new err of favor and happiness would be distinguished by intense personal love for God. In Nehemiah’s day a measure of spiritual affection like this showed itself, but it could only be fully developed through the personal manifestation of Christ, who was to draw all men unto him. 2. In pouring forth the spirit of true prayer. Where the heart’s affections go forth towards God the spirit of true prayer commences. It is that which cries within us, "Abba, Father," which is the spirit of prayer and supplications. It has been supposed that the first clause of verse 12 refers to private and the second to public prayer. The habit and delight of devotion were to be restored. Where these are there is already the earnest of all substantial and eternal good. Pentecost was prefaced and penetrated with prayer. II. WHAT HE DOES FOR HIS PEOPLE. 1. In revealing himself. They who seek for him with their whole heart will find him. The veil will be withdrawn, and calamity, understood as fatherly chastisement, patiently borne. In the subsequent history of Israel this was largely experienced; but the fullness of the spiritual meaning of the promise was only realized in Christ and the outpourings of his Spirit. 2. He will hearken to their petitions. The sense of acceptance will come, even in the midst of captivity. Faithful hearts will fill with presage of coming deliverance, and prayer will not only be effectual but be felt to be so. It is in this exercise the true relationship of God and his people becomes evident, and the blessings of a present and ultimate redemption are secured. There can be no more marked proof of God’s favor towards any one than answers to his prayers. 3. He will bring back to the Promised Land and the privilege of covenant relationship. That is a matter of course, seeing he already hears them. And yet nonetheless imposing will their redemption be. How complete the restoration! how miraculous! Its supernatural character is to be as evident as that of their dispersion. That which under anomalous circumstances has been a difficult, unauthorized, or intermittent exercise will become easy, honorable, and constant, as they will return to their own land, where every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree, none daring to make him afraid. In the case of the Christian this promise will be fulfilled in either the gradual conquest of the world by the Church, or entrance into heaven. But there is a foretaste of this in the self-conquest and perfected spiritual life of the regenerate soul.—M. The punishment of false prophets. The opposition between Jeremiah and the false prophets is one of the most interesting phenomena of the period to which these prophecies belong. It is a real battle, albeit not with earthly weapons. The question between them could not be suffered to remain doubtful, as it involved immense consequences. A striking correspondence is discovered in the antagonism to the labors of the apostles. There is the same barefaced, fearless lying and dishonesty, the same terrible denunciation of judgment. (We are reminded of the sentence on Simon Magus, "Thy silver perish with thee," etc; Acts 8:20-24; and the reply to Ananias, the high priest, "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall," Acts 23:3.) How is the latter to be regarded? Evidently as the word of God through his true servants, and not as the expression of vindictive feeling. In regard to this punishment notice— I. ITS NATURE. It had direct reference to that concerning which they spoke. From the future they had denied they were to be cut off. In the case of Ahab and Zedekiah the instrumentality of man is indirectly employed; in that of Shemaiah it is brought about by what we might regard as natural causes. In both instances the penalty was: 1. Exceptionally were. The fate of the lying prophets, even apart from its associated consequences in the eternal sphere, was tragic in the extreme, and presents hardly an element of hope. Ahab and his companion are subjected to a fearful death and an eternity of shame in Israel. Shemaiah is consigned to effacement and deprived both as regards himself and his posterity, of the promised blessings. 2. Exemplary. Unmistakably these men were but the leaders of many of like mind, and it was intended they should be marked out for signal retribution. Their fate would appeal to the imagination and spiritual feeling of their people, and in either case it corresponded closely with the peculiarity of their conduct. In their heathen exile they were to be taught that God’s hand could still reach them and that an exact justice waited upon their actions. Ahab and Zedekiah so lived that even a heathen monarch had to make them examples. 3. Graduated according to heinousness of offence. II. ITS . 1. The opposition to God’s truth was necessarily direct and malicious, Nothing could well be more consciously wicked than their whole behavior. It occurred at a critical period, when great destinies were determined. The prophet of God was thereby discredited and hindered, and the people prevented from receiving and acting upon his message. In every season of critical consequence and great spiritual activity such manifestations occur. Merely to overcome them is not sufficient. The victory must be signal and conspicuous. 2. The offense was one to which God himself is ever most sensitive. It affected his character and prerogatives, and was therefore nothing else than blasphemy (cf. Matthew 12:32. "Even I know, and am a witness, saith the Lord," Matthew 12:23). 3. The interests of truth required the penalty. The people had to be overawed by the presence of the supernatural; their obedience had to be won to the direction of the true prophet, and the spiritual ends of the Captivity were thus to be secured. A moral demonstration like this was requisite, and enables the human mind more completely to realize the Divine conceptions of righteousness and truth.—M. BY J. WAITE God’s message to the captives. There is an encouraging tone in this Divine message to the captives in Babylon that must have been strikingly fitted to call forth every better element of thought and feeling within them. They were not, indeed, to dream of deliverance. The appointed time must run its course. The generation then in their prime could not hope ever to see their own land again. But their children should. Their wisdom, therefore, lay in making the best of their condition, and nourishing, as far as possible, the resources and the strength of their family life. Let them build, and plant, and marry, and enjoy the good of that strange land as if it were their own. Let them sow, though it be with many tears, for the better and happier future. Let them so live as to commend themselves to the good will of their conquerors, that even "their enemies may be at peace with them," identifying themselves with the interests of the place of their captivity, seeking by their prayer to bring down blessings upon it from above, seeing that in its well-being and peace they would find their own. This is strictly in harmony with the general Divine purpose as to the relation in which the Jews should stand towards other nations. They were called to be a separate and peculiar people only that they might the better be instruments of blessing to the world. The Captivity was not merely a punishment for their sins, but a part of the method by which God taught them to fulfill their mission. Important lessons are suggested respecting the relation the people of God should always maintain towards the world in which he has placed them. Note— I. THE FREE USE IT IS THEM TO HAVE OF THIS WORLD’S GOOD. "Build ye houses, and dwell in them," etc. In being carried beyond the bounds of Israel these captives were not passing beyond the domain of Israel’s God. He is the "Lord of the whole earth." And whether in Jerusalem or in Babylon, all resources, all materials, all power to labor, and all products of labor, are his. Shall not the children of the heavenly Father make themselves, at home" in their Father’s world, free to use and to enjoy whatever good he puts within their reach? Remember St. Paul’s counsel to the Corinthians, "Whatsoever is sold in the shambles," etc. (1 Corinthians 10:25, 1 Corinthians 10:26). All natural good has the stamp of God’s ownership upon it. Whatever, therefore, comes to you in the honorable commerce of life do not shrink from it or refuse it. It is yours to enjoy because he made it; it is yours because it is his. The freedom of the earth is given to his true children. There is a sense in which it may be said of all outward good that they who know best how to use it aright have most right to its use. There is no "possession" of these things like that which springs from spiritual affinity and sympathy with him who gave them, and from the power to discern and appreciate their inner meaning. There is no "right" like that of Divine sonship. "All things are yours," etc. (1 Corinthians 3:21-23). We dishonor our Christian faith when we move about in the world timidly Or gloomily, as if we had no right to live in it, or as if it were a mere "house of bondage;" hedged in on all sides with painful restrictions, bound with fetters of restraint; afraid to share with a free, hearty, childlike gladness any of its innocent delights. If this is "Emmanuel’s land," have we not the range of all its delectable mountains? Is it a world that our Father’s hand has made and filled with the tokens of his beneficence, and that has been trodden by the feet of the great Redeemer, and shall we throw over it the shadow of our discontent or fear (Nehemiah 8:10; Ecclesiastes 9:7; 1 Timothy 4:4, 1 Timothy 4:5)? II. THE OF BETWEEN THEE AND THE WORLD. "Seek the peace of the city," etc. Captives and bondmen as these Jews were, they were nevertheless involved in all that affected the welfare of the Babylonian state. The administration of its affairs for good or ill, for peace or war, must needs be a matter of great interest to them, since they would so largely share the consequences. (See illustrations in Joseph and his brethren, Daniel and the three Hebrew youths, Esther and Mordecai, etc.) The citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem have also an earthly citizenship to maintain, the bonds of which are not broken through their being raised spiritually to a higher level than that of the worldly life around them. Rather are those bonds correspondingly raised and made more sacred and binding. Their Christian faith elevates the character of their earthly citizenship, invests it with a new dignity, attaches to it higher and diviner sanctions. "In the peace thereof shall ye have peace." All parts of the social system are so linked together by a law of mutual dependence and influence that the well-being of one is, in a measure, the well-being of all. "The eye cannot say to the hand," etc.; "Whether one member suffer," etc. We are all personally affected for good or ill by the political order and the general tone of the moral life around us. There are deep rankling wounds in the body politic—ignorance, drunkenness, roving beggary, domestic vice and violence, the systematic training of the young in crime, the oppression of the hireling in his wages, etc.—which it is to the interest of us all most earnestly to seek to heal. No class of the community can escape the ill effect of these things, and religion does but bring us into the deeper sympathy with those who most suffer by such forms of wrong. III. THEIR TO LIVE FOR THE WORLD’S HIGHEST BENEFIT, "Seek the peace of the city … and pray to the Lord for it." Real peace is the fruit of righteousness. There can be none while the Divine order is violated and the Divine will set at naught. The gospel is in every way God’s message of peace to the world. The Church is called to be the "light of the world" and the" salt of the earth," as a witness for God’s truth and righteousness. The Christian philanthropist alone has in his hands a thorough cure for the diseases and wounds of our humanity; and of all the weapons he can wield in his conflict with them, none so mighty as prayer, inasmuch as that unseals the fount of all blessing, and brings down from heaven the healing, saving power. Well may a Christian apostle enlarge and emphasize the old prophetic message, saying, "I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men," etc. (1 Timothy 2:1-4).—W. Thoughts of peace. Such is the consoling word that God sends to his "banished ones" in their affliction. He bids his servant "speak comfortably" to them, even now that their "warfare" is only beginning, and they are having their first taste of the bitterness of exile. Blending with the lamentations of the weeping captives as they "hung their harps on the willows by the waters of Babylon," we can imagine that this gracious word would have a more salutary effect upon them than the living voice of the prophet ever had. What message has it for us? I. THE MIND OF GOD IS A MYSTERY TO US, BUT HE KNOWS HIS OWN . 1. God has his "thoughts," even as we have ours. We believe in a God who is no mere philosophic abstraction, but a living, personal being, of whose infinite intelligence ours is but the dim and distant reflection. 2. His thoughts are immeasurably higher than ours. "As the heavens are higher than the earth," etc. (Isaiah 55:9). We cannot solve the mystery or trace the course of our own mental processes, and how should we be able to comprehend his? Our minds, with all their utmost range and activity, move but upon the outskirts of the glorious realm of the infinite and eternal thought of God. 3. His thoughts are all conformed to the eternal truth of things. Indeed, they are themselves the eternal truth of things. For what are all created existences—material and spiritual, all laws, forces, etc; but embodiments and reflections of the "thoughts" of God? And whatever his purposes maybe they are not variable; they partake of the immutability of his essential nature. "The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations" (Psalms 33:11). II. GOD’S WAYS OF DEALING WITH US ARE OFTEN , BUT A PURPOSE GOVERNS ALL. "Thoughts of peace and not of evil." He concealed within his darkest providences. 1. The constitution of the universe, in spite of all its discords, bears abundant witness to the benign spirit that inspires it. We have no sympathy with that gloomy and morbid view of it according to which, for aught that appears, it might have been fashioned by some spirit of cruelty and hate. True as it may be that "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together," there is proof enough that "God’s tender mercies are over all his works." 2. The Bible has its anomalies, but it is the unfolding of a redemptive purpose. The revelation of God’s mercy towards a guilty, ruined world in the person of the Christ is the key to all its historic dispensations. As every chastisement inflicted on the Jewish people had some gracious design in it as regards themselves, so the whole course of their national life and ecclesiastical polity played its part in the development of that world-wide plan. And through all the changes and storms and conflicts that may yet be in store for the Church and the world, Scripture keeps alive the blessed hope of the future. The prophetic word is "as a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in our hearts" (2 Peter 1:19). 3. The saddest experiences in our personal life have their beneficent Divine intent. Every cloud has its "silver lining." Our keenest sorrows often prove to be "celestial benedictions in a dark disguise." God’s "thought of peace" is at the heart of all our earthly tribulations (Hebrews 12:6-11). III. THE ISSUE ALWAYS GOD’S AND WAYS. The "expected end," when it comes, never fails to solve the mystery of the path that led to it. The gracious purpose, hidden in the secrecy of the Eternal Mind, veiled under many forms of dark disguise, is then made manifest. God is his own Interpreter, and the day of his glorious self-vindication will surely come. "His ways are love—though they transcend Our feeble range of sight, They wind through darkness to their end In everlasting light." BY D. YOUNG Jeremiah 29:1-7 The letter to the captives. Notice the mention of those who bore this letter. We may conclude they were not mere messengers having no interest in the message they conveyed, but those who themselves would have much to say over and above what was written. I. GOD’S FOR HIS PEOPLE IN THEIR . He not only means to bring that captivity to an end in his own time, but while it lasts it is to be made as little like captivity as possible. It was not enough that he should leave the nation in Babylon till the time of his chastisement expired. While they remained there, they were to have the largest opportunities compatible with the circumstances in which he had found it necessary to place them. And so when the circumstances of any life are untoward, when perhaps we have made them so by our own folly, God shows his solicitude that we should nevertheless have peace in our own hearts, and such ample guidance as may turn even the untoward into the helpful. God will not banish circumstances merely because we find them hard; but this we may always be sure of, that he will enable us to make the very best of them. II. GOD’S OF HIS PART IN THIS ABOUT. He had caused his people to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon. The place of their present abode was by his arrangement. It was their own fault as a nation that they had had to leave Jerusalem; but it was in God’s own wisdom that they were planted in Babylon rather than another place. Clearly to perceive that the omnipotent God was disposing their outward relations, would enable them to listen all the more attentively to what instructions he had to give them for making the best of their present circumstances. III. GOD’S PLAN FOR THE PROFIT AND COMFORT OF THE PRESENT . The people are plainly told that they are to be there for seventy years. No energy of their own can get them away a year sooner; and no might of their captors can keep them a year later. Hence it is the true wisdom to accept the divinely settled position. No man among them was to neglect the possibilities of his brief temporal life by reason of a baseless expectation that he might soon return to his own land. He might indeed say," If I show signs of settling down here, I shall be reckoned a very poor patriot." And so over against all temptations to restlessness and utter waste of existence there is this explicit direction from Jehovah. If any Israelites lives a wasted life in Babylon it will be his own fault. So to speak, God makes Babylon, for the time, a sort of substitute for the promised land. If the Israelite has only sufficient of the spirit of true faith and obedience in him, he may make even the land of captivity a place of blessing. For the nation Babylon was a mere place of sojourning, but for the individual it was to be his chief abode on earth. Hence the loving-kindness of God is manifest in telling him he might build a house and make a home and plant fields, thus settling down to a useful and cheerful life. IV. GOD’S WILL WITH REGARD TO THE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND BABYLON. Israel was to seek the peace of Babylon. It was to support everything that promoted peace and security. Naturally Israel would expect to find its chance in the difficulties of Babylon. If any formidable foe threatened the country, or the equal danger of civil war, it might only too easily seem to Israel that this would give the chance for liberty. But so far from this being really the case, God assures his people that Babylon’s peace is their peace. This sets before us a principle of action which Christian people cannot too diligently observe. While it is true that we are not of this world, but must constantly rise superior to its habits and maxims, yet at the same time we cannot do too much to maintain the stability of governments and the public order of the land in which we live. While Christ would have us turn away from the cant of what is called patriotism, he would also have us to abhor everything that tends to anarchy. While the Spirit of God promotes the highest individuality, he also promotes the greatest order (1 Timothy 2:1-4).—Y. This and the three next chapters form a kind of book in themselves, which contrasts admirably with Jermiah 27-29. In the latter Jeremiah aimed at casting down the delusive hope that the time of trial would soon be over and the captives restored; here he assumes that all are aware of the sad reality, and concentrates himself on the happier topics of comfort and encouragement. Jeremiah 30:1-24; Jeremiah 31:1-40. shine out among all Jeremiah’s prophecies; there is a combination of softness and vigour which, even from a purely literary point of view, is most attractive. Strictly speaking, they ought to form but one chapter; they represent (as verse 4 states) the revelation from Jehovah "concerning Israel and concerning Judah." It is, indeed, most touching, this yearning of the inspired prophet for the reunion of the two branches of the nation (comp. Jeremiah 3:1-4:2). A "union in spirit" was not enough for him; there must be a visible drawing together, to prove to all men that, as God is one, so his people is one. God’s love is imperishable, and, his election of Israel cannot be reversed. The very extent of Israel’s misery is a pledge that her God will not leave her to herself too long. And how is the restoration of Israel to be conceived? Surely nothing less than a new covenant will satisfy the conditions of the problem—a new covenant written in the heart. Something akin to this encouraging prophecy may be traced here and there in earlier chapters (see Jeremiah 3:14-19; Jeremiah 16:14, Jeremiah 16:15; Jeremiah 23:3-8; but here the prophet is entirely absorbed in that glorious future which could alone save him from utter despondency. Jeremiah 30:2 Write thee all the words … in a book. The form of expression leaves it doubtful whether a summary of all Jeremiah’s previous discourses is intended, or merely of the promises concerning Israel and Judah which he had just received. There are, no doubt, numerous allusions to preceding chapters, but verse 5 seems rather to favour the latter view. The word rendered "book" will equally suit a short discourse like the present (comp. Jeremiah 51:60) and a large collection of prophecies as in Jeremiah 36:2. Observe, the discourse was to be written down at once, without having been delivered orally; it was to be laid up as a pledge that God would interpose for his people (comp. Isaiah 30:8; Habakkuk 2:2, Habakkuk 2:3). Jeremiah 30:5-11 The great judgment of Israel’s deliverance. It is nothing less than the "day of Jehovah" which the prophet sees in spirit—a day which is "great" (Jeremiah 30:7; comp. Joe 2:11; Zephaniah 1:14) and terrible (Jeremiah 30:5, Jeremiah 30:6; comp. Amos 5:18, Amos 5:20; Isaiah 13:6; Joe 2:1, Joe 2:11) for Israel, a day of "trouble" (Jeremiah 30:7), but for his enemies of destruction. Jeremiah 30:5 A voice of trembling; rather, a sound of trembling, a sound causing men to tremble; doubtless it is "the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war" (Jeremiah 4:19). Of fear, and not of peace; rather, there is fear, and no peace. "Peace," as usual, means the harmony of a well ordered, secure, and peaceful community. Literally, it is wholeness; its opposite is "breaking," i.e. outward ruin and inward anguish. Jeremiah 30:6 Whether a man doth travail with child. Great, indeed, must be the terror when no adequate figure suggests itself but that of a woman in her pangs (comp. Jeremiah 6:24; Jeremiah 13:21; Jeremiah 22:23; Isaiah 13:8). All faces are turned into paleness. So Joel (Joe 2:6) and Nahum (Nahum 2:10), "All faces withdraw their colour." For "paleness" the Septuagint has "jaundice"—a possible meaning of the Hebrew; comp. χλωρὸς, "pale, bilious looking’’ in medical writings, but properly "greenish-yellow," like the Hebrew noun. Jeremiah 30:7 That day; i.e. "the day of Jehovah," the day of the great judgment upon the world, of which the fall of Babylon is regarded as the opening scene. It is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; rather, and a time of distress shall it be (even) to Jacob. Jeremiah 30:8 His yoke. Not that imposed by the enemy (as Isaiah 10:22 and Isaiah 14:25 might suggest), but that suffered by Jacob. This is clear from the last clause of the verse. Jeremiah 30:9 David their king; viz. the "righteous Branch" or "Plant" of Jeremiah 23:5. Jeremiah 30:10, Jeremiah 30:11 Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, etc. These two verses, omitted in the Septuagint, are among the passages which Hitzig (carrying out an idea of Movers) attributes to the editorial hand of the author (a pious Jew of the Captivity, according to him) of Isaiah 40-66; and it cannot be denied that the tone and phraseolegy of Isa 66:10 is more akin to that of Isa 40:1-31:66, than to those of the greater part of Jeremiah. Graf, in controverting Hitzig’s view, points out, however, that the expressions referred to by Hitzig as "Deutero-Isaianic," are also found in other books besides the latter part of Isaiah, and that, on the other hand, "the expressions of verse 11 are all as foreign to Isaiah 40-66, as they are current in Jeremiah." As for the expression, "my servant Jacob." (which. only occurs again in Jeremiah in the duplicate of this passage, Jeremiah 46:27, Jeremiah 46:28, and which is specially characteristic of the second part of Isaiah), it is worth noticing that it is found once in the Book of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37:25), which, on Hitzig’s theory, was written before the so called Second Isaiah. It still remains for the student to consider whether these two verses are not an insertion by some later hand (without attempting to discover whose that hand was). That the prophetic writings have received additions from editors and scribes is a fact which cannot reasonably be gainsaid, supported as it is by the phenomena of the historical books. It would be very natural for a pious Jew in the Captivity, not wholly devoid himself of the spirit of prophecy, to encourage his people, in the Name of the Lord, with this glowing word of promise. Jeremiah 30:11 In measure; rather, according to what is just; i.e. not capriciously, to satisfy a feeling of revenge such as the untaught mind is apt to ascribe to God (see on Jeremiah 10:24). And will not, etc.; rather, for I cannot. Jeremiah 30:12-17 Miserable indeed is the condition of Israel! No wonder; for its sins were great. And yet, just because it is so forlorn, Jehovah will interpose for its relief. Jeremiah 30:12 For thus saith, etc. If the two preceding verses are a later insertion, we must render, But surely (more strictly, surely, but particles of asseveration easily acquire an adversative force from the context). Bright, indeed, is the prospect for Judah, "but surely" his present condition is very much the reverse; comp. Isaiah 9:1 (Authorized Version," nevertheless"). Thy bruise is incurable, etc. One of Jeremiah’s characteristic repetitions (see Jeremiah 10:19; Jeremiah 14:17; Jeremiah 15:18). That thou mayest be bound up. This rendering follows the accents. But the mixture of figures is very incongruous. It is much better to connect the words a little differently and to render, for thy sore thou hast no medicines (nor any) plaster. Jeremiah 30:14 All thy lovers; i.e. the peoples confederate with thee (as Jeremiah 22:20). Jeremiah 30:16 Therefore; i.e. because of the extremity of thy need. Comp. Isaiah 10:23, Isaiah 10:24, "The Lord Jehovah Sabaoth shall make a consumption Therefore be not afraid of Assyria;" and Isaiah 30:17, Isaiah 30:18, "At the rebuke of five shall ye flee …. And therefore will Jehovah wait, that he may be gracious unto you." Jeremiah 30:17 Restore health; rather, apply a bandage. They called thee an Outcast. Jehovah, speaking after the manner of men. cannot bear to hear his enemies, as they pass along, scornfully denominating the holy city an Outcast. Jeremiah 30:18-22 A picture of the regenerate commonwealth of Israel. Jeremiah 30:18 Upon her own heap; rather, upon her own mound, the tell or eminence on which an Eastern town was built (comp. Joshua 11:13, where "in their strength" should rather be "on their own mound"). Shall remain; rather, shall be inhabited. Jeremiah 30:19 (Comp. this verse with Jeremiah 33:11.) Out of them; i.e. out of city and palace. They shall not be few; rather, not be diminished. They shall not be small; rather, not be lightly regarded. Jeremiah 30:20 Their children; rather, his children; i.e. the "children of Israel." Jeremiah 30:21 The future rulers of Israel shall be of the native stock, not foreign tyrants. Their nobles; rather, his noble one, a synonym for "his ruler," i.e. the (earthly) king of Israel. It is remarkable that no reference is made here to the Messiah, who, in fact, is not as conspicuous a figure in the prophecies of Jeremiah as in those of Isaiah. And yet even in Isaiah there is one striking prophecy in which the inspired seer uses language not (in the hands of a literalist) reconcilable with the prospect of the personal Messiah. The Messiah appears, as it were, in a lightning flash, and then disappears for a time. The prophecy of Isaiah referred to is Isaiah 32:1, Isaiah 32:2 (comp. Jeremiah 33:17), in which the prospect of a truly God-fearing king, with princes of the same high character, entirely occupies the mind of the writer. "Nothing indicates that the Messiah is intended; king and princes are placed quite on a level, in accordance with the actual state of things under the so called monarchy.’’ And I will cause him to draw near. It is doubtful whether Israel or Israel’s ruler is referred to. A priestly relation (such as "drawing near" implies, see Numbers 16:5) might be predicated of either, at any rate in the regenerate form of the Israelitish commonwealth; but it is more natural to suppose the ruler to be here indicated, for it is scarcely descriptive enough to say that he shall belong to the chosen people. Who is this that engaged his heart; rather, that pledgeth his heart (or, courage); i.e. that ventureth. The rejection of thee old line of Davidic kings might well raise the thought that the intimate relation between Jehovah and his earthly representative for Israel, promised of old to David (2 Samuel 7:1-29.), could no longer be hoped for. But with this renewed promise the kings of the new Davidic line may venture to "draw near;" otherwise—who is he that ventureth? Jeremiah 30:22 This verse is omitted in the Septuagint, and (unless the existence of later insertions is denied altogether) is all but certainly due to a later hand (comp. Jeremiah 7:23). Comp. on Jeremiah 30:10,Jeremiah 30:11. Jeremiah 30:23, Jeremiah 30:24 These verses occur in a form evidently more original in Jeremiah 23:19, Jeremiah 23:20. In all probability they were first inserted from memory in the margin, and then incorporated into the text at a time subsequent (how long subsequent we cannot say) to Jeremiah. Scripture-the written Word of God. Jeremiah was required to write his prophecy in a book. Israel had received the Law first by a voice of thunder, but the voice was followed by the writing on the tables of stone (Exodus 34:1). St. John was commanded to write his vision in a book (Revelation 1:11). Without definite commands of this character, prophets and apostles, historians and evangelists, have committed to writing what they knew and taught. Thus we have a written revelation, a Bible. We may see the great value of this without becoming guilty of bibliolatry, or lowering our spiritual conceptions to slavish subservience to the "letter that killeth." I. THE VALUE OF , AS THE WORD OF GOD IN WRITING. 1. Accuracy. Words may be spoken in haste, under excitement; a book is presumably considered and reconsidered, its words weighed and measured. "Writing makes an exact man" (Bacon). 2. Permanence. The spoken word may soon be forgotten, or it may be recollected imperfectly with unconscious embellishments and deficiencies. The written word can be studied carefully and at leisure. 3. Publicity. The spoken word is heard only by one audience, present in one place, at one time. The written word is capable of being spread over a wider area. If but one copy is written, this can be sent about and frequently reread to various hearers, like the circular letters of the New Testament. But the book can be copied, and thus the area of its influence enlarged. Since the invention of printing, and with the facilities for multiplying and cheapening the production of books, this extensive influence of literature beyond that of speech has been immensely increased. 4. Transmission to the future. The spoken word dies with the breath that utters it; the written word can be treasured for ages, and transmitted to distant generations. The orator is peculiarly a man of his own age; the literary genius belongs to all time. If the Divine Word had been handed down only by tradition we know how terribly it must have been corrupted. We in these later days can enjoy its fresh power because it is crystallized in literature, because prophecy has become Scripture. II. THE WAY IN WHICH WE SHOULD DEAL WITH THAT THE WORD OF GOD. Several duties and wise courses of action are suggested by the fact that the Word of God is written in a book, viz.: 1. Care to preserve the purity of the text. Correct readings and accurate renderings of this are of first importance, since they guard the thoughts of God from perversion. 2. Reverence for the authority of Scripture. If we believe that it embodies the words and ideas of God, we shall feel that, even when it teaches spiritual principles which we cannot as yet see well established, it has a claim to be listened to with the reverence of the ignorant pupil for his wiser master. As far as it brings before us God’s thoughts, it must be read and examined and estimated by quite a different standard from that by which we decide questions of purely human literature. 3. Diligence in searching the Scriptures. The Bible is to be used. It is not to be treated as many men treat the classics, "without which no gentleman’s library can be complete," but as a text book, a book of daily reference. It must also be inquired into. There are mines of spiritual wealth to dig, things new as well as things old that a well furnished scribe can bring out of it. There is in it "milk for babes, and meat for strong men," and the latter needs to be "read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested," if we would profit by it. 4. Care to extract the spiritual thought from the visible letter. The letter is human, the form of speech is human. It is the spiritual idea that is Divine, and this is the most important thing to us. This is the real and eternal truth, the Word of life and power. We need an inspiration ourselves to help us to peel off the husk of speech, and find the precious kernel of Divine thought beneath. Fear not. I. WHY ISRAEL MIGHT FEAR. For various reasons, viz.: 1. Present trouble. Already some had been led into exile. What was thus experienced seemed to presage future and worse distress. Grief tends to despondency. In disappointment we are ready to think that all things must grow worse and worse. 2. The anticipation of necessary punishment. This is confirmed in the prophetic message—’’ for I cannot leave thee altogether unpunished." Guilt is the parent of fear. "Conscience makes cowards of us all." 3. Incurable wretchedness. (Jeremiah 30:12.) Left to themselves, the people were in a hopeless condition. (1) They could not cure their moral disease; Josiah’s abortive reformation was a proof of this. (2) They could not cure their external distress; it was vain to attempt to break the yoke of great Babylon. 4. Solitude. "All thy lovers have forgotten thee" (Jeremiah 30:14). In the hour of trial boon companions fall away and leave their wretched comrade forlorn and helpless. The soul must face its darkest trouble alone. While society dispels fear, the silence and desertion of loneliness provoke it. It is not surprising, therefore, that with so many concurrent incentives to fear Israel should be overwhelmed with it, nor is it surprising that similar causes should produce a similar effect among us. Yet it is not the less deplorable. Fear is an evil. It is distressing beyond measure. The vague and threatening spectres of horror that haunt the imagination of the soul when it is a slave to fear may be far more painful than the real evils of which they are the magnified shadows.. But fear is injurious as well as painful. It paralyzes effort, dissuades from dangerous tasks of duty, drives to rash and foolish resorts for escape. It is important to see if so sad and injurious a condition can be avoided. II. WHY ISRAEL SHOULD NOT FEAR. For various reasons, viz.: 1. The security of God’s service. Israel was God’s servant. It is reasonable to suppose that God will protect and save those whom he honours with his name and calls to his work. 2. The promise of ultimate deliverance. "Lo, I will save thee from afar," etc. Fear may threaten now, but rest and quietude will come in the future. Fear must be overcome by hope, the darkness of the near future triumphed over by the exceeding brightness of the greater future. We shall not fear what the world can do against us when we live in the hope of what eternity will do for us. Looking at ourselves, we see our wounds incurable, and we despair; looking at the good Physician, we see the promise of health, and we hope. 3. The assurance of the presence of God. "For I am with thee." Thus Abraham was not to fear because God was his "Shield, and exceeding great Reward’ (Genesis 15:1); and David could say, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" (Psalms 23:4). When hope fails faith may yet be strong. Better than the vision of the future haven far over the waves are the strong hand and sure eye of the pilot with us in the storm. When the hope of heaven fails faith in God may still sustain us. 4. A knowledge of the limitation and good purpose of suffering. This is (1) given to correct, either as chastisement for sin, or as pruning to make the fruit bearing branch more fruitful; and (2) given only in just measure, not beyond desert, requirement, or endurance. If we have these reasonable thoughts about our troubles they will not be able to conjure up the terrors of illimitable distress which they naturally inspire when we do not see that they are controlled by purposes of Divine goodness. Divine healing. I. GOD IS THE GREAT HEALER OF HIS PEOPLE. 1. God is not satisfied to leave his people unhelped in sin and wretchedness. We may grow accustomed to the evil of the world till we pass it unheeded. But it is not so with the Father of us all. He cannot endure the perpetual continuance of the wretchedness we accept (for others) with so little concern. 2. God designs to restore his people. It would seem easier to destroy the old weary world and create a new world, than to redeem and restore that which is so abandoned. But it is the glory of the gospel that it seeks and saves the lost. 3. The restoration of God’s people can only be effected through the healing of them. Israel cannot be restored to the Holy Land until the people are healed of their unholiness, and restored to God spiritually. Men are too ready to regard redemption externally as a change of state, a deliverance from distress and ruin, a gift of blessings, heaven, etc. It is all this, but not primarily. In the first and chief place redemption is healing, is not a change of circumstances, but a change in the soul itself. The richest possessions are of little use to the sick man. The sick body needs health, not wealth; and the sick soul needs healing before all external changes of condition. 4. It is a great thing to see the source of this healing in God. No soul can cure itself. No man can heal his fellow. The disease is naturally incurable (Jeremiah 30:12). It is healed only by God and through a miracle. The miracles of Christ are thus visible parables of his great work of redemption. The good Physician saves men’s souls by working miracles of spiritual healing upon them. II. THE OF HIS PEOPLE’S GOD TO HEAL THEM. Because Israel is called "an Outcast," God interferes to save him. David prays that God will pardon his iniquity, "for it is great" (Psalms 25:11). We feel that our sin is so great that we dare not ask for forgiveness, our wretchedness so abject that it is useless to seek for deliverance. But we may reverse the argument. The greater the sin the more does it need forgiveness, the deeper the misery the more loudly does it call for help. As claims of merit we have nothing. But when we look for pleas for mercy we find that the very bitterness of distress creates them. As the Judge, God cannot be invoked to help the sinner; as the Healer, he is most ready to come in the deepest need. The reasons for this are apparent. 1. The love of God. Love is moved by need rather than by desert. If God loves his children he will be most ready to help in their sorest distress. 2. The honour of God. The people who were called by the Name of God were also called "outcasts." Here was a reproach on the great Name of their God. For his Name’s sake God saves. 3. The special design of redemption. The physician finds his vocation in the healing art. Sickness is a call for the exercise of special functions. The worse the patient is, the more may he expect of the physician’s care and attention. "They that are whole need not the physician." He is the helper of the sick. Therefore the very greatness of a man’s sin and wretchedness, instead of discouraging his faith, should encourage him to seek Christ. They who are in such circumstances may know that they are the very persons Christ chiefly seeks to help. Jeremiah 30:18-21 Joys of redemption. The joys of the restoration of Israel are suggestive of the joys of redemption which belong to those who have been healed of their sins and recovered to the favour of God. Let us consider some of the elements of these joys. I. A TO LOST RIGHTS AND . The city is to be built again "upon her own mound." The people not only find the vines they grow in Chaldea fruitful; they are restored to their own land. The prodigal would not have been satisfied if his comrades had helped him to affluence and pleasure again; he must return to the old home. There is something imperfect in the return of prosperity to Job in the fact that though he has greater riches and as many sons and daughters as before his calamities, his dead children are not raised from the grave, and the loss of them cannot be really compensated by the gift of a new family. So is it with earthly losses. The greatest are irretrievable. But the glory of God’s ultimate salvation is that it restores old lost blessings as well as gives new blessings, beth comforting memory and satisfying hope. II. AN OF INWARD AND . The true life is the inner life. Outward sunshine may find this black as midnight, and leave it so. It is much, therefore, to know that redemption from sin brings real gladness. We might have thought that it would have been haunted with dark memories. But God’s deliverance is so complete that it dispels the gloom of a guilty conscience. The Christian should, therefore, be a man of inward joys and thankfulness. III. AN OF POWER AND GLORY. The exiles were scattered and their wealth and influence lost; the return at first promised little satisfaction to the poor and feeble band of patriots that attempted to rebuild the ruins of the ancient nation. But great promises encouraged the faithful to believe that ultimately their numbers would be multiplied, that they should have glory, and not "be lightly regarded," and should be ruled by men of their own people of noble and royal orders. The Christian Church began, like restored Israel, in a small and humble sphere. But she has grown marvellously, and is destined to grow in numbers, in power, and in glory. Redemption is a work worthy of God; no meagre saving of a few as "by the skin of their teeth," but a work of right royal magnificence, calling multitudes to its blessings, and giving them liberty and honour for their old shame and bondage. The Christian receives more than salvation; he is an heir of glory. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 30:1-3 Written in a book; or, words held over. The portion of these prophecies here referred to (probably Jeremiah 30:1-24; Jeremiah 31:1-40.) contains the most tender expressions of the Divine love. It is full of revelations of the deep unalterable affection and gracious purpose of God for his people, even when they were as yet unrepentant. They are regarded in it as sorrowing for their sin, and returning spiritually to him who restored them to their land. Now, many of these statements it would have been inexpedient for the exiles to hear, whilst as yet they showed no sign of contrition. The prophet is therefore bidden to write them in a book, that they may be read at the fitting season. The words of Christ, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," are strikingly parallel. This command impresses us with— I. THE FULNESS OF THE DIVINE WORD. It is not one communication but many, and under circumstances of the utmost conceivable variety. Not in one book but many—a library, representing every stage of human history and spiritual progress. No age or exigency of human nature has found God silent. How great is the multitude of his messages! How many words have been spoken and acted that have not been recorded (cf. John 21:25)! The written book is like a vessel let down into the great ocean of the unwritten words and deeds of the Eternal. II. GOD’S CARE AND WITH RESPECT TO IT. This prophecy was to be preserved in a book, that no portion of it should be allowed to perish until its fitting time should arrive. The words it contained were all precious, and of pregnant significance in the future of the Church and the world. The adaptation of the prophecy is not less striking. It would not bear public announcement at the time of its communication to the prophet, and it might have imperilled his life; but it occurred then in the natural order of God’s thought and purpose; by and by the people would be in a better mood and frame to consider it; therefore it was held over. It is written in a book that it may present a faithful transcript of the Divine thought. The progress of revelation has been slow; but that is not the fault of the Revealer, but the necessity imposed by the conditions of human progress. "In the fulness of the time God sent forth his Son" (Galatians 4:4; cf. 1 Peter 1:20). III. THE REASONS THERE MAY BE FOR THE DARK OF . Who in these stem times could tell the depth of the tenderness of God? It is necessary on such occasions to appeal to the fears of transgressors. The most awful calamities that befall the Church and the individual Christian are inflicted in love; but that love cannot express itself until the requirements of righteousness have been satisfied. The soul that is afflicted ought, therefore, to submit itself to the mighty hand of God, and wait patiently for light. The best wine is kept to the last; the gospel interprets all antecedent revelations. IV. THE RICHES OF THAT AWAIT THE OF THE SAINTS. There are educative, wayfaring truths; and there are truths at which we are to arrive in the end of our growth and pilgrimage. Truth is not only prospective but reflective; not only directive to the feet of the Christian, but revealing the mind and heart of God. How much is held over until these earthly days are ended (cf. 1 Corinthians 13:12)?—M. The twofold wonder ,of Israel’s salvation. I. THE OF ITS ENEMIES. 1. Because of their strength. The enemies of Israel, especially Babylon, were very strong. But they contained within themselves the elements of their own destruction. It is a property of the world, in all its aspects, to appear strong and real and stable. This illusion must be dissipated in order to the free spiritual development of God’s children; therefore Christ has said, "Be not afraid; I have overcome the world." How many and how great have been the foes of the Church, and the individual saint! yet has God reduced them to nothingness. 2. Because of the manner of their punishment. Evidently more than one nation is referred to here, and they are dealt with in sovereign authority. "The nations are but as a drop in a bucket." (1) Their guilt towards Israel determines the measure of their requital. The Church is the centre and pivot of the world’s destiny. In it and for its sake the world is judged (cf. Matthew 25:40, Matthew 25:45). (2) The degrees of punishment will correspond to the guilt. Even in vast concerns and through long time God observes an exact and equitable rule of award. II. ITS OWN . This was to be not only partial but complete, and was to be a terror to the onlooking nations. 1. Nothing could be more unlikely at the time this was spoken. This was a part of the wonder of God’s saving power, and a vindication of his agency. 2. That which men despised and neglected God raised up. He thereby proved the freedom of his grace, and demonstrated the impossibility of salvation by works. The matchless condescension and infinite love of God were proved in this, that Zion deservedly rejected is nevertheless restored. The power was of God. Nothing is so abject as a spiritual organism without the Spirit of God; nothing is so glorious or sufficient when the Spirit of God is present. 3. The historic accomplishment of this was to be outdone by the spiritual. Evidently the reference is through the immediately impending event to the spiritual future of the Messiah. God’s goodness has ever some higher possibility sheathed in its first expressions. The imperfect efforts of Nehemiah and his colleagues but shadow forth the achievements of the cross. The new Israel will be incomparably more holy, powerful, and blessed than the old. Daily are the miracles of his saving mercy being performed; "the chief of sinners," the fallen, the outcast, are being welcomed into the company of the redeemed and regenerate.—M. The multitude of God’s mercies. A rapid and brilliant enumeration of the characteristics of national glory and human happiness and well being. Representative and suggestive, but not exhaustive. I. . Set forth with great distinctness, as one might in a legal document; and yet a complete and comprehensive view of a nation’s restoration. 1. Return of the people to their own land. (Jeremiah 30:18.) The representatives of those who had been exiled would be brought back. The shifty and uncertain character of their sojourning ("tents") in a strange land would be exchanged for a settled, civic life. As an outward symbol of this Jerusalem would be rebuilt upon its ruins. "He that made of the city a heap (Isaiah 25:1) can when he pleaseth make of a heap a city again" (Henry). The habits and customs, the public order and life of God’s people, are important as being sacred even as their specially religious observances, and are therefore cared for. True religion is not merely to sojourn in the world, but to dwell there, and influence permanently the conditions and usages of human life. Nothing less than the reconstitution of human society is herein sought (cf. John 17:15). 2. Restoration of religious institutions. (Jeremiah 30:18-20.) Of these the chief, centre, and condition of all the rest—the temple, or "palace"—is first referred to. From its conspicuous and characteristic position amongst the public buildings of the city, it is mentioned in connection with its rebuilding. Because of its presence therein the latter is also sacred; and so it is said, "Out of them shall proceed," etc. The great festivals are to be restored. Worship, in its most imposing and joyous forms, will be celebrated; and this supposes for its possibility the presence in Israel of a religious, self-governing community. The spiritual training of the people will be resumed (Jeremiah 30:20). Much attention was always devoted by pious Jews to the upbringing of their children, who are here promised to be "as aforetime," i.e. as Jewish children were wont to be according to the covenant, strictly and piously brought up. In this a fresh security is afforded of the religions and social prosperity of God’s people. The Church can never afford to ignore the upbringing of the children. As it is a positive injunction ("Feed my lambs"), so is it a gracious privilege and favour granted to his servants that they should discharge it. The sunniest and most hopeful department of religious effort is that which relates to the young. "How is it your flowers are so grandly developed?" was asked of a gardener. "Chiefly," he replied, "because I take care of my seedlings." The sacred community of Israel will also thereby be increased and established. New, trained members will be supplied for the spiritual offices, and the ordinary membership of the congregation. It is observable that the chief increase of the Church is thus implied to be from within itself. And so it must be today. 3. National prosperity. This appears in the first place as social well being. The family life will be greatly blessed, and the population multiplied. It is a result of moral order, etc; and also a means of securing and extending the influence of righteousness. In the next place is political freedom. Tyranny will be abolished (Jeremiah 30:20); and their ruler shall be one of themselves, representing their aims and aspirations, and not imposed upon them by a foreign conqueror. Lastly, political influence will extend abroad (Jeremiah 30:19). 4. Covenant relations will be renewed. (Jeremiah 30:22.) This is the culminating and all-comprehensive blessing. Whilst the preceding suppose this, they are really but as antecedents to its complete realization. God will then recognize his people, and regard them with complacency. Neither will be ashamed of the other. II. RELATED. How essential is it that human life, in its interests and activities, should be regarded as a whole, the secular with the religious, the duty with the right, the responsibility with the privilege! It is a distinct loss when one portion of it is taken apart from the others and concentrates attention upon itself. Here we have a grand ideal for the individual and the community: the life of man, to be complete and healthy in its development, must extend indefinitely outwards and upwards. The deepest reverence for truth, righteousness, and God is consistent with the truest liberty. The blessings and good things of life, to be truly enjoyed, must be received as sacramental; as the outcome and expression of communion between man and God.—M. The ideal ruler. The immediate reference is to Zerubbabel and the elders who returned from the Captivity; but there is a larger significance than any merely human personage could exhaust or satisfactorily correspond to. There can be no doubt as to the Messianic character of this promise. But it is precisely the vagueness of the reference, the primary uncertainty as to who it was to be in whom all the hope of Israel was to be realized, that constituted the moral force of the prediction. In Israel was the secular government to be identified with and crowned by the moral and spiritual; but to the very last was it kept in reserve as to whether or not the kingdom thus foretold was to be of this world. Jesus Christ had himself to declare the real essence and nature of his kingdom. He constituted the ideal Ruler of Israel— I. IN HIS TO HIS . 1. He was to be of the same kindred. A stronger guarantee of the Divine favour could not be given. No foreigner was to hold permanent sway over the Israel of God. In one of themselves the holy people would find a legitimate centre for loyal attachment and patriotic devotion. That from their own midst their Prince should spring was proof that their independence, liberty, and national individuality should be preserved. He would therefore represent its honour, and secure for himself the strongest personal attachment. The hopes of the race would be embodied in such a personage, who would vitally perpetuate its glory. 2. He was to be allied to them in their experience and sympathies. As their fellow countryman he will understand their aims and aspirations, By the vicissitudes of their fortune his sympathies will be drawn forth, and he will share the enthusiasm of their future. In Jesus Christ these conditions were fulfilled. II. IN HIS . "To draw near" is used in a priestly or mediatorial sense. Israel as a people, or as represented in its ruler, was to have this privilege conferred upon it. A Divine as well as a human qualification is therefore requisite for the perfect governor; he must not only belong to the people but he must please God. 1. The grace of God will rest upon him and work within him. Of Zerubbabel in the first instance, but much more of Christ, is this statement true. He was "full of grace and truth," He is the great Temple builder and Restorer of the kingdom; and he is the Accepted of God: "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased" (Luke 3:22). 2. His own nature will respond to the Divine influence. He is to be one who "engages his heart to approach unto" God. Responsibility drives him to no rash or illegitimate expedients, but to a Divine trust and a desire to please his God. In all this there is evinced the utmost freedom (cf. Matthew 4:1; Matthew 16:22; Luke 12:50; John 12:27; Matthew 27:42). 3. The admiration and delight of God are to be called forth by him. "Who is this" etc.? is no inquiry for the sake of information, but an expression of complacency and satisfaction. This feeling finds frequent expression in the prophets, and is noticed in the Gospels. It is for the subjects of such a King to yield themselves to his rule, and identify themselves with his priestly intercession. It should be their great desire to be in him, "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Corinthians 2:1-16:30).—M. Jeremiah 31:1-6 The promise of Jer 30:22 is expressly declared to apply to both sections of the nation. Jehovah thus solemnly declares his purpose of mercy, and dwells with special Madness on the happy future of Ephraim. Jeremiah 31:2 The people which were left of the sword, etc.; literally, the people of those left of the sword. The expression clearly implies that the Jews at the time spoken of had escaped, or were about to escape, in some great battle or some other kind of slaughter. Hence the finding grace in the wilderness cannot refer to the sequel of the passage through the Red Sea, and we must perforce explain it of the second great deliverance, viz. from the Babylonian exile. This view is strongly confirmed by Jeremiah 51:50, where the Israelites who escape the predicted slaughter at Babylon are called "escaped ones from the sword," and exhorted to remember Jehovah and Jerusalem "afar off." The "wilderness" of the present passage, like the "afar off" of Jeremiah 51:1-64. (and of the next verse) seems to mean Babylon, which was, by comparison with the highly favoured Judah, a "barren and dry land" (comp. Psalms 63:1), a spiritual Arabia. It may be objected that the tense here is the perfect; but there is abundance of analogy for explaining it as the prophetic perfect. The restoration of the chosen people to favour is as certain in the Divine counsels as if it were already an event past. Even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest; rather, when I went to cause Israel to rest (literally, to cause him—Israel—to rest; but the pleonastic pronoun need not be represented in the English). Another possible and perhaps preferable rendering is, I will go to cause, etc. "Rest" could only be had in the consciousness of God’s favor. With all the outward property of many of the Jews in Babylon, there was no true "rest." Comp. Jeremiah 16:1-21, "Ask for the old paths.; and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls" (the same verbal root in the Hebrew for "rest" in both passages). Jeremiah 31:3 The Lord hath appeared of old unto me. The Church of the faithful Israel is the speaker. "From afar" (so we ought to render, rather than "of old") she sees Jehovah, with the eye of faith, approaching to redeem her; comp. Isaiah 40:10 and Isaiah 59:20 (only that in these passages it is to Jerusalem, and not to Babylon, that Jehovah "comes" as the Redeemer); also the promise in Jeremiah 30:10, "I will save thee from afar," and Jeremiah 51:50, quoted above. Saying, Yea, I have loved thee, etc. "Saying" is inserted to make the connection plainer. The genius of Hebrew does not require such a distinct indication of a change of speakers as our Western languages. For other instances of this, see Genesis 4:25; Genesis 26:7; Genesis 32:31; 1 Kings 20:34. With loving kindness have I drawn thee; rather, do I continue loving kindness unto thee. "To continue" is literally, to draw out at length. The idea is the same as that in the great prophecy which follows that of the suffering Saviour, "With everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee" (Isaiah 54:8; comp. Isaiah 54:10). Jeremiah 31:4 I will build thee. A nation, like a family, is frequently compared to a building (so Jeremiah 12:16; Jeremiah 24:6; comp. Ephesians 2:22). O virgin of Israel. The people of Israel is personified as a virgin (comp. Jeremiah 14:7). Adorned with thy tabrets, The expression will not, of course, bear to be logically criticized, for it was not the whole people who went out with "tabrets" or "timbrels," but the "damsels," who, it is true, formed an important part of religious processions (Psalms 68:25), and doubtless of secular ones also (comp. Judges 11:34). Joyousness is an essential part of the Biblical ideal both of religion and of a normal state of society: "The joy of the Lord is your strength." Jeremiah 31:5 The mountains of Samaria. "Samaria" is used, equally with Ephraim, for the northern kingdom. Shall eat them as common things; rather, shall enjoy the fruit. The word, however, literally means shall profane them. The more common phrase, "shall eat the fruit," occurs in Isaiah 65:21, where the same promise is given. The law was that newly planted fruit trees should be left alone for three years; that in the fourth year their fruit should be consecrated to God; and that in the fifth year their fruit might be "profaned," i.e. devoted to ordinary uses (comp. Deuteronomy 20:6; Deuteronomy 28:30). Jeremiah 31:6 The termination of the schism between north and south will be shown by the anxiety of the Ephraimites (see on "Samaria," Jeremiah 31:5) to take part with their brethren in the festival of the new moon. It was the custom, at any rate in later times, to station watchmen at elevated points to give notice of the first appearance of "the slender sickle, which shines so brightly in the clear Oriental heaven" Let us go up. Not with reference to the physical elevation of Jerusalem, for the phrase, "to go up," is used of an army withdrawing from Jerusalem (Jeremiah 21:2; Jeremiah 34:21). This seems to indicate that the term was sometimes used in a weakened sense, to which parallels might easily be given. These words, "Arise ye, and let us go up," etc; were, at a later period, the formula with which the leader of the pilgrims from any particular district summoned the members of his caravan to fall into the procession. Jeremiah 31:7-14 The restoration of Israel; its blessedness and joyousness. Jeremiah 31:7 Sing with gladness, etc. It is not stated who are addressed; but we may doubtless understand, from Isaiah 66:10, "all ye who love him," whether Jews or Gentiles. The latter, too, are interested in the restoration of Israel, because Israel is as it were a "priest" or mediator for the other nations (Isaiah 61:6). Among the chief of the nations; rather, because of the chief of the nations. Israel is called the "chief of the nations" (so, with a cognate word for "chief," in Amos 6:1) because Jehovah has" chosen" it as his peculium (to use the language of the Vulgate), Deuteronomy 7:6, and because no other nation "hath God so nigh unto them," and "hath statutes and judgments so righteous," as Israel (Deuteronomy 4:7, Deuteronomy 4:8). Jeremiah 31:8 The weakest among the Israelites will share the blessings with the strongest, even the blind and the lame (comp. Isaiah 33:23, "The lame take the prey"). Elsewhere we are told that, in the Messianic age, "the eyes of the blind shall see," and "the lame man shall leap as an hart" (Isaiah 35:5, Isaiah 35:6). Shall return thither; rather, hither; i.e. to Palestine, where Jeremiah writes this prophecy. The word for company is hahal, the proper word in the Pentateuch for the Israelitish national "congregation." Jeremiah 31:9 With weeping; i.e. with a joy dashed with sorrow at the thought of the sin which has rendered such an interposition necessary (comp. Jeremiah 31:18). Cause them to walk by the rivers of waters. The reference here is primarily to the homeward journey of the exiles, which shall be free from the trials of the first Exodus, but not exclusively (see on next verse). The question arises how this prediction is to be reconciled with facts. For, as Kimchi has remarked, we find no reference to miracles performed for the Jews who returned from Babylon. A twofold reply seems admissible. We may say either that to those who enjoy a vivid sense of the favour and protection of God no trial is grievous, no circumstances exclude an undercurrent of joy (comp. Psalms 23:1-6.); or that the prophecy is still waiting for its complete fulfilment, Israel having still a great future reserved for it upon its recognition of the true Messiah. In a straight way; or, in an even way, i.e. one free from hindrances. Comp. Ezra’s prayer (Ezra 8:21), and Psalms 107:7, in both of which passages "right" should probably be "even." Ephraim is my firstborn. It is doubted whether this simply means that Ephraim (i.e. North Israel) shall be in no respect inferior to Judah—a strong form of expression being chosen, on account of the longer continuance of Ephraim’s captivity; or whether it implies a restoration to the tribes of Joseph of the prerogative conferred upon the sons of Joseph (1 Chronicles 5:1, 1 Chronicles 5:2; comp. Genesis 48:15). The former view seems hardly consistent with the dignity of a prophetic writer. "Forms of expression," i.e. rhetorical phrases, may be admitted in poetical passages, but hardly in solemn prophetic revelations. It was true that Judah had "prevailed above his brethren;" but the original "gift of God" to Ephraim was "without repentance." With regard to the fulfilment of this prediction, we must remember that the remnant of the northern tribes whose faith was strong enough to induce them to profit by the edict of Cyrus, was smaller than that of the southern. Hence the outward signs of God’s favour to Ephraim could not be so great as they would have been had the moral conditions of the fulfilment of the promise been more fully complied with. Jeremiah 31:10 The isles; i.e. the distant countries of the West (see on Jeremiah 2:10). So great an event as the restoration of the chosen people would be of worldwide importance. He that scattered Israel will gather him, etc. "The Israelites were the flock of Jehovah (Psalms 77:20; Psalms 80:1), but during the Captivity a scattered and miserable flock. Jeremiah says that his eye ’shall run down with tears, because the flock of Jehovah is carried away captive’ (Jeremiah 13:17). The change in the fortunes of the Jews is compared by the prophets to a shepherd’s seeking his lost sheep, and feeding them again in green pastures (Jeremiah 31:10; Jeremiah 1:19; Ezekiel 34:11-16). The reference is not so much to the homeward journey of the exiles as to the state of temporal and spiritual happiness in which they would find themselves on their return. The same figures occur in a psalm, where a reference to the return from exile is excluded by the pre-exile date, ’ … feed them also, and carry them forever’ (Psalms 28:9)" (from the writer’s note on Isaiah 40:11). Jeremiah 31:12 Shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord; i.e. the Ephraimites, after praising God on the holy hill, shall spread themselves over their own territory like an overflowing stream, and enjoy the "goodness" or good gifts of Jehovah—the corn (not simply the wheat), the wine, the oil, etc. (comp. Deuteronomy 8:8). Sorrow; rather, languish. As Dr. Payne Smith well says, "It expresses the poverty and helplessness of exiles unable from homesickness and want of confidence to do anything with spirit. Restored to their homes, they will be as full of vigour as a garden irrigated with water under a Southern sun." Jeremiah 31:13 Young and old, men and women, shall give themselves up to joy and merriment, the centre of the mirth being the maidens with the timbrels (Jeremiah 31:4). Both young men and old together; rather, and young men and old (shall rejoice) together. Jeremiah 31:14 And I will satiate; literally, water (same word as in Psalms 36:8). The "fatness" means the fat parts of the thank offerings, which were given to the priests (Le Jeremiah 7:34). Satisfied. "Satiated" would be a happier rendering. The word is different from that rendered "satiate" just above. Jeremiah 31:15-22 From this glorious prospect Jeremiah’s eye turns to the melancholy present. The land of Ephraim is orphaned and desolate. The prophet seems to hear Rachel weeping for her banished children, and comforts her with the assurance that they shall yet be restored. For Ephraim has come to repentance, and longs for reconciliation with his God, and God, who has overheard his soliloquy, relents, and comes to meet him with gracious promises. Then another voice is heard summoning Ephraim to prepare for his journey home. This verse is quoted by St. Matthew (Matthew 2:17) with reference to the massacre of the innocents, with τότεἐπληρώθη prefixed. The latter formula of itself suggests that there was a previous fulfilment of the prophecy, but that the analogy of the circumstances of the innocents justifies—nay, requires—the admission of a second fulfilment. In fact, the promise of the Messianic age seemed in as much danger of being rendered void when Herod wreaked his fury on the children of Bethlehem, as when the tribes of Israel were scattered in exile. Dean Stanley finds a geographical inconsistency in the two passages. "The context of Jer 31:15 implies that the Ramah of the prophet was in the northern kingdom, probably Ramah of Benjamin. The context of Mat 2:18, on the other hand, implies that the Ramah of the evangelist was within sight of Bethlehem". But this remark involves the assumption that the quotation was not intended merely as an application. Jeremiah 31:15 A voice was heard; rather, is heard. It is a participle, indicating the continuance of the action. In Ramah. In the neighbourhood of which town Rachel was buried, according to 1 Samuel 10:2 ("the city" where Samuel and Saul were—1 Samuel 9:25—appears to have been Ramah). Rachel weeping for her children. Rachel ("Rahel" is only a Germanizing way of writing the name), being the ancestress of the three tribes, Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin, is represented as feeling like a mother for all the tribes connected with those three. Her "weeping" is no mere figure of speech. Jeremiah believes that the patriarchs and holy men of old continue to feel an interest in the fortunes of their descendants (comp. Isaiah 63:16). Jeremiah 31:16 Rachel is admonished to cease from weeping, because her work has not really been in vain; her children shall be restored. Thy work shall be rewarded. Like the Servant of the Lord, Rachel had said (though with the voiceless language of tears), "I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nought and in vain;" and like the ocean mother of Zidon, "I have not travailed, nor brought forth children, neither nourished up young men, nor brought up virgins" (Isaiah 23:4). Rachel’s work had been that of rearing up the patriarchs, "in whose loins" the tribes themselves were, in a certain sense. From the land of the enemy; i.e. from the countries of Israel’s dispersion. But in the spirit of St. Matthew, we may fill the passage with a higher meaning, of which the prophet (like Shakespeare sometimes) was unconscious, namely, "from death;" and the passage thus becomes an undesigned prophecy of the Resurrection. Jeremiah 31:17 Hope in thine end; rather, hope for thy future (comp. on Jeremiah 29:11). There is no occasion to render, with the Septuagint and Rosenmuller, "for thy posterity" (comp. Psalms 119:13, Hebrew); for Rachel identifies herself by sympathy with her descendants. Jeremiah 31:18, Jeremiah 31:19 The ground of this hope, viz. that Ephraim will humble himself with deep contrition. Jeremiah 31:18 As a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; literally, as an untaught calf (comp. Hosea 10:11). Turn thou me, etc. Jeremiah has a peculiarly deep view of conversion. Isaiah (Isaiah 1:16-20) simply calls upon his hearers to change their course of life; Jeremiah represents penitent Ephraim as beseeching God so to prepare him that he may indeed "turn." Jeremiah 31:19 After that I was turned, I repented; rather, after my turning away (as Jeremiah 8:4), I have repented. It is a different kind of "turning" which is here meant, a turning away from God. I was instructed; literally, I was made to know; i.e. brought to my senses by punishment. I smote upon my thigh; rather, I have smitten, etc. Ephraim describes his present state of mind, and the symbols by which he translates it into act. Smiting upon the thigh was a sign of mourning (comp. Ezekiel 21:17). I did bear, etc.; rather, I have borne, etc. The "reproach of Ephraim’s youth" is that which he brought upon himself in early times by his unfaithfulness to Jehovah. Jeremiah 31:20 The Divine speaker asks, as it were in surprise, whether Ephraim, who has so flagrantly sinned against him, can really be his dear (or, precious) son, his pleasant child (literally, child of caressing, i.e. one caressed). The latter expression occurs in a remarkable passage of Isaiah (Isaiah 5:7). Since I spake against him; rather, as often as I spake against him; i.e. as often as I pronounced sentence against Ephraim—such a sentence as is recorded in Isaiah 9:8-21 (where the future tenses should he perfects) and Isaiah 28:1-4. We must remember that, with God, to speak is to perform. Often as Jehovah punished Israel, he still remembered him in love—a love which was the pledge of his future restoration to favour upon his true repentance. I do earnestly remember; rather, I verily remembered. "To remember" is the Old Testament term for providential care (comp. Genesis 8:1; Genesis 19:29). My bowels are troubled; literally, sound, moan (so Isaiah 16:11; Isaiah 63:15). Something analogous to the thrilling sensation of deep human grief is predicated of Jehovah. Such is the "humility" of the God of revelation (Psalms 18:35; comp. Hosea 11:8). Jeremiah 31:21 Set thee up waymarks. The "virgin of Israel" is addressed. She is directed to mark out the road for the returning exiles. The command is obviously the. torical in form; the general sense is that the Israelites are to call to mind the road so familiar to their forefathers, though only known to themselves by tradition. The word rendered "waymarks" occurs again in 2 Kings 33:17 and Ezekiel 39:15. It apparently means a stone pillar, which might be used either as a waymark or a sepulchral monument. The high heaps seem to mean much the same thing; "signposts" would be a better rendering. Set thine heart toward the highway; rather, turn thy thoughts, etc; for the heart is here evidently the symbol of the intellectual rather than the moral life. A passage in the Psalms (Psalms 84:6) will occur to every one, in which a psalmist, longing at a distance for the services of the temple, pronounces blessed the man "in whose heart are the highways [to Zion];" here, it is true, "heart" has the double meaning of "mind" and "affections," but "highway" has almost exactly the same sense as in the passage before us. To these thy cities. The unseen speaker is supposed to be in Palestine. Jeremiah 31:22 How long wilt thou go about? We must suppose the Israelites to be hesitating whether to set out on their journey or not. They are now admonished to put away their rebellious reluctance, and a special reason for this is added. The Lord hath created—i.e. hath decreed to create—a new thing in the earth (or, in the land); comp. Isaiah 43:19 which suggests that a complete reversal of ordinary experience is indicated, as indeed the word create of itself prepares us to expect. And what is this promise granted as a sign to reluctant Israel? A woman shall compass a man; i.e. instead of shyly keeping aloof, or worse (as hitherto), Israel, Jehovah’s bride, shall, with eager affection, press around her Divine husband. The phrase, however, is extremely difficult. Of other explanations, the most plausible philologically is that of Schnurrer and Gesenius, "a woman shall protect a man" (comp. Deuteronomy 32:10). The part of a sentinel, pacing round and round his charge, seems most unfitted for a woman. When enemies are abroad, it is the men’s natural duty to perform this part for the women. But in the coming age, the country shall be so free from danger that the places of men and women may safely be reversed. But would a paradox of this kind be likely to be uttered in this connection? Surely a clearer statement would be necessary to remove the reluctance of the Israelites. Isaiah 43:19, Isaiah 43:20 suggest that Ephraim needed reassurance as to the attitude of Jehovah towards him. The promise of Isa 43:22, as explained above, would give precisely the needed strength and comfort. The exposition of St. Jerome and other Fathers, that the birth of Christ from a virgin is referred to, is altogether inadmissible, (1) because the nouns which form the subject and the predicate respectively indicate sex, not age, and the first in particular cannot be tortured so as to mean "virgin;" and (2) there is no article to confine the reference to any particular persons. Jeremiah 31:23-26 But the prophet would not have Judah suppose that Ephraim has supplanted her; she too shall be restored, and shall enjoy a happy pastoral and agricultural life. Jeremiah 31:23 As yet; rather, again (as Jeremiah 31:4). Mountain of holiness. Does this mean simply Mount Zion, or the whole highland country of Judah (scrap. Isaiah 11:9)? The former view is the safer; it is by no means clear that "mountain" in Isaiah or anywhere else in the Old Testament means the Holy Land. Jeremiah 31:24 The ideal of outward life exhibited by the prophets is still the agricultural and pastoral. Jeremiah puts this more forcibly than the Authorized Version represents. Instead of, And there shall dwell in Judah, etc; he says, And there shall dwell therein (viz. in the land) Judah and all his cities together as husbandmen, and they shall go about with flocks, i.e. they shall attend to their ancient pursuits without let or hindrance from invaders (comp. Isaiah 32:20). "Go about" (literally, break up) is the regular word for the periodical journeying of the nomad life. Jeremiah 31:25 For Jehovah will have fulfilled every unsatisfied craving. I have satiated (literally, watered) means "I have decreed to satiate;" it is the perfect of prophetic certitude, which represents an event as already having taken place in the Divine counsels. Sorrowful; rather, languishing (see on Jeremiah 31:12). Jeremiah 31:26 Upon this I awaked, etc. Who the speaker is here has been much debated. That Jehovah is meant is not an admissible view. A weak believer may say complainingly, "Why sleepest thou?" but God himself cannot be represented under the image of a sleeper. There seems, however, to be no reason why the prophet should not have used this language. The doubt is whether a real, physical sleep is meant, or merely an ecstatic condition resembling sleep. Hengstenberg decides for the latter. But there is no parallel for sleep in the sense of ecstasy, and, on the other hand, there is evidence enough for dreams as the channels of Divine revelation (Genesis 31:10, Genesis 31:11; 1 Kings 3:5; 1 Kings 9:2; Joe 2:28). As Naegelsbach points out, this is the only unqualifiedly comforting prophecy in the whole book, and may well have left a sweet savour in the prophet’s memory. Stern, indeed, was the reality which the moment of his waking brought back to him. Jeremiah 31:27-30 The physical side of the Messianic blessing. Its effect upon the heart of the pardoned sinners will be such that they will fully recognize the justice of the Divine judgments. There will no longer be any room for a certain favourite proverb; the death of a sinner will be universally acknowledged to be the reward of his personal sin (Keil). Jeremiah 31:27 I will sow, etc. The passage may be illustrated by Isaiah 26:18, where the Church of the restored exiles is represented as complaining that the land (of Judah) has not been brought into a state of security, and that inhabitants (in sufficient numbers) have not been begotten. Similarly here, only the tone of complaint is wanting. The thought has suggested itself—Will the Israelites of the latter days be sufficient to fill up the land? Yes, is the answer of revelation; for Jehovah will perform a wonder, and make the people and their cattle so prolific that it will seem as if children and young cattle grew up like plants. Jeremiah 31:28 As I have watched … so will I watch, etc. The allusion is to the twofold commission given to the prophet (Jeremiah 1:10), which was partly to pluck up and to destroy, partly to build and to plant. Jehovah has hitherto been "watchful" (another point of contact with Jeremiah 1:1-19.; see on Jeremiah 1:12) over the fulfilment of the destructive prophecies; he will now be equally zealous for that of the promises of regeneration. Jeremiah 31:29 Have eaten a sour grape; rather, sour grapes. The prophet (like Ezekiel, Ezekiel 18:1-32.) condemns the use of this proverb, and declares that the sinner is the artificer of his own ruin. At first sight, it may seem as if Jeremiah opposes the second commandment, which describes how God "visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children" (Exodus 20:5). This, however, cannot really be, for he endorses this declaration later on (Jeremiah 32:18). The fact is that he is not so much condemning the proverb, as the blasphemous application of it made by the Jews of his time. It is an eternal truth that sin perpetuates itself (except by the miracles of grace) in the children of transgressors, and intensified sin leads to intensified punishment. But the children of transgressors do not cease to be responsible for their own share in the sin;—this was the truth which Jeremiah’s contemporaries ignored. He does not deny the solidarity of the family or the race,but he superadds the neglected truth of the special responsibility of the individual. This is one among many evidences of the deepening sense of individual life in the later period of the Jewish monarchy. (A somewhat different view is offered by Delitzsch, ’Messianic Prophecies,’ § 50. According to him, Jeremiah looks forward to a time when the individual shall be liberated from the consequences of his solidarity with his race, and when personality shall be "invested with its rights." But can the individual be thus liberated?) Jeremiah 31:31-34 The new covenant. A prophecy which stands out from the rest of Jeremiah by its evangelical character, in which it strongly reminds us of parts of the second half of Isaiah. The doctrine of the covenant is "the thread which binds together the hopes and the fears of the prophet, his certainty of coming woe, his certainty of ultimate blessing." A covenant was granted of old, but that covenant had on man’s side been broken. Still "the gifts and calling of God are not to be retracted" (Romans 11:29); and Jeremiah felt that the very nature of God guaranteed the renewal of the covenant on a new basis. "Covenant" is, no doubt, an unfortunate rendering. The Hebrew word so rendered means, primarily, a decision or appointment, and there is a whole group of passages in the Old Testament which requires this meaning (see the present writer’s note, in ’The Prophecies of Isaiah,’ on Isaiah 42:6). We retain it, however, as that with which the reader is familiar, and only remind him that God is everything, and man nothing, in fixing the terms of the transaction. The characteristics of the new covenant are three: (1) The relation between God and his people is protected from all risk by God himself making the people what he would have them be. (2) "Whereas, in the case of the old, the law of duty was written on tables of stone, in the ease of the new the law is to be written on the heart; whereas, under the old, owing to the ritual character of the worship, the knowledge of God and his will was a complicated affair, in which men generally were helplessly dependent on a professional class, under the new, the worship of God would be reduced to the simplest spiritual elements, and it would be in every man’s power to know God at first hand, the sole requisite for such knowledge as would then be required being a pure heart." And (3) "whereas, under the old, the provisions for the cancelling of sin were very unsatisfactory, and utterly unfit to perfect the worshipper as to conscience, by dealing thoroughly with the problem of guilt, under the new God would grant to his people a real, absolute, and perennial forgiveness, so that the abiding relation between him and them should be as if sin had never existed". Comp. the abolition of the ark indicated in Jeremiah 3:16.—The inspired author of Hebrews tells us (Hebrews 8:6-13), speaking generally, that this promise delivered through Jeremiah was fulfilled in the gospel. But it must be remembered that the gospel has not yet taken form outwardly, except in a comparatively meagre sense. If the Jews as a nation (that is, the better part or kernel of Israel) should embrace the gospel, not necessarily in the logical expression familiar to the West, but in its essential facts and truths, we should see quite another embodiment of the promise, and feel the spiritual impulse in ourselves as we have not yet done. It seems appropriate, in conclusion, to quote a finely expressed passage from De Quincey’s exposition of the New Testament term μετάνοια. Without pledging ourselves to the absolute correctness of his explanation of that word, his language may be well applied to Jeremiah’s prophecy. "What would have been thought of any prophet, if he should have promised to transfigurate the celestial mechanics; if he had said, ’I will create a new pole star, a new zodiac, and new laws of gravitation;’ briefly, ’I will make new earth and new heavens’? And yet a thousand times more awful it was to undertake the writing Of new laws upon the spiritual conscience of man." Jeremiah 31:32 Although I was an husband unto them. The translation of the Septuagint κἀγὼἠμέλησααὐτῶν, is undoubtedly wrong, though adopted for consistency’s sake by the author of Heb 8:9. The phrase is the same as in Jeremiah 3:14, where even the Septuagint has ἐγὼκατακυριεύσωὑμῶν Jeremiah 31:33 After those days; i.e. after they have fully come; not, after they are over. I will put my law, etc. Of course, not the Pentateuch, but the principles of which the rules in the Pentateuch were the temporary application. It is not here denied that there were, or might be, some under the Old Testament dispensation who had the Divine Law in their heart (see some of the psalms), but speaking of the people as a whole, it must be said that the Law was an external dictator rather than a bosom friend, a mechanical rule rather than a λόγοςἴμφυτος (James 1:21). Jeremiah 31:34 On this verse, see note on the paragraph. Jeremiah 31:35-37 Guarantee of Israel’s national continuance. A marvellous promise, in the face of the Babylonian Captivity. Jeremiah 31:35 The ordinances of the moon; i.e. the moon in its appointed changes (comp. Jeremiah 33:23). Which divideth the sea when, etc.; rather, which stirreth up the sea, so that, etc. This is one of the points of content Jeremiah with the latter part of Isaiah (see Isaiah 51:17; and comp. Job 26:12). Jeremiah 31:37 Thus edith the Lord. "It is not without meaning that the prophet so frequently repeats: ’Thus saith the Lord.’ This formed the Α and Ω; his word was the sole ground of hope for Israel. Apart from it, despair was as reasonable as now it was unreasonable" (Hengstenberg). Jeremiah 31:38-40 The connection is not very clear. The main point of these verses is that Jerusalem, when rebuilt, shall be altogether "the Lord’s." Its circumference shall even be extended with the single object of including spots at present unclean, but then to become holy like the rest of the city. According to Hengstenberg and Keil, Jerusalem is here a figure of the kingdom of God in the latter days. Jeremiah 31:38 The tower of Hananeel. This lay at the northeast corner of the city (Nehemiah 3:1; Nehemiah 12:39). The gate of the corner. At the north, west corner (2 Kings 14:13; 2 Chronicles 26:9). Both this and the tower of Hananeel are mentioned together again in the prophecy of the glorification of Jerusalem, in Zechariah 14:10. Jeremiah 31:39 Over against it upon the hill Gareb; rather, straight forward unto the hill Gareb. The hill of Gareb is not mentioned elsewhere; its meaning is probably "Leper’s Hill." It must, of course, have been outside the city, and may be identified (after Schleussner and Hitzig) with "the fourth hill, which is called Bezetha" (Josephus, ’De Bell. Jud.,’ 5.4, 2). To Goath; rather, to Goah. But the reading of the Peshito, "to Gibeah," should probably be adopted. Jeremiah 31:40 The southern boundary of the city. The whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes; rather,… even the dead bodies and the ashes. It is assumed by most that Jeremiah means the valley of Hinnom, which, after its defilement by Josiah (2 Kings 23:10), had become a receptacle of rubbish and offal. It is, however, against this view that the word for "valley" is not gai (elsewhere connected with Hinnom), but emek, i.e. "deep lying plain." The "dead bodies" are the corpses of men and animals, destroyed by the judgment of God, and lying unburied; but where, seems uncertain. Ashes. Wood ashes are not here meant, but those of flesh and fat, which remained after the burning of a sacrificial victim (see Le Jeremiah 1:16; and comp. Jeremiah 4:12). The horse gate. Mentioned in Nehemiah 3:28. Holy unto the Lord. The unclean spots in the neighbourhood having been transformed. The expression reminds us of Exo 28:36 (the legend on the forefront of the high priest’s mitre). Jeremiah 31:1 The close relations of God and his people. I. THE OF THE OF CLOSE BETWEEN GOD AND HIS PEOPLE. 1. After chastisement. This and the other blessings promised in "the hook of consolation" are to follow the endurance of the Captivity. God often accords the choicest spiritual blessings to those of his children who are called to endure the bitterest trials. 2. After repentance. The people learned to grieve for their wickedness, and return to God in penitence and trust under the wholesome lessons of adversity. Then they were ready for reunion with God. Mere suffering will not lead to this. Suffering is useful just because it may he a means of leading us to humble ourselves and turn to God. 3. Accompanying a restoration of temporal prosperity. The glories of the restoration referred to in the last chapter are closely associated with the high spiritual privileges promised in the text. Earthly good things are of little use unless they are crowned by higher blessings. The difference between the prosperity of the wicked and that of true Christians is that the one is the highest good enjoyed, and thus tends to become an idol and a snare, while the other is subordinate to better things and purified by their pervading influence. Thus received, prosperity may be safely enjoyed. 4. Contemporaneously with the punishment of the wicked. "At the same time," etc. God is discriminating in his judgments because he is calm and just, though we cannot discern his course and aim. The highest spiritual good is received only when our spiritual foes are overthrown. II. THE PERSONS WHO ENJOY THESE CLOSE . 1. Israel. The promise was to the favoured nation, to the exclusion of others. Elsewhere prophets foretold the spread of the blessings of redemption to all nations, but always on the understanding that those nations entered into the Jewish covenant and became spiritual Israelites. The highest blessings are offered to all men, but with the condition that they who would receive them become his true children. The invitation is to mankind; the promise is to the people of God. 2. The families of Israel. God gives distinct family gifts, blessing children through their parents. Religion sanctifies the family. Family life is the largest and highest form of natural human life. 3. All the families of Israel. The privileges are not confined to certain selected families—to those which had always remained faithful, to any spiritual aristocracy, to any priestly order; not Aaron’s family alone, nor Levi’s tribe, nor Judah to the exclusion of the ten tribes; but all are to be restored. All Christians are called to the free enjoyment of God’s peculiar people; spiritual privileges are confined within no exclusive limitations. All Christians are kings and priests; all can now enter the holiest sanctuary, enjoy the closest communion with God. III. THE OF THESE CLOSE . 1. It has a human side: "I will be the God of all the families of Israel." (1) Jehovah is acknowledged. The people had followed Baal. They return to the true God. Christians who acknowledge God and Christ should frankly confess their faith. (2) God is worshipped. If he is regarded by us as becomes his being and character, he must be honoured as well as acknowledged. (3) God is obeyed. If he is admitted to be our God, he must be submitted to as our sovereign Lord. (4) God is trusted. Our God is our supreme Helper. When we enter into right relations with God, we learn to confide in him. (5) God is enjoyed. He is our God as our Portion. 2. The character of this relation between God and hi s people has also a Divine side: "And they shall be my people." Religion is not only an exercise of human spiritual activities; it is also a sphere in which God works, influencing his people. Though his people are unworthy of God, he is not ashamed of them. He owns them. If God regards any men as his people, great consequences follow. (1) He will prize them as his treasures, showing to them love, bestowing upon them favours, guarding them from harm.. (2) He will lay obligations upon them, call them to service, honour them with trusts. These two characteristics of the close relation of God and his people are nearly allied. God will not honour and protect us while we forget or disown him; but his great favours to us help us the better to own and serve him. The everlasting love of God. God appeared "from afar" to Jeremiah. When he seems to have forsaken us he is not loving us the less. In these dark hours he may give to us, as to Jeremiah, the richest assurance of his everlasting love. I. THE WONDER OF THE FACT THAT GOD’S LOVE IS . There is a wonder about this fact, since there are so many things that might well be thought likely to limit and stay the love of God to such beings as we are, viz.: 1. Our unworthiness. God is holy, and must delight only in holiness; he is great, and can create innumerable beings of far higher powers than ours. Why, then, should he love such imperfect creatures as men?—why love those who are corrupt and sinful? 2. Our indifference. Love looks for a return of love; but men have treated God’s love with neglect. Through the long ages during which God has been visiting his children with ceaseless loving kindness they have been coldly turning aside to their own ways, deaf to the entreaties of an infinite condescension. 3. Our unfaithfulness. For love to remain unbroken it is expected that it should be honoured by fidelity. Unfaithfulness is naturally regarded as a reason for withdrawing the privileges of affection. But God’s children have been untrue to him. They have forsaken his ways, abused his blessings, flung insult on his mercy. How, then, can he continue to love them? It is, indeed, a marvel that, through these long ages of the world’s wild wanderings, God should still follow his unworthy children with ceaseless love, never refusing to bless them, always entreating them to return to him. And it must be a marvel to us that, through all the years of our unworthy lives, he has shown the same long suffering, forbearing mercy to each of us. It is wonderful that God should ever love such unworthy creatures as we are, but it is "passing strange" that he should not cease to love us after all our provocations of his wrath, that he should love us with "an everlasting love," and should "have continued his loving kindness unto" us. II. INQUIRE INTO SOME OF THE REASONS WHY GOD’S LOVE IS . We must not look for these in any hidden merits of our own, which our modesty has passed over while God’s favour has been won by them. The secret of the love of God and of its eternal endurance is to be sought in his nature and in his relations to us. 1. The nature of God. "God is love." He loves because he cannot but love, because he delights to love, because his love must be ever flowing and is so vast that it must needs flow out eternally in all directions. It is not the attraction of the object, but the character of the love, that accounts for its perpetual endurance. The earth is bathed in summer sunlight without having any peculiar attractions for light—only because the vast stores of the sun must ever empty themselves by radiating out into space. The stream fertilizes the valley through no influence of the plants drawing it thither, but just because abundant springs pour forth their waters. And God radiates love, pours forth floods of blessing, because he is full of love, because love has its laws of diffusion. Such love is not destroyed by the unworthiness of the object. Closed shutters do not prevent the sunshine from playing about the house. Sandy deserts, in which the waters of the stream are lost, do not stay the torrents from flowing down the mountain-sides. It is the nature of true and perfect love to be eternal. "Charity endureth all things," and "never faileth." "Love is love forevermore." 2. God’s relations with us. God is our Father. We are his children by nature, and can never cease to be so. The prodigal son was an unworthy child, yet in his degradation he could still think of his father (Luke 15:17). A parent’s love is not caused nor limited by the merits of his children. It has a deeper, a more unselfish source. It survives all the destruction of just claims. God’s love is the perfect parent’s love. A mother whose daughter had left the home years back always kept her door on the latch at night, that, if her poor child returned at any hour, she should never find it barred against her. Human nature is weak. A mother’s love may fail, but God’s never (Isaiah 10:1-34: Isaiah 59:15). III. NOTE THE THAT FLOW FROM THE LOVE OF GOD. 1. God will do all that is possible for our highest good. We may believe with William Law "that no creature can suffer from any evil from which infinite goodness can deliver it." God has gone so far as to give his only begotten Son to die for us (John 3:16). We may be sure that he will do all else that is ever possible for the salvation and blessing of his children. May we not, then, well hope that an everlasting love will outlast and wear down all opposition of the stubborn but finite natures even of the worst of us, though it take vast ages to accomplish the result? At all events, he is a rash man who would set limits to the future triumphs of the "ceaseless, unexhausted grace" of God. 2. We should return to him with trust and love. The worst man living, if he repent, need not dread a harsh reception, for God’s love has outlived his sins. Here is infinite encouragement for penitence; here is hope for the lowest. God loves even him. Surely, therefore, God will welcome his unworthy child when he returns home. We have in this everlasting love of God inducements to urge us (1) to repent and no longer abuse his goodness; (2) to trust in him; (3) to love him in return for his love; (4) to find our rest and joy in him; (5) to devote ourselves to his service (with love "all tasks are sweet"); and (6) to love our brethren with God-like love for the sake of God’s love (1 John 4:11). Jeremiah 31:15-17 Rachel weeping for her children. I. RACHEL HAS NATURAL CAUSE NOR HER GRIEF. Sword, pestilence, and famine ravage the land. The invasion by Nebuchadnezzar desolates the old home of the family of Rachel, bringing death to those who cling to it and scattering the survivors in exile. Such a calamity was in itself most mournful; but the disappointment it brought to the cherished hopes of Israel in a golden future deepened the distress to despair. It looked as though it were the shipwreck of all the Messianic dreams of ancient prophecy. So also the "massacre of the innocents," with reference to which these words of Jeremiah are quoted in the New Testament, was more than an ordinary disaster. It threatened Christ and his redemption. If earthly trouble is great, how far greater would be the destruction of the higher spiritual hopes of God’s people! We may be thankful that we have no such cause of distress as that of Rachel at Ramah and at Bethlehem. Though the Christian’s earthly fortunes may be tempest tossed, his highest hopes are founded on a Rock. No worldly trouble can touch these. It is noteworthy that Rachel, and not Jacob, is here represented as weeping for her children. It is the mother’s heart that breaks first when her children are taken from her. Even the savage tigress knows this natural grief. It is so bitter that no earthly consolation can assuage it. II. RACHEL GIVES NATURAL VENT TO HER GRIEF. She weeps. She may thank God for tears; they are nature’s relief to a burdened heart. It is best not to hide a sorrow till it eats out the heart like a canker. "Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak Whispers the o’erfraught heart and bids it break." Christ does not inflict harsh and unnatural restraints upon mourners, like those of Stoicism. At the grave of Lazarus "Jesus wept." St. Paul invites sympathetic Christians to "weep with them that weep." Yet it is well to convert our tears into prayers. If the bruised spirit cannot speak, cannot think, can but moan, yet it may make its inarticulate cry an utterance to heaven that the all-pitiful God will hear. The mistake of the mourner is not that she "refuseth to be comforted"—"comfort scorned of devils" may be but a mockery—but that while she weeps she forgets to bring her burden to him who has promised to sustain. It is natural to express sorrow; it is Christian to carry the sorrow to Christ. III. RACHEL HAS DIVINE FOR HER GRIEF. Human comfort is vain in such anguish as hers. Our little platitudes with which we would quiet the mourner are plasters that only irritate the wound they cannot heal. But God has his higher consolations. He does not bid the tears to stay without good reason. Rachel is to refrain her voice from weeping because there is hope for her in time to come. Jesus bade the widow of Nain not to weep because he was about to restore her son. God will wipe away all tears from his children’s eyes by giving them a real harvest of joy for their sowing in tears. The Christian is comforted by hope. He should not sorrow as those without hope. Israel was to be restored to Canaan. The Christian families shall be reunited in the home above. Ephraim’s return. I. THE MOST OF GOD’S MAY RETURN TO HIM. Ephraim was unfaithful before Judah, and fell into greater wickedness. The northern tribes were punished for their sins by a scattering that destroyed forever their national existence as a separate kingdom. Yet even Ephraim is to return. No one of God’s children—no one of the great human family, we of the New Testament revelation may say—is beyond God’s love. God loved Ephraim as well as Judah. Ephraim is a dear son (Jeremiah 31:20). God loves the whole world. Therefore all may return; therefore we may be sure God has a way by which all can return. Christ, lifted up, will draw all men unto himself. II. GOD LEADS HIS TO DESIRE TO RETURN TO HIM BY MEANS OF . Ephraim says, "Thou didst correct me, and I received correction." Herein is one of the chief ends of suffering; even when deserved for sin it is not to give penal deserts and only satisfy justice, but rather to urge the wrong doer to see his fault and repent. Chastisement leads to reflection, humbles, makes us feel our need and helplessness, shows the want of God and his consolations, and so inclines us to return to him. To profit us, however, it must be rightly endured. We must receive correction, not harden our hearts against it. III. BEFORE TO GOD, MEN ARE BOTH FOOLISH AND IN SIN. Ephraim is like "an untaught calf." Ephraim had worshipped calves; in course of time Ephraim degraded himself to the nature of his gods. We cannot rise higher than the object of our worship. Every man is made after the image of his God; but in all men this special quality of Ephraim is found so long as they remain away from God in sin. 1. They are foolish as the untaught calf. The wicked man may be worldly wise, but he is ignorant in spiritual matters—must become a little child, and learn as a child, if he would enter the kingdom of heaven. 2. They are obstinate. Pride and self-will rule the unrepentant heart. Herein is the great hindrance to the wholesome fruits of chastisement. IV. THE DIVINE LIFE IN MAN BEGINS WITH THE TURNING ROUND OF THE SOUL TOWARDS GOD. This "conversion" is the first step. It may not be suddenly discernible. It may not be indicated by any one epoch in our history. But it must take place. We have been wandering further and further from God. The most momentous step is the first step back to him. We have to learn the necessity of this; to understand that while we remain in the old way, however pleasant it may be, it is leading us away from God, our mission, and our home; to see the importance of a change, a revolution, a regeneration, a new creation. Religion cannot begin with a sinful man in a mere improvement, much less in a natural development. He must turn round. V. GOD ONLY CAN TURN HIS BACK TO HIMSELF. Ephraim prays, "Turn thou me, and I will return." We lack the desire to return until he "from whom all good desires proceed" implants the earnest wish in our hearts. We have not the strength to return. Old habits of sin are fetters that bind us down to the old life. The will is corrupt, and therefore we cannot will aright. But God does move us to return and give us power to return. The gospel is not only an invitation; it is the power of God. By his Spirit God gives us new birth and the free life of his children. Yet for this grace we must seek in faith and penitence. Ephraim prays that God will turn him. We cannot turn ourselves. God will not turn us against our will. If we seek his grace, he will turn us to himself. Divine satisfaction. There are always the weary who need rest, the sorrowful who need consolation. 1. Naturally we all have restless longing, large desires that go out beyond the present and the attainable. The soul has its appetites, its hunger, its thirst. 2. Sin and sorrow have deepened our need. The Jews in their calamities were a type of mankind in its sin and weariness. I. NO EARTHLY WILL MEET THESE WANTS. Food for the body cannot satisfy the soul. Man is not able to live by bread alone. The life is more than meat. We are too large for the world and its gifts, rich and abundant as they may be. "We look before and after, And pine for what is not; Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught, Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought." (Shelley.) Hence the restlessness and dissatisfaction we experience in the height of prosperity. Thank God for these feelings. They are indications of a heavenly birth, indications of immortality. II. GOD OFFERS US FULL . He will satisfy—satiate. 1. God gives all we need. God does not keep his children on half rations. He has rich stores, and he offers freely. From our broken cisterns we turn to his ever-flowing fountains. 2. What God gives is of the kind we need—true light, not mocking speculations; Divine consolations of hope and peace, not barren philosophic maxims, but full and free forgiveness. What God does he does perfectly. He does not call us to a bare salvation, but to a full satisfaction, meeting the peculiar and deep wants of the soul with the special satisfaction they need, and bestowing this to satiation. III. THE FULL OF DIVINE BELONGS TO THE FUTURE. Much may be enjoyed now. Larger faith would open at once more abundant stores. God’s hand is not shortened. It is we who limit our own enjoyment of his grace by unbelief and sinfulness. Still there can be no perfect satisfaction in this imperfect world. Heaven will be totally different from earth in the fact that here we are always reaching out to the beyond; there for the first time all needs will be satisfied. The hope of such a condition should lead to patience and a faithful following of the way of the cross now that leads to the home of rest hereafter. Heredity and individual responsibility. The passage before us is interesting as indicating a great advance in freedom and justice of thought from the old orthodoxy that was satisfied with the punishment of children together with their parents to a new and wiser doctrine of individual responsibility. But it is important to observe that it is more than a sign of advancing thought. It is a prophecy concerning facts, a prediction of a higher justice of the future. The old notion here condemned is not condemned because it is false; nay, it is treated as true for the present. The new idea is not substituted as a better interpretation of the facts of experience; it is a description of a higher order of facts not yet realized. The old doctrine applies with a considerable measure of truth to Judaism; the new is part of the larger justice of Christianity. For the Jewish religion was essentially a family religion; its advantages came to the individual through the nation, the tribe, the family; the first condition for receiving them was descent from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But Christianity is fundamentally individualistic. It elevates the family, it creates the Church—one grand family of Christian brethren; but it begins with individual faith and ends with individual responsibility. Nevertheless, we have not yet perfect justice. Jeremiah’s prophecy is still a prophecy to us. Let us examine the two conditions of life that are brought before us by the contrast of prediction with the present order of affairs. I. THE PRESENT OF . It is true now that if "the fathers have eaten some grapes the children’s teeth are set on edge." Hereditary punishment and hereditary moral corruption are among the darkest mysteries of "all this unintelligible world." But they are facts that follow necessary social and physiological laws. 1. Children suffer the punishment of their parents’ sins. Poverty, dishonour, disease, pass from parent to child. The child of a spendthrift becomes a beggar, the son of a thief is ostracized, the drunkard’s child diseased, perhaps insane. 2. Children inherit moral corruption from their parents. Where this is the case it may be thought to lighten the mystery of hereditary punishment. However that may be, it is itself a deeper mystery, a more horrible injustice. It is remarked that if God visits "the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation," it is to generations of "them that hate" him. But if the wickedness that seems to justify the long lived punishment is also hereditary, is not the case the more hard? Now, Jeremiah teaches us that we are not to be satisfied with this as a final and equitable arrangement. It belongs to these present times that are out of joint, and it will be superseded by a better order. II. THE FUTURE OF . (Verse 30.) This was to come with the Messianic era. We have seen it beginning in the revelation of Christianity. It can only be perfected when Christ’s work is perfected by his second advent for judgment. A right social order may do something in this direction. Jeremiah anticipated a wiser, more discriminating exercise of justice in the restored nation after the Captivity. But the full realization must be left for a future dispensation of Divine justice. At the last every man will be called upon alone to answer for his own sins, and judgment will be swift and appropriate. Present inequalities will then be rectified. Meanwhile the injustice of hereditary punishment can be compensated, not only by future alleviations but by turning the punishment into a wholesome discipline, while the injustice of moral corruption will be corrected ultimately by judging a man according to the free choice of his will—how he behaved when he was free to act, how far he took new steps downwards, with all due allowance for natural weakness and hereditary tendencies. The new covenant. I. THE OF A NEW . Hitherto the Messianic era with all its glories has been regarded as the development and perfection of earlier ages. Here, for the first time, it is revealed as the realization of an entirely new order. This is the first clear indication of the difference between the Law and the gospel which grew more distinct as the latter was better understood, till St. Paul accomplished his great work of finally severing the two. In these verses we have the first justification for dividing religion into two dispensations and the Bible into two "Testaments." They constitute a great landmark in the history of religious thought. To us who live in the Christian age they are further most practically valuable for the description they give of our high and peculiar privileges and the promises they contain of greater blessing yet to be unfolded. Still, it is important to observe that these privileges and blessings were not always enjoyed. 1. Truth is eternal, but the knowledge of truth is progressive. Hence the religious ideas of the race change, widen, rise to higher visions. The Bible is a progressive revelation. Theology—the human interpretation of Scripture and speculation on Divine things—is also progressive. Christians must not be bound by the ipsissima verba of Old Testament texts. The Old Testament itself says that these shall be superseded. Christians of one age should not be fettered by the orthodoxy of an earlier age. 2. God is changeless, but his modes of action vary according to the varying conditions of men. The same principles of justice and love ever pervade his dealings with his creatures. But, like the parent who changes his domestic regulations as his family grows older, God has new dispensations for the later ages of the human family. He educates his children through different standards. There must ever be milk for babes and meat for strong men. Children need restraints and simple instruction, which gradually give place to more freedom and confidence and higher teaching. These changing requirements are met by the suitable adaptation of God’s revelation from age to age. II. THE OF THE NEW . 1. The Law written in the heart takes the place of the Law written on the stone tables. Religion becomes more internal, spiritual, personal. (1) Real knowledge is enjoyed. The people might have the Law in writing, and never read it or fail to understand what might be to them mere words. The Law in the heart is understood, grasped, possessed in thought, not only in words. (2) Principles take the place of outward ordinances. For a multitude of petty details, for a complication of rules, for a set of narrow maxims, men. are to have large principles in their hearts, such as truth, justice, purity, love to God, and love to man. This makes religion and morality more comprehensive, more deep, more real, and at the same time more free. (3) Affection becomes the ruling motive. The Law is in the heart as a treasure, loved rather than feared, obeyed from healthy impulse instead of compulsion. It becomes part of a man’s very soul. Ultimately, from being a constraint to his will, it becomes identical with his will, transforming that to its own image. 2. The spread of the knowledge of the true God is to be universal. (1) It is vouchsafed to the individual. The distinctions of the priestly class and of the prophetic order are abolished. All Christians are priests; all may enjoy a measure of prophetic inspiration (Joe 2:28, Joe 2:29; Revelation 1:4). This is partly a result of the first principle. An outward, religion only can be corporate and representative. Thoughts are private; spirituality is personal; inward religiousness is individual. (2) It is promised to all men. All nations are to enjoy the new, larger privileges. Christ breaks down the middle wall of partition between Jew and Gentile. This great fact is also partly a result of the first principle. National distinctions are mostly external. Questions of birth and geographical boundary that have much to do with a visible organization and the administration of external laws do not apply to spiritual conditions. It is right that an inward spiritual law should be universal. But the promise goes beyond the character of the new dispensation to an assurance of its universal acceptance. "All men shall know the Lord, from the least unto the greatest"—young and old, simple and noble, foolish and wise, worthless and good, savage and civilized. Here is the great encouragement for Christian missions. They do not follow a mere desire of charity. They are realizing a promise of God. 3. These results follow perfect forgiveness of sin. This is the peculiarly Christian and evangelical element of the new covenant. The Law can only be written on the heart after the old sin has been washed out. The enjoyment of spiritual religious knowledge must follow a renewal of the spiritual nature. These privileges were impossible under the Law, because no outward ordinances, no "blood of bulls and goats," could take away sin. But when Christ came as the perfect Sacrifice, "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," and brought in perfect forgiveness, he made it possible for us to enjoy the inward vision and brought the privilege within the reach of all men. Guarantees of perpetuity. These words are a promise to the Jews, and plainly refer to the national existence of Israel; but the breadth and spirituality of file covenant they confirm warrants us in seeing in them the pledges of God’s faithfulness and the Church’s stability for all who enjoy the privileges of the covenant. These pledges are to be seen in the symbolism of nature. The God of grace is thee God of nature. Spiritual revelation throws light on the vague religion of nature; but nature sends back confirmations for the truths of the higher revelation. Two are named here. I. THE OF LAW. This great doctrine has come to the forefront of modern science. By some it is thought to be a difficulty in the way of religious belief. But Jeremiah shows us how to regard it as an encouragement for faith. It proves to us the unchangeableness of God. Events shift and vary, but laws remain. The seasons come and go, but the sun still shines and rules them. Though the sea rages and roars, its wild waves are curbed by invisible reins, linked to heavenly motions, obedient to unvarying laws. So we may learn that amid the changing circumstances of life and the varying actions of God in providence the same great principles are maintained and the promises of God work out their blessed results unceasingly. This is true of God’s thoughts and will. It is true of our personal enjoyment of the privileges of his covenant. Israel is to endure. The Church is founded on a rock. The "final perseverance" of the Christian follows from his identification of his life with eternal laws of God. God will no more cast off his people than the sun cease to rule the seasons or the moon the tides; for in grace, as in nature, eternal laws and principles preserve eternal stability to the spiritual universe. II. THE OF THE As a mere figure of speech, verse 37 is highly expressive. By appealing to an impossible feat God pledges his word the more clearly and the more forcibly. But we have here also an analogy based upon common principles of the material and spiritual worlds. 1. The Creator of heaven and earth is too great to be changeable. Change is a sign of weakness. Strength secures stability. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Jeremiah was far from wishing to depress his fellow countrymen to the point of disbelieving in the inalienable promises of God to Israel, He fully recognized an element of truth in the preaching of the "false prophets," viz. that Jehovah was still the God of his people Israel, though for wise purposes he chose to hide his face for a time. His own faith was intense, to the pitch of an even Roman heroism (see Livy, Jeremiah 26:11). The opportunity (or rather—see below—the fight) of purchasing a piece of ground at Anathoth was the occasion which called forth the most striking proof of his sublime confidence in God. Not that he understood how it could be God’s will that he, in the besieged city, should constitute himself a landed proprietor. He had his difficulties; but instead of brooding over them, he laid them Before Jehovah in prayer. And the Divine revelation came that, though long continued transgressions had brought upon Judah the sorest punishment, they should yet be restored to their land; and, though the first covenant had been broken, a second and an everlasting covenant should in future times be granted to God’s people; and the sign that the first part of this promise should in very deed be realized is the purchase of the field by Jeremiah. Jeremiah 32:1-5 Time and circumstances of the following revelation. It took place in the tenth year of Zedekiah, the eighteenth of Nebuchadnezzar (comp. Jeremiah 25:1; Jeremiah 52:12). The siege of Jerusalem had Begun in the preceding year (Jeremiah 39:1), but had been temporarily raised on the approach of an Egyptian army (Jeremiah 37:5, Jeremiah 37:11). Jeremiah, who had declared resistance hopeless, had been accused of treason, and imprisoned (Jeremiah 37:13), and in prison he remained till the close of the siege. Like St. Paul at Rome, however, he was allowed free communication with visitors, as appears from verse 8 and Jeremiah 38:1. Jeremiah 38:2-5 are parenthetical (see on Jeremiah 38:6). Jeremiah 32:2 In the court of the prison; or, the court of the guard, which adjoined the royal palace (Nehemiah 3:25). Jeremiah 32:3 Had shut him up. A brief and general account of the circumstances related more in full in Jeremiah 37:1-21. For the prophecies referred to, see Jeremiah 34:3-5; Jeremiah 37:17; Jeremiah 38:17-23 (the following verse is almost identical with Jeremiah 34:3). Jeremiah 32:5 Until I visit him; i.e. until I take notice of him. "To visit" is used in a good (Jeremiah 27:22; Jeremiah 29:10) as well as in a bad sense (Jeremiah 6:15; Jeremiah 49:8), so that no definite announcement is made respecting Zedekiah’s future. There was no object to gain by extending the scope of the revelation beyond the immediate present, and Zedekiah’s offences did not require such an anticipative punishment as the clear prediction of the details of his fate (Jeremiah 39:6, Jeremiah 39:7; Jeremiah 52:11). Jeremiah 32:6-15 The purchase of the field. Jeremiah 32:6 resumes Jeremiah 32:1, after the long parenthesis in Jeremiah 32:2-5. Jeremiah 32:7 Hanameel. Another form of Hananeel; comp. Γεσάμ, in the Septuagint = Goshen, Μαδιάμ = Midian. In Jeremiah 31:38 the Authorized Version has Hananeel, and the Septuagint Ἀναμεήλ (of course, the persons referred to are different). The son of Shallum thine uncle. It is strange that Hanameel should be called at once Jeremiah’s uncle’s son and his uncle; and yet this is the case—the former in verses 8, 9, the latter in verse 12. There is, therefore, no reason why we should deviate (as most commentators do) from the ordinary Hebrew usage, and suppose "thine uncle" in this verse to refer to Shallum, and not rather to Hanameel. But how are we to explain this singular variation in phraseology? Either from the fact that the Hebrew for "uncle" is simply a word expressive of affection (it means "beloved," see e.g. Isaiah 5:1), and might, therefore, just as well be applied to a cousin as to an uncle: or else. upon the supposition that the word for "son (of)" has fallen out of the text before "mine uncle," both in this verse and in verse 12. Jeremiah 32:8 The right of inheritance (or rather, of taking possession) is thine. The right, however, was dependent on the previous right of redeeming the land. Hence the speaker continues: The redemption is thine; buy it for thyself. The Law directs, "If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold" (Le Jeremiah 25:25). Jeremiah’s kinsman, however, ascribes to him the right of pre-emption. This is not mentioned in Leviticus; hut, of course, no one would care to purchase a property till he was sure that the next kinsman would not insist on redeeming it. No one, it may be remarked, could purchase land unconditionally—the usufruct of it till the year of jubilee was all that was legally transferable; and even the original occupant had only a life interest in his land, the ownership of which was, strictly speaking, vested in the commune. This seems to Be the necessary inference from a comprehensive view of the passages relative to land in the Old Testament. Then I knew, etc. We may, perhaps, interpret this notice combined with that in verse 6 thus: Jeremiah had had a presentiment, founded, perhaps, upon the distress to which his cousin had been reduced, that the latter would invite him to carry out the provisions of the Law; and his presentiments were generally so ordered by the Divine Spirit of prophecy as to be ratified by the event. Still, he had a measure of uncertainty till Hanameel actually came to him, and so demonstrated "that this had been the word of the Lord." In recording the circumstances, he not unnaturally reflects his later feeling of certitude in his description of the presentiment. Jeremiah 32:9 Seventeen shekels of silver; i.e. about £2 5s. 4d. (taking the shekel at 2s. 8d.). This has been thought a small price. Thirty shekels were paid for the potter’s field (Matthew 27:7); fifty by David, for Araunah’s threshing floor and oxen (2 Samuel 24:4). The Hebrew has "seven shekels and ten of silver;" hence the Targum increases the price by supplying "minas" before "of silver," bringing up the sum to one hundred and seven shekels. This, however, seems too much. Even if Jeremiah wished to be liberal, he would hardly have been able to go so far (probably) in excess of the market price. Who would have purchased the land on speculation, if Jeremiah had refused? The famine made life, the siege, a continuance of personal liberty, terribly uncertain. And, putting this out of the question, there may have been but a short time to elapse before the year of jubilee, when the land would revert to its original occupant (see above). The singular form of expression in the Hebrew, at which the Targum stumbled, may, perhaps, be the usual style of legal documents. Jeremiah 32:10-14 The Authorized Version is here so far wrong, on technical terms, that it seems best to retranslate the whole passage: "And I wrote (the circumstances) in the deed, and sealed it, and took witnesses, and weighed the money in the balance. And I took the purchase deed, that which was sealed (containing the offer and the conditions), and that which was open; and I gave the purchase deed unto Baruch the son of Neriah, the son of Maaseiah (rather, Makhseiah), in the sight of Hanameel my uncle, and in the sight of the witnesses who subscribed the purchase deed, in the sight of all the Jews who were sitting in the court of the guard. And I charged Baruch before them, saying, Thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel, Take these deeds, this sealed purchase deed, and this open deed; and put them into an earthen vessel, that they may continue many days." The deed was made in two copies, so that if the open one were lost, or suspected of having been tampered with, an appeal might always be made to the sealed copy. The latter was to be placed in an earthen vessel, to preserve it from injury by damp. It ought to be added that the words in verse 11, rendered "containing the offer and the conditions," are difficult. "Containing" is not expressed in the Hebrew, and "offer" is not the ordinary meaning, though etymologically justifiable. Jeremiah 32:15 Shall be possessed; rather, shall be bought. Jeremiah 32:16-25 Jeremiah obeys the Divine command, but is so besieged by misgivings that he applies for a further revelation of God’s purposes. Jeremiah 32:17 Ah, Lord God! rather, Alas! O Lord Jehovah (as Jeremiah 1:6). Too hard for thee. It is the word usually rendered "wonderful," but rather indicating that thing or person lies outside the common order (comp. Genesis 18:14). Jeremiah 32:18 Into the bosom, etc. The ample dress of an Eastern rendering a bag or basket unnecessary (comp. Rth 3:15). Jeremiah 32:20 Even unto this day. A loose expression. Jeremiah simply means that signs and wonders equal to those wrought in Egypt have continued to the present time. And in Israel; rather, both in Israel. Jeremiah 32:21 Almost identical with Deuteronomy 26:8. The great terror which the Israelites inspired is constantly referred to (see Deuteronomy 2:25; Exodus 23:27; Joshua 5:1). Jeremiah 32:24 Behold the mounts (see as Jeremiah 6:6). Is given. Resistance being hopeless, Jerusalem was virtually in the hands of its besiegers. Jeremiah 32:25 For the city is given; rather, whereas. It is a reflection of the prophet’s. Jeremiah 32:26-44 The Divine answer. This falls into two parts. First, Jehovah repeats the burden of so many prophecies, that Israel has only to blame himself for his punishment (Jeremiah 32:26-35); and then a bright future is disclosed beyond the gloomy interval of conquest and captivity—a future when men shall buy fields, and comply with all the legal formalities, precisely as Jeremiah has done (verses 36-44). Jeremiah 32:28 I will give; rather, I am on the point of giving (present participle). Jeremiah 32:29 And burn it. A still more significant prediction to Jewish hearers than to us, for it implies that Jerusalem had become utterly rebellious, and deserved the punishment of the old Canaanitish cities. It was to be made a cherem (Deuteronomy 3:6). Jeremiah 32:30 From their youth (see on Jeremiah 3:24, Jeremiah 3:25; Jeremiah 22:21). The children of Israel, in the first half of the verse, must have a narrower sense than in the second half. The fall of Jerusalem is the climax of the series of punishments which the two separated and yet (in God’s sight) united portions of the people of Israel have had to undergo. Jeremiah 32:31 From the day that they built it. It is useless to tell an impassioned orator that his words are not strictly consistent with primitive history. The Israelites may not have built Jerusalem, but Jeremiah was not to be debarred from the strongest form of expression open to him for such a reason. He means "from the earliest times." Jeremiah 32:34, Jeremiah 32:35. Repeated, with slight variations, from Jeremiah 7:30, Jeremiah 7:31. "Baal" and "Molech" are identified as in Jeremiah 19:5 (= Jeremiah 7:31), and even more distinctly. Jeremiah 32:36 And now therefore. This introduces the strange and lovely contrast to the gloomy picture which has gone before. It will be observed that there is no direct reference to Jerusalem, but the capital was only emphasized before as the heart of the nation, and it would, of course, be no comfort to say that Jerusalem’s inhabitants (alone) would be restored. Jeremiah 32:39 One heart, and one way. Unity is always given as the "note" of the ideal, Messianic period (comp. Zephaniah 3:9; Zechariah 14:9; John 10:16). That they may fear me forever. This reminds us of a phrase in the exhortation in Deuteronomy 4:10, as the next clause does of Deu 6:24. Jeremiah 32:40 An everlasting covenant. It is the "new covenant" of Jeremiah 31:31, etc; which is meant (for the phrase, comp. Isaiah 55:3; Ezekiel 37:26). That I will not turn … to do them good. The comma in the Authorized Version impairs the sense. The prophet means, "That I will not cease to show them favour" (comp. Isaiah 54:10). Jeremiah 32:41 Assuredly; literally, with faith. fulness; i.e. with perfect sincerity, without an arriere pensee, as the next words explain it; comp. 1 Samuel 12:24; Isaiah 38:3 (Graf). Jeremiah 32:42 Like as I have brought, etc. The prophet still has in his mind the thought expressed in Jeremiah 31:28, that the brighter part of his revelations must as surely be accomplished as the darker. Jeremiah 32:43 Fields; rather, land; the Hebrew has "the field," i.e. the open country (as Jeremiah 4:17, etc.). We must then continue "in this country," and in Jeremiah 32:44, "men shall buy lands." Jeremiah 32:44 Subscribe evidences; rather, write (particulars of their purchase)in the deed (as Jeremiah 32:10). In the land of Benjamin, etc. The catalogue of the districts of the Jewish kingdom heightens the realistic effect (see on Jeremiah 17:26). Everywhere the old social system will be reproduced in its entirety. The land of Benjamin is mentioned first, on account of the property of Jeremiah at Anathoth. Jeremiah 32:6-9 Faith tested by action. Jerusalem is besieged; the fields are occupied by the invader; Jeremiah knows that the Jews will be driven from their country; he is a prisoner. Yet he buys of piece of land! The transaction is carried out calmly, carefully, with all legal exactitude, and every precaution against future mistakes as to ownership, just as if the prophet were at liberty to enter into possession and enjoy his purchase without fear of molestation. His conduct is striking; to those who heard his warnings of the approaching Captivity it would seem singularly inconsistent. But the secret of it is explained to us, and this shews it to be a sublime act of faith. It was right that Jeremiah should make the purchase under ordinary circumstances, to keep the land in the family. He was now urged by a Divine impulse, which made him feel without doubt that it was God’s will that he should buy the land, and he did it without questioning. After he had made the purchase, however, he inquired of God for the meaning of it, and was assured that the land of Israel would revert to the Jews after the Captivity, and would be bought and sold again with confidence in security of possession. Jeremiah’s purchase was to be an anticipation of that happy future. His conduct is thus an illustration of the influence of faith on outward actions. I. FAITH WILL REVEAL ITSELF IN DEEDS. Faith is not a merely intellectual exercise. It is primarily that which connects thought with action, and it is invariably an active principle. "Faith without works is dead." Jeremiah showed his faith by his works. A man’s faith may be measured by the influence it has upon his conduct. The trying time is when faith comes into conflict with present impressions. Then, if those impressions are vivid and faith is feeble, they may overcome it. It is useless to claim to have an unquestioning conviction in face of such a failure. The failure proves the deficiency of faith. We should all ask ourselves—How far does our faith mould our conduct? How different would our life be if our faith were to cease? Would the effect be but slight or would it be a very revolution? The answer to these questions will determine whether our faith is a solid reality or a dreamy sentiment. II. THOUGH FAITH IS A GRACE, IT WILL OUR CONDUCT IN SECULAR AFFAIRS. Jeremiah showed his faith by the very thorough way in which he carried through an elaborate piece of conveyancing business. He did not confine his faith to the temple and to his preaching. He showed it in the market place and in business. The sharp line which we draw between the spiritual and the secular is false and irreligious. Religion will be satisfied with no limited sphere. It claims the whole domain of life. Faith cannot be confined to any section of our conduct. If it is real, it will be a broad fundamental principle influencing all we do. If our faith bears no fruit in our business, it is a vain and worthless thing. III. FAITH IN GOD WILL LEAD TO TO HIS WILL. Jeremiah believed that God wished him to buy the field, and he did so, though at first he could not discover the utility of the purchase. 1. Faith will lead to obedience. It has two sides—a passive side, that shows itself in trust, submission, resignation; and an active side, that expresses itself in obedience. There are those who seem to ignore the latter. To them faith is wholly receptive, simply a leaving of our case in the hands of God and accepting what he gives. But the obedience of faith is not less important than its submission. 2. This obedience must be implicit. From the nature of the case we cannot at first understand all the reasons of the command. If we could there would be no room for faith. But when we know that God is great and good, and know that a certain act is according to his will, faith will find her place in doing it in the darkness, resting assured that all is right. IV. GOD’S FULLY JUSTIFY HOPEFUL ACTION UNDER DARK . Jeremiah’s conduct looked inconsistent. It was justified by God’s promise of the restoration. When all is dark in the present we are inclined to despair of the future. But the future is in God’s hands, and he has promised deliverance and blessedness to his people. Faith in God, therefore, will be a parent of hope. Because we trust God, we know that he will fulfil his good promises, and therefore we can act as though we saw the accomplishment of them. The prayer of a perplexed soul. I. THE GENERAL OF THE PRAYER. Jeremiah is sorely perplexed by God’s command to him to buy a field when the Jews are about to be driven from the land and he is a prisoner at Jerusalem. He does not permit his perplexity to paralyze his obedience. But after he has done the thing commanded by God he naturally and rightly seeks an explanation of the strange Divine commission. It is right that we should bring our doubts and difficulties to God. Though we should not allow them to hinder our performance of duty, we cannot help feeling them, and if we have true confidence in God we shall frankly confess them to him. We often trouble ourselves sorely, without ground, because we keep our doubts to ourselves, and try to solve them in the twilight of our own confused thinking, when, if we had more faith or more courage, we should bring them to God to seek such a solution as may be vouchsafed to us in the light of his presence. The character of Jeremiah’s prayer and the way in which he thus seeks relief from God are deeply significant. He does not begin by asking the meaning of the command that perplexes him. Most of his prayer contains no reference to this. It is devoted to a contemplation of God, of his nature, his grace, and the justice of his severe actions. Thus he prepares his own soul for a right view of God’s dealings with him. It would be well if our prayers contained more of this contemplation of God. Let us understand that the deepest prayer is not petition, but communion. It is more important that we should he brought near to God and realize rightly his presence and nature than that we should ask certain definite things of him. Therefore that part of prayer which in words may consist of invocation and adoration, should not be treated as a mere introductory formula, such as that with which we address a person of title. It is neither a mere call like that of the priests of Baal to obtain a hearing (1 Kings 18:26), nor only an expression of praise and thankfulness as a fitting introduction to a request for further favours. It should be felt to be the most precious element in prayer, the means by which our souls are lifted into fellowship with heaven. If it secures this result, the chief end of our prayer is attained. Then, if ever, our difficulties will vanish and our wants be satisfied, even if there be no change in God’s actions towards us. II. THE LEADING DETAILS OF THE PRAYER. 1. A contemplation of the greatness of God (verse 17). This is realized by a consideration of the stupendous works of God in nature. Thence we learn (1) that as God accomplishes such great works as are manifested in creation, no difficulty or failure can arise from his inability to bring about the very best condition of affairs; and yet (2) that surrounding such great works there must be ineffable mysteries, so that we may be perplexed by much that comes from so wonderful a being as God. 2. A contemplation of the goodness and wisdom of God (verses 18, 19). God is kind to multitudes, and yet necessarily searching in his justice. Therefore it is apparent that be will require no unreasonable sacrifice and no useless exertion. His commands may appear arbitrary and capricious. But his character teaches us to trust that the strangest of them are governed by his mercy, justice, and wisdom. 3. A contemplation of the providential action of God (verses 20-22). A review of providence should confirm our faith even under the strangest trials. God had delivered Israel in the past, fulfilled his promises in the face of apparently insuperable difficulties, and given them a rich inheritance. Was there not good ground to trust him after that? 4. A contemplation of the justice of God’s severest actions (verses 23, 24). From this we see that the calamities of judgment are deserved. That fact should increase our faith in God, though by itself it may make hope more difficult, as it did in the ease of Jeremiah. 5. A confession of perplexity at God s command (verse 25). This is not made till after the contemplation of the character and works of God. The contemplation has not destroyed the difficulty, but it has prepared the prophet to receive an explanation. Thus it is well that we should confess our doubts distinctly to God and ask for light, and if we do this after prayer and spiritual communion with God, we may hope that light will open upon us as it did upon Jeremiah. Jeremiah 32:27 The omnipotence of God. I. THE SOURCE OF THE OF GOD. 1. His essential being. He is the Lord, Jehovah, the Self-Existent. God is not only greater than all other existences, he differs from them in his essential being. He is eternal; they have come into being. He is self-contained; they are created. 2. God’s relation to all other existences. He is the God of all flesh. He is the First Cause, the Source of the first being of all things, and the ground of their continued being. But for him they could never have been and could not now endure. We human creatures, "flesh," may realize this especially in regard to ourselves. Therefore to us in particular God, who created us all, and in whom we all live and move and have our being, must be almighty. II. TO THE OF GOD. 1. The character of God. We say that God cannot do wrong. But this simply means that his character is such that he never will do wrong. He is physically as able to do the actions which are wrong as those which are right. If he were not, there would be no goodness in his refraining, for purity is not impotence to do evil, but a will not to do it in face of the power to do it. Omnipotence is a physical characteristic. Goodness, the moral characteristic, does not destroy this by controlling the action of it. The power of the steam-engine is not lessened because the driver turns the steam on and off at will. 2. The free will of man. This introduces an unfathomable mystery, which no philosophy has solved or is ever likely to solve. But the mystery is more especially felt on our side. If God created us and gave to us free will, and, being omnipotent, can at any time destroy us and withdraw it, this must not be regarded as any real limitation to his power. III. HOW A OF THE OF GOD SHOULD AFFECT OUR CONDUCT. We are not called to worship mere power. To do so would be to renounce the rights of conscience. We worship God, not because he is almighty, but because he is supremely good and morally great. But starting from this position, we have to take account also of the omnipotence of God. 1. It shows the utter vanity of all resistance to the will of God. This is a most obvious inference? The more strange, then, that it is so little acted on. We need to feel it as well as to believe it. 2. It should lead us to trust that God will overcome difficulties which to us appear insuperable. The restoration of Israel appeared impossible; the salvation of the world seems too great and difficult to be realized; there are special difficulties in special cases, but some with all, so that we may exclaim, "Who then can be saved?" But if "with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26), how can we fix any limit to the ultimate triumphs of redemption? "The mercy of the Lord endureth forever;" then God will always seek the recovery of his lost children. "Is anything too hard for me? Then, in spite of present unbelief, impenitence, wild wanderings further astray, may we not believe that he will find his children at last? 3. These considerations should lead us to seek the help of God’s strength in our weakness. How foolish for the sailors to weary themselves toiling in vain at their oars against the tide, when if they would spread their sails the strong wind would carry them swiftly on! How foolish of us to toil on only in our natural power and with mere earthly means, when there are heavenly influences of omnipotence ready to help us if we will seek them! Unity. I. UNITY IS AS A OF THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE FUTURE. This is unity of thought, "one heart," and unity of conduct, "one way." Men shall then see "eye to eye," discord and controversy cease, peace and amity prevail. There may still be diversity of ideas in the sense of personal difference, because individual characters, positions, and opportunities must still vary. But in a perfect condition there will be no discord. The variations will harmonize. So all will not do exactly the same thing in exactly the same manner. There will, doubtless, be various spheres of action and various personal styles of work. But these will not conflict. They will all tend the same way. II. UNITY IS IN THE IDEA OF . 1. Unity of thought. Truth is one. It may be variously conceived; at first broken lights caught up in opposite quarters may look very different. But the more we eliminate personal "views," the more we can get of the white light of facts, the nearer we approach to the central verity, the more unity shall we obtain. Absolute truth is an absolute unity. This is apparent in mathematics. Two and two cannot be both four and five at the same time—four to one man, five to his neighbour. 2. Unity of action. As there is but one absolute truth, so there is but one absolute right. Under all circumstances there can be but one thing which is absolutely the best to be done. That one thing is the right. Till we find this, we make blundering attempts to reach it from different directions. Hence the contradictions in the conduct even in good men. When the right is found and followed by all, there must he unity of conduct. III. UNITY IS TO BE THROUGH THE OF . It was promised as one of the great Messianic blessings. In Christianity we see the growing realization of those blessings. 1. This is accomplished by the personal influence of Christ. One powerful centre of attraction binds into unity all that comes under its influence. The sun makes one system of the several planets that revolve about it. The general of genius welds the scattered regiments of his army into one body through his common command over them and their common devotion to him. Christ exerts a similar influence. He is broad enough in his humanity and strong enough in his divinity to attract and influence all kinds of men. Thus "he is our Peace, who made both" (Jew and Gentile) "one, and broke down the middle wall of partition" (Ephesians 2:14). All may see a unity of truth in him who is "the Light of the world" and be led in one way as they follow his footsteps. 2. This unity is further realized in the inwardness of Christianity. The new covenant is written on the heart (Jeremiah 31:33). We differ most in externals; under various clothes there beats the same human heart. When we come to the heart we come to unity. Thus the inward principles of truth and love in Christianity tend to bind Christians together. We are divided because these have not yet their perfect work. No external compulsion will accomplish the same end. On the contrary, this will only aggravate internal dissension. Persecution is the parent of heresy; charity is the mother of unity. God rejoicing. I. GOD HAS JOY. He is not indifferent, nor is he morose; we are to think of him as the "blessed" God, i.e. as essentially happy. The brightness and beauty of the world are reflections from the blessedness of God. Because he is glad, nature is glad, flowers bloom, birds sing, young creatures bound with delight. Nothing is more sad in perversions of religion than the representations of God as a gloomy tyrant. Less terrible, but scarcely less false, are those monkish ideas which deny the tyranny but cherish the gloom of a sombre divinity more suited to chill, dark cloisters than to that glorious temple of nature in which the eternal presence dwells and manifests himself symbolically. These fragrant meadows, broad rolling seas of moorland heather, rich green forest cities of busy insect life, flashing ocean waves, and. the pure blue sky above, and all that is sweet and lovely in creation, swell one symphony of gladness, because the mighty Spirit that haunts them is himself overflowing with joy. Our God is a Sun. And if divinity is sunny, so should religion be. The happy God will rejoice in the happiness of his children. Innocent mirth, though forbidden by Puritan sourness, can be no offence to such a God. The typical citizens of his kingdom are little children; and what is so joyous as childhood? II. GOD FINDS JOY IN HIS . Here is the wonderful fact about the joy of God. He must have joy in his own purity and perfection. Then he has infinite resources at his command. The whole universe can be made to minister to his delight. All high and pure intelligences that form the choir of heaven aim at glorifying him. Yet he finds delight in such poor creatures as we are, in his fallen and erring children. How is this? 1. Because God is love. He loves all his children. Love finds delight in the loved; so God is compared to the bridegroom rejoicing over the bride (Isaiah 62:5). 2. Because God is essentially blessed. The happy find sources of gladness in the most unlikely quarters, just as the cheeriest scenes cannot lift the load of sadness from those who are naturally mournful. God is so joyous that he finds joy even in us. III. GOD FINDS JOY IN HIS . He rejoices over them to do them good. God’s joy is most unselfish. It is the greatest blessedness—the blessedness of giving rather than that of receiving. It is the joy of sacrifice. God, being good, can find joy only in good; being merciful, can find none in harshness. He must punish the wicked, but he takes no delight in that. Like the shepherd who has recovered the lost sheep, like the woman who has found the lost money, like the father who has welcomed the wanderer home again safe and sound, God rejoices in the return of the penitent, till his joy overflows and is caught up by the angels about his throne. From this we may learn (1) confidence if we return as penitents; (2) assurance that all our life is safe in his hands; (3) care not to grieve his Spirit; (4) desire to live in communion with him. IV. GOD WILL CALL HIS TO SHARE IN HIS JOY. All joy is sympathetic. We call our friends and our neighbours to rejoice with us. But if we have special joy in any person we naturally desire this joy to be reciprocal. Christ desired his disciples to share his joy (John 15:11). Joy is contagious. If we are with the happy and in sympathy with them, we naturally receive a share of their gladness. Whence comes the joy we anticipate in heaven? Escape from the evils of this life when God shall wipe away the tears from all eyes? Deliverance from sin and temptation? Reunion with the lost but not forgotten blessed dead? Opportunities for happy service? All these things and more; but these are not the sources of chief joy. That is to share the joy of God, to be "forever with the Lord." BY A.F. MUIR Silencing a prophet. A short time before an attempt was made upon his life; now it is imagined that the prophet will yield to harsh treatment and intimidation. The natural heart of man is so foolish that it cannot but credit man with the authorship of Divine truth, and suppose that he can control and modify the inspired messages of God. Nay, the sinner is often so left to himself as to suppose that his own precautions will prevent the communications of God’s Spirit, or at least the carrying of these into effect! I. OF THE TRUTH MAY BE BROUGHT INTO GREAT STRAITS. God does not guarantee a smooth experience and an easy life to his servants. Quite the contrary. His Son prepares his disciples for suffering many things (Matthew 10:16-22). Jeremiah would seem to be alternately exposed to harshness and kindness—he was in the prison and yet in the palace. The bribe, or the deceitful promise, may be as great a trial as the cruelty. Seclusion for a prophet and patriot must have been very hard to endure at such a time, and full of spiritual perplexity. Great things were being done, and national destinies decided, whilst he was held fast, helpless, and with little reliable information of what was going on. So God often lays aside his servants just at a time when there would seem to be most occasion for their activity. "His thoughts are not as our thoughts." II. THE WORD OF GOD IS NOT THEREBY . 1. It is not silenced. (Verse 1; cf. Jeremiah 33:1.) The communion of the soul with God cannot be broken by external means. As well might one say, "Thus far, and no further," to the ocean or the day. Many of the grandest revelations of God date from prisons. 2. Resistance only hastens its progress and fulfilment. Persecution and martyrdom have done more for Christianity than a thousand direct agencies. How the voices multiply! 3. Those who oppose it ensure its speedy visitation upon themselves. III. GOD WILL UPHOLD AND COMFORT HIS . The greatest trial to Jeremiah would have been God’s silence: at this season the "Word of the Lord" must have been his greatest consolation and reassurance. Earthly deprivation may be heavenly liberty. Sufferers for the truth know and feel that God is with them.—M. Purchasing by Divine command. The passage a locus classicus for various questions and formalities connected with the Mosaic Law. Abraham bought a field for his dead; Jeremiah bought one for a nation yet unborn. If no other circumstance had been recorded concerning the latter, this alone would entitle him to be enrolled amongst the fathers of the faithful. I. GOD’S ARE CALLED TO PERFORM STRANGE AND ACTIONS. The prophet bidden to purchase a field when the land is overrun by the Chaldeans; a poor man to procure and expend money upon a speculation for which there was no earthly security; a prisoner to acquire laud there seemed so little likelihood of his ever seeing. Much of Christian duty is summed up in that experience. We are not to stumble at earthly anomalies or anachronisms, but to live and labour and spend "as seeing him who is invisible." II. THE WILL OF GOD IS A REASON FOR DOING SUCH THINGS. That is, the revealed will. Men who act by revelation have not to ask for reasons before acting. Obedience is their role; afterwards they may ask for light. Christians have to commit their way unto the Lord, and trust where they cannot trace. They are led by a higher reason, which cannot err. III. WHAT GOD OUGHT TO BE DONE , , AND WITH . Jeremiah at once performs the duty. He hastens to relieve his kinsman from perplexity and loss. And the business part of the engagement is executed with the greatest care and all the formalities of law. No flaw is suffered to enter into the bargain. The importance and duty of Christians being model business men. What is done for God and under his supervision should be done thoroughly. Justice precedes and facilitates charity. IV. SMALL AND MAY HAVE GREAT . How different the feelings of the parties to this transaction! The money absolutely of little amount; relatively it was worth much. We are reminded of the widow’s mite. That document was the title deed to a kingdom. This is the spirit in which Christians should do business. We ought never to forget that we are heirs of the kingdom. The world has been sold under sin, but we are free. Let us strive to "lay up treasure in heaven." Let us make our title clear to its liberties and joys. In the meanest undertaking let us be guided by this spirit. In the confidence of Christ let us redeem the world. Let our motto be "Everything in the spirit of Christ!" Men cannot be just and honest unless they are inspired, even for the least things, as Jeremiah was. A large and general brotherliness, an implicit faith in God’s Word, ought to govern us in all our affairs. Above all, our own relation to Christ, our personal transactions with him, should at once, with prayer and faith, be made sure!—M. The prayer of Jeremiah. I. CLEAR AND DUTIES SHOULD BE ERE MEN ENTER UPON DIVINE . The deed had already been executed. II. OF TRIAL AND SHOULD LEAD MEN TO THE THRONE OF GRACE. III. THE KNOWN AND PAST ACTION OF GOD SHOULD MEN’S OF PRESENT AND THEIR FAITH. It is good to rehearse these even in private devotions. IV. SINS SHOULD BE FREELY AND . V. ONE SAINT MAY FOR MANY SINNERS. VI. THE PRAYER OF FAITH IS . (Verses 26-44,)—M. Jeremiah 32:37-40 The unities of the Divine kingdom. (Cf. John 17:1-26.) I. UNITY THE AND OF SAVING GRACE. (Jeremiah 32:37.) II. UNITY WITH GOD. III. UNITY IN SPIRIT AND LABOUR WITH ONE ANOTHER. (Jeremiah 32:39.) IV. UNITY OF DESTINY. (Jeremiah 32:40.)—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 32:1-44 A story of God’s sustaining grace. This whole chapter may be summed up under some such heading as this. For it begins with showing us God’s servant Jeremiah in a position in which he sorely needed sustaining grace, and then it proceeds to narrate the threefold process by which this grace was communicated to him. The manner in which God sustained Jeremiah is very much akin to that in which he will sustain all his servants who may be in similar need. If any be so now, let them give heed to this record. Note— I. THE NEED OF GOD’S SERVANT. Verse 2 tells us that Jeremiah was at this time shut up in prison. His confinement was not so severe as that which he had suffered in his former prison; but yet there was very much in his present circumstances to make him need the sustaining grace of God. The story of his imprisonments is full of interest, but it has to be gathered here a little and there a little from different parts of his prophecies. These have been compiled on a principle which it is impossible to discover. Events of early date are placed in later chapters, and those of later date in early chapters. The chronological confusion is complete. Hence it is the task of every student of these prophecies to disentangle this confusion so far as it may be done. In saying this, nothing is charged against the inspiration and authority of the book. That remains intact; but our reverence for what is so evidently of God in the book does not hinder that we should note and regret the disorderly way in which some human hands—whose we know not—have put together its various parts. Tracing out, however, the history of these imprisonments, it would seem that they were brought about somewhat as follows. Jeremiah had clearly foreseen and foretold that the ungodliness of the people would bring down the Divine chastisements. Moreover, he discerned and declared with equal clearness that the instrument of God’s wrath would be the rapidly rising empire of Babylon. He saw how everything yielded to the might of her armies; that no power, not even that of Egypt, could withstand her assault. But all this was by no means so clearly seen by those to whom Jeremiah was sent. They did not believe in the nearness of God’s judgments, and were not a little angry with the faithful prophet for denouncing them. But Jeremiah saw also that, certain as was the approach of these judgments, they probably would be mitigated if, instead of exasperating the armies of Babylon by useless resistance, they submitted themselves and acknowledged her supremacy (cf. Jeremiah 27:1-22.). But the same spirit in the nobles and princes of Judah and in the people generally, which made them refuse to listen to him when he told of God’s judgments coming upon them, made them impatient of his oft repeated counsels to do now the best thing under the circumstances—bow to the Babylonian storm, and so, though they could not save all, yet save some of their cherished possessions. But at length it became evident that Babylon did mean to assail them. Instead, however, of adopting either of the two better methods—of humbling themselves before God and imploring his protection, or of conciliating the Babylonian king, they formed alliance with Egypt (Jeremiah 37:1-21.), notwithstanding Jeremiah’s solemn assurance of the uselessness of such alliance. But in the ninth year of Zedekiah the Chaldean army besieged Jerusalem. Jeremiah (Jeremiah 34:2) plainly tells the king how hopeless all resistance is. Under the alarm of this siege, the wealthy Jews released their poorer brethren, of whom, contrary to God’s Law, they had made bond slaves (Jeremiah 34:1-22.). But the Egyptian army coming to their aid (Jeremiah 37:5), the Chaldeans raised the siege. Thinking now that all cause for fear was gone, the Jewish leaders quickly went back to their old ways, and, though indignantly denounced by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 34:1-22.), enslaved their brethren again. But he had taken advantage of the withdrawal of the Babylonian forces to quit the city. It was no place for him. His purpose, however, was prevented. Foes not a few, to whom his fidelity had been hateful, now seized on him on the pretence that he was about to desert to the Chaldeans (Jeremiah 37:1-21.). In the insolence begotten of their fancied deliverance, they thought they might do anything to God’s servant. They therefore dragged him before the princes, procured his condemnation, smote him, and then cast him into deep dungeons, where, had he lingered long, death must soon have put an end to his misery. But the King Zedekiah, whose mind was ill at ease, and who could not help believing Jeremiah, whilst allowing himself to be overawed by the violence of those around him, sent for the prophet and caused him to be placed in less severe custody. But he was not to stay there long. His former enemies came round the king, and brought such accusations against him that the king, weakly yielding as his manner was, gave him up to their will; like as Pilate delivered Jesus. Speedily they flung him into a dungeon, which appears to have been a disused well, the bottom of which was still deep in mire. There they leave him miserably to perish. But again he is delivered. An eunuch of the court intercedes for him, and he is drawn up tenderly and carefully, as his half dying state probably required, from the horrible pit into which he had been cast, and brought back again into that milder captivity which is indicated by "the court of the prison," and where we find him when this chapter (32) opens. Now, if we try and realize the prophet’s condition, we can easily see how a despondency like to that of John the Baptist when he sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask him, "Art thou he that should come," etc.?—we can see how a like despondency might well have fallen upon the prophet’s mind. He was no robust, stern Stoic, to whom rough treatment and the scorn and hate of his fellow men were as nothing. His piteous pleading for his life (Jeremiah 37:20), his ready yielding to the king’s suggested subterfuge (Jeremiah 38:27), his reiterated confessions of his distress, the long wail of his lamentations, all reveal a man who, though in the strength of God’s grace he would not flinch in delivering the message God had entrusted to him, whatever it was, whoever might oppose, nevertheless felt keenly the perils of his position and the misery of his lot. Again and again had he been seemingly given over unto death, and even now there was nought but the poor protection of the word of the weakest of monarchs to save him from the rage that was ready to destroy him the first opportunity that should be given. His whole horizon was dark, unillumined by any cheering ray of hope. If the besieging armies did their worst—and it seemed certain that the obstinacy of the people would provoke them to do so—what prospect of deliverance and restoration could there be then? For himself and for his country the outlook was all dark. II. But, next, see HOW GOD MET HIS NEED. He did this in a threefold manner. 1. He led him to commit himself openly to the faith of the restoration of Israel. He had proclaimed this restoration many times before. He was now by a public significant act to avow again his confidence in what God had promised. This is the meaning of the purchase of the land told of in verses 6-15. In the most explicit formal manner he was to do this which his own predictions of the Babylonian conquest seemed to render absurd. It seemed like throwing money away. Why the vendor wanted to sell the ground we do not know. The conviction that all was lost for Judah may have led to it. But when the offer was made, as God told Jeremiah it would be, he saw that it was from the Lord, and that he was, by purchasing it, to testify to his faith that the land should be restored to them again. Hence he did all in the most formal manner: paid for it, took receipt, registered the purchase, and had duplicate made out, handed over the documents to Baruch in presence of many witnesses. Now, had Jeremiah refused to buy this property, it would be tantamount to his apostasy from faith, to his renouncing all his trust in God. His despondency would bid him do so. But the thought of throwing up all faith, renouncing it, and denying God, the very thought seems to have provoked a blessed reaction, and to have made him resolve that he would make it yet more difficult for himself to go back from his faith by committing himself to it in this open, deliberate, and formal way. Thus God made him use what faith he had in order to his winning more. "To him that hath," and uses what he has, "shall be given." It is ever so. Have you little of the spirit of prayer? Pray, and more will be yours. Little love to God? Do something especially and avowedly for him, and your love will deepen. As with the body and the mind, in trade and all departments of life, the use of what strength we have gains more. 2. By leading him to lay all his difficulties before God. This is the meaning of the prayer in verses 17-25. After the prophet had committed himself by this purchase of the land, a purchase so irrational and absurd as it would seem in many eyes, and as it perhaps partly seemed even in his own eyes, he felt need still of more assurance and confidence than he yet possessed. And so in this prayer he pours out his perplexities before God. And if we analyze this prayer, we shall see that he begins by going over in devout confession and adoration the many reasons which ought to establish his faith. First he confesses the sure truth—nothing is too hard for the Lord. Then he proceeds from this general truth to several proofs of it in Israel’s own history—how, in spite of all difficulty, God redeemed, preserved, and settled his people in the land he promised. Then he turns to the perplexing facts which, at the moment, were so staggering his own mind—the dreadful wickedness of the people and the actual presence of God’s judgments. How, in the face of all this, could God’s promises be fulfilled? It is as if he had said, "Lord, I believe, I ought to believe, but I am sore perplexed, I desire to believe yet more; help my unbelief." Such seems to have been the meaning of this prayer. It is prayer because this is its meaning, though there is not one word of petition in the whole of it. The prayer has to be read between the lines. And God does ever so read the desires of his servants, even when not expressed in words, or when words are used. that are not formal prayers. Nor can we doubt that thus coming to the Lord with his perplexities was of great help to the prophet. It must have been so; it ever is so. 3. God gives him fresh grasp of his promises, new assurance o/the truth of his Word. This is the third and last step in this sustaining grace, of which this whole chapter tells. The account of this answer to the prophet’s prayer is given in verses 26-44. He gave him to feel afresh the blessed truth that nothing was too hard for the Lord (verse 27). Therefore it mattered not, even though he could not understand all God’s ways, though the Chaldean armies were thundering at the gates of Jerusalem, though the people were so hopelessly wicked. "Therefore" (verse 36) "saith the Lord," and then follows a whole series of "I wills" and "shall be’s," which God again bears m upon his servant’s soul the certainty of the things he had already declared. And more than he had declared should be—a spiritual restoration as well as a literal one. And then (verses 43, 44), referring to Jeremiah’s own transaction, "fields shall be bought in this land," etc. That which now seemed so unreasonable and hopeless should be matter of everyday occurrence in the blessed times of restoration which God would surely bring about. The instruction, therefore, forevery perplexed soul is—Use what faith thou hast; tell all thy perplexities to God; receive the new assurance of his faithfulness he will surely give.—C. O blessed death! "Until I visit him." Zedekiah does not seem to have been a bad man, though he did evil. Weak rather than wicked. One like our own Charles I. or Louis XVI. of France. One of those men unhappily called to places of great responsibility and difficulty, without the moral strength requisite for so arduous a post. A sadder life than that of King Zedekiah, the last king of Judah and Jerusalem, cannot be conceived. It is a piteous tale. Bereaved, a captive, blinded, he was dragged to Babylon, and there died. And it is because the prophet of God recognizes that death to such an one could not but be a sweet messenger of relief, therefore he calls it "the Lord visiting him." True, the visit of the Lord often means the wrath of the Lord. He will "visit the sins of the fathers," etc. But it yet more often means the goodness of the Lord. "The Lord hath visited and redeemed his people." He visited Hannah. He visits his flock. And this gentler meaning it has here; for the sore punishment of his sins Zedekiah had already been visited. This visit, therefore, tells of God’s merciful visitation. I. DEATH NOT ALWAYS A VISIT OF MERCY. Not to those who die in their sins. It is represented often as the judgment of God. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," as they who die impenitent and unbelieving fall. II. BUT DEATH IS MORE OFTEN THE LORD’S VISIT OF MERCY. It is: 1. To those whom God punishes in this life. Zedekiah was an instance. Cf. those of whom St. Paul says (1 Corinthians 11:33). that they were judged now that they might not be condemned with the world. And probably there are many such. 2. To the sorrowful and those whose lives are a prolonged pain. We speak of death for such as being a merciful relief; and we are right. 3. To all believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Death for them is the Lord’s visiting them—Christ’s coming again, as he said he would, and receiving them unto himself, that where he is they may be also. Which kind of visitation of the Lord shall death be to us?—C. A parable of redemption. For the sake of variety and interest, it is lawful now and then to make the transactions of earth tell of the transactions of heaven; to make prosaic matters of fact—as the redeeming of this field—parables of spiritual realities. Let us so deal with this narrative. Here was— I. A IN AN ENEMY’S POWER. The field, as the whole land virtually was so at that very moment. So man. II. THE LORD . Jeremiah knew that it was "of the Lord." God is the Author of redemption. "He so loved the world that," etc. "God was in Christ reconciling," etc. III. THE THE WORK. Jeremiah might have refused. So Christ thought not his equality with God a thing he should tenaciously retain, but emptied himself (Philippians 3:1-21.). "For our sakes, though he was rich, yet he became poor." IV. THE SEEMING OF SUCH . What likelihood did there seem in Jeremiah’s payment that he should ever possess the land? What could Christ’s cross do to redeem man? "The offence of the cross." V. AND . The prophet paid the silver, and the transaction was attested in due form. Christ paid our ransom, and that that great purchase was valid was attested by the resurrection from the dead: that was the seal. VI. ARE TO DECLARE THE TRUTH. (Verses 12, 13.) So Christ commanded his apostles to testify of what he had done. VII. THE TWOFOLD . (Verse 14.) There was that which was sealed and that which was open. So is it of the great redemption. There is a testimony that is sealed, hidden from the world, but revealed to the believer by the Spirit of God in his inward experience, the witness of God in his soul, the Spirit bearing witness with his spirit. And there is that which is open—the historic evidence of the resurrection of Christ and of the truth of Christianity. VIII. THE OF THIS . The prophet put his in an earthen vessel. We, too, have this treasure in earthen vessels. Let the literal suggest the spiritual; Jeremiah, Paul. IX. THE AND WILL. (Verse 15.) The Lord would have the land to be restored, the Captivity should return. So he "will have all men to be saved." Have we claimed our share in this redeeming work?—C. Jeremiah 32:19 Nothing hid from God. "Thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men." No truth more forgotten than this. Men assent to it, but it has no power over the vast mass of men, and far too little power even over religious men. How different it is with the presence or absence of our fellow creatures! We have often much to conceal from them, and we would often make great efforts to prevent them knowing much of our lives. Hence it makes all the difference in the world to us whether they be with us or away from us. It regulates our conduct, our words, our looks, our very tone and movement. But how little of such effect does the thought of the Divine eye seeing all and always what we are and do, even to the understanding of our thoughts afar off! Therefore such forgetfulness of God’s presence as that which we are all of us so liable to be guilty of requires that we should diligently consider the many proofs of the truth declared in this verse. Note some of them. I. HE HAS LAID DOWN LAWS TO AND GOVERN THE WAYS OF MEN. He has done this not only for those that are open and manifest, but those that are most secret as well. He is a "discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" (cf. Psalms 139:1-24.). "God looketh at the heart." Now, he could not thus largely and minutely lay down these laws if he did not know completely the ways which they concern. II. HE THEM. If we have been engaged in some secret way, or such as we thought was secret, where no eye was upon us as we imagined; if afterwards some one meets us and tells us all that we did, we know that, unseen to us, he must by himself or by others have been present at that secret hour. Now, thus we know that God has been ever present. For: 1. He tells us all about them. What is memory? what, especially, is conscience, but God telling us that he is perfectly acquainted with all that we thought unknown? 2. He tells others of them. He told David (1 Samuel 23:12) that the men of Keilah would deliver him up into the hand of Saul. He told Joseph of Herod’s purpose to kill the infant Saviour. He warned the wise men from whom Herod hoped to have acquired the knowledge he needed. And again, he warned Joseph about Archelaus. And many such instances there are. Now, they all show that God knows all the ways of men. III. HE TURNS THEM WHICH WAY HE WILL. Sometimes he gives men their heart’s desire, satisfying the longing soul. Sometimes he overrules them for ends far other than the doers of them designed. As when they crucified our Lord (Acts 2:23), God ordered which way their sin should issue, which was quite other than they thought (cf. history of Joseph). Sometimes he baffles and denies them altogether. If he did not, this world would be hell. What if all the sin men conceive of they were to commit! Hence (Genesis 20:6) God says he withheld Abimelech from sinning against Abraham, and suffered him not to touch Sarah. And God is forever graciously strangling sin in its very birth. But all this shows that "his eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men." IV. HE THEM. 1. When our secret ways have been evil, cannot we tell in the darkening of the face of God that he knows all? And when they have been such as the Lord delighteth to see in secret, do not our hearts know when we come to him that there is the answering smile? 2. And he recompenses them in his present outward dealings with us. The sinner’s most secret sin finds him out not seldom in this world. And the patient continuance in well doing, however humble and obscure, rarely fails to meet with its reward. 3. And God will judge them in the last great day. Then the thoughts of all hearts shall be revealed. "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil." Again is it made evident that he knows all. He is "the Father who seeth in secret." . Understand what is the right use of this great doctrine. Not that we should be trying every hour of the day to be thinking of the all-seeing eye of God. We cannot, and God does not intend that we should, be ever thus conscious of his presence. Children are not of the presence of their parents. They are utterly unconstrained. But should need arise for their parents’ help, should they be tempted to do what they know their parents would forbid, then in a moment they become conscious of their presence, and the needed aid is asked for, and the tempting sin is resisted. Now, thus should we remember the continual presence of God. "The right state of mind plainly is to have the thought of God’s presence so perpetually at hand that, as with Joseph in his great temptation, it shall always start before us whenever it is wanted." This is living with God and communion with Christ; and it is won by prayer and close walking with him, and blessed are they who win.—C. Truth confessed, but not realized. "Is there anything too hard for the Lord?" In Jeremiah 32:17 the prophet had confessed "nothing is too hard for thee," but it is evident that, though he thus confessed the blessed truth, he did not realize it so as to enjoy it and get the comfort of it (cf. homily on Jeremiah 32:1-44). Now, there are many causes which hinder our realization of this truth which we nevertheless both confess and believe. But they may all be summed up under the three headings of trouble, guilt, and sin. It was the first of these, though not exclusively, which was clouding the prophet’s mind, and making even this axiom of Divine truth seem doubtful for the time. Glance at these causes of this sad questioning whether some things be not too hard for the Lord, and their several cures. I. GREAT TROUBLE. Cf. circumstances of the time and of prophet especially. Oh, what doubt and misgiving do the troubles of life, the terrible events, "the stings and arrows of outrageous fortune," cause to souls not a few! It was so here. Now, observe the antidote to this doubt. To strengthen his faith the prophet draws an argument from the creation. Then, with no resources from without, God formed the earth and the world. Then, when the material out of which the ordered universe should come had all to be brought into order, "the earth was without form and void, and darkness," etc. Then, when all was created, all had to be preserved and daily sustained. Let any one contemplate the proofs that these facts give of the existence, the power, the wisdom, and the beneficence of God, and the question, "Is anything too hard for thee?" can meet with but one answer. How can any doubt the Divine resources in view of the creating and sustaining providence of God. II. GUILT. If it be hard sometimes in the face of the calamities of life to realize the fulness of the Divine resources, it is harder still in the face of human guilt. Is there a God able and willing to supply my material and temporal need? is a question less difficult than that which asks whether there be a God able and willing to pardon my sin. For to minds not few nor feeble, the forgiveness of sin seems an insoluble problem. If the punishment of sin be righteous, and every witness affirms that it is, ought God to remit it? And if it be inevitable, the sure reaping of the previous sowing, can God remit it? Have we not something here that is too hard even for the Lord? If in all departments of nature, we everywhere see effects surely following their appropriate causes, and if spiritual death be the appropriate effect of sin, how can this cause and effect be severed any more than any other? True, the human will can step in and arrest or turn aside this or that effect; we see this perpetually. But here is a question, not of power, but of right, not in the sphere of the material, but of that which is moral. It is a case in which mere power goes for nothing. What, then, is to be done? The atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ solves the problem. He, in our humanity, offered to God for us that perfect sacrifice whereby all who claim their share in its benefits are pardoned, accepted, and saved. "God was in Christ, reconciling," etc. (2 Corinthians 5:1-21.). It is everywhere recognized that a true confession of wrong done, and an earnest entreaty for forgiveness, should suffice to remove all wrath on account of such wrong from the heart of the offended one. That law which God enjoins upon us he observes himself. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit," etc. But such confession of human sin and intercession for its forgiveness Christ offered in humanity to God for us, and so God can be just and yet the Justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. Thus is this hard problem solved; the "Lamb of God taketh away the sin of the world." But there is— This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ A chapter of promises, having reference, first, to the people and kingdom in general (Jeremiah 33:4-13), and then to the royal and priestly offices in particular (Jeremiah 33:14-26). The first part is but the expansion of passages in the preceding prophecy, to which this chapter is attached by the opening verse. The remaining portion is less closely connected; it is occupied by promises of the perpetual duration of the house of David and of the Levites. It should be noticed by the student that there are difficulties connected with the authorship of Jer 33:14, Jeremiah 33:26 (see below). Jeremiah 33:1 In the court of the prison; rather, of the guard (Jeremiah 32:2). Jeremiah 33:2 Thus saith the Lord, the Maker thereof, etc.; rather, Thus saith Jehovah, who doeth it, Jehovah who frameth it that he may establish it, whose name is Jehovah. It was needless to express the object of the verbs. Jehovah’s great purpose is the regeneration of his people. To "frame" or "form" is synonomous with "purpose" (see on. Jeremiah 38:11). The meaning of the verse is that Jehovah’s very Name is a pledge of his fidelity to his promises (comp. Jeremiah 32:18). To "establish" is synonymous with "to carry out." Jeremiah 33:3 Mighty things; rather, secret things (literally, inaccessible). It must be admitted that this introduction hardly corresponds to the sequel, which does not contain any special secrets, as we should have thought. Either Jeremiah 33:2, Jeremiah 33:3 have been inserted by a later (inspired) editor, whose mind was absorbed in high thoughts of the latter days—for this view may be urged the style and phraseology, which are hardly those of the surrounding chapters, hardly those of Jeremiah; or else we must adopt Hengstenberg’s perhaps over subtle suggestion, which, however, does not touch the question of the phraseology, "that throughout Scripture dead knowledge is not regarded as knowledge; that the hope of restoration had, in the natural man, in the prophet, as well as in all believers, an enemy who strove to darken and extinguish it; that therefore it was ever new," or, in the words of Jeremiah, "great and secret things, which thou knowest not." Jeremiah 33:4-9 The houses of Jerusalem, destroyed by the engines of the besiegers or filled with dead bodies, shall be restored; the captives shall be brought back; their sins shall be forgiven, and God be glorified. Jeremiah 33:4 By the mounts, and by the sword; rather, because of the mounds (see on Jeremiah 32:24) and because of the weapons of war. The latter are the warlike instruments used by the besiegers from their batteries or breastworks. Jeremiah 33:5 They come to fight with the Chaldeans, but it is, etc. The passage is obscure, so obscure that we cannot avoid inferring that it is corrupt. "They come" could only refer to the Jews, but these would rather be said to "go out;" the Hebrew writers are particular in distinguishing between to "come" and to "go out." Besides, there is no grammatical connection with the preceding verse. The Septuagint omits "they come," but the passage still remains enigmatical. Jeremiah 33:6 I will bring it health and cure, etc. "Health" is properly the fresh skin which grows over a healing wound (as Jeremiah 8:22; Jeremiah 30:17). First the city is spoken of, then its inhabitants. Will reveal unto them; or perhaps, will roll unto them (comp. Jeremiah 11:20; Jeremiah 20:12). In this ease the figure will be that of a mighty stream (comp. Amos 5:24; Isaiah 48:18; Isaiah 66:12). Truth; rather, continuance (comp. Jeremiah 14:13). Jeremiah 33:7 I will cause the captivity … to return (see on Jeremiah 29:14). Will build them (see on Jeremiah 31:14). Jeremiah 33:8 I will cleanse them, etc. Restored prosperity without spiritual purification would be of no avail; how could it give happiness (comp. Jeremiah 31:34)? Jeremiah 33:9 And it shall be; viz. Jerusalem. A name of joy; rather, on the analogy of Isa 55:13. etc; a monument of joy; i.e. joy giving. They shall fear and tremble. As feeling the contrast between their "unprofitable" idol gods and the faithful God of Israel. Jeremiah 33:10 In this place; i.e. "in this land," as in Jeremiah 7:7 and elsewhere. Shall be desolate; rather, is desolate. Jeremiah 33:11 The sacrifice of praise (see on Jeremiah 17:26). Jeremiah 33:12 An habitation; rather, a pasture (including the idea of an encampment). The expression reminds us of Jer 23:3, Jeremiah 23:4, but it is preferable to take the present passage in its literal sense rather than as metaphorical. Jeremiah 33:13 In the cities, etc. A parallel description to Jeremiah 17:26; Jeremiah 32:44. The vale; rather, the lowland (about the Mediterranean, on the south). The south. It is the Negeb, or south country, which is meant. Under the hands; rather, at the beck. Of him that telleth them. Comp. Milton, ’L’Allegro’— "And every shepherd tolls his tale Under the hawthorn in the dale." Virgil, ’Eel.,’ 3.34— "Bisque die numerant ambo pecus, alter et haedos." Jeremiah 33:14-26 These verses are omitted in the Septuagint, and some leading critics think that both the style and the contents point to a different author from our prophet. In particular it is urged that the promise of a multitude of Levites and of descendants of David is isolated among the prophecies of Jeremiah, who elsewhere speaks of a single great representative of David as the object of pious hope, and of the intercourse between Jehovah and his people as being closer and more immediate than under the old Law. A variation in the form of expressing the Messianic hope is, however, not of much importance. Isaiah, for instance, sometimes refers to a single ideal king (Isaiah 9:6, etc.); sometimes to a succession of noble, God-fearing kings (Isaiah 32:1; Isaiah 33:17). Jeremiah 33:14 That good thing which I have promised; viz. in the parallel passage, Jeremiah 23:5, Jeremiah 23:6 (which see). Jeremiah 33:15 The Branch of righteousness; rather, the Plant of righteousness (see on Jeremiah 23:5). Jeremiah 33:16 Wherewith she shall be called; viz. Jerusalem; in Jeremiah 23:6, the parallel passage, the subject is "Israel," unless there is a corruption of the text. The Lord our righteousness; rather, The Lord (is) our righteousness. Jeremiah 33:17 David shall never want a man, etc. This is, in fact, a republication of the promise given by Nathan in 2 Samuel 7:12-16. It agrees in form with the announcements in 1 Kings 2:4; 1 Kings 8:25; 1 Kings 9:5. Jeremiah 33:18 Neither shall the priests the Levites, etc. It has Been thought that this passage is inconsistent with the prophecies of a time when the ark should no more be remembered (Jeremiah 3:16), and when all should know Jehovah from the least to the greatest (Jeremiah 31:34). But though sin offerings would in this glorious time become things of the past, yet thank offerings are expressly excepted from abolition (Jeremiah 33:11), and in Jeremiah 31:14 a special latter-day promise is given to the priests. Moreover, Ezekiel, who repeats the prophecy of the new spiritual covenant (Ezekiel 11:19; Ezekiel 36:26; Ezekiel 37:26), gives an elaborate sketch of a new temple with a sacrificial system (Ezekiel 40:1-49; etc.); and, if there is any inconsistency, we find the same one in the latter part of Isaiah. In Isaiah 61:6 the whole regenerate people of Israel is called "the priests of Jehovah;" but in Isaiah 66:21 the prophet distinctly states that there will be, in some sense, a priestly class within the chosen people. Jeremiah 33:20-22 The constant, regular succession of day and night is an emblem of the equally regular supply of royal descendants of David and of Levitical priests, and the countless grains of sand are symbolic of the wonderful increase of their numbers. At first sight the latter part of the promise seems a little unlike a blessing. But we have seen already (on Jeremiah 19:3) that the members of the various branches of the royal family probably occupied the principal offices of the state, and the prophet imagines the future in forms borrowed from the present. A numerous sacerdotal class seemed equally necessary for the due magnificence of the ritual; and we must remember that preternatural fertility of the soil was a standing element of Messianic descriptions. The expressions used are, no doubt, hyperbolical, but the meaning seems clear enough. (Hengstenberg’s notion, that the prophet rather indicates the abolition of the royal and sacerdotal distinctions (comp. Exodus 19:6), is surely very far fetched.) Jeremiah 33:23-26 The permanence of Israel as the people of God, with rulers of the house of David. Jeremiah 33:24 This people; i.e. not Egyptians or Babylonians (as some have supposed), but the people of Judah, regarded as alienated from Jehovah (hence the touch of disparagement), as elsewhere in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 4:10, Jeremiah 4:11; Jeremiah 5:14, Jeremiah 5:23; Jeremiah 6:19; Jeremiah 7:33, etc.). There were unworthy Jews, who, seeing their nation fallen from its high estate, despaired of its deliverance and regeneration. That they should be no more, etc.; rather, so that they are no more a people—no more an independent people The "two families," of course, are the "two houses of Israel" (Isaiah 8:14), i.e. the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Jeremiah 33:1-3 An invitation to prayer. I. THE OF THE . (Jeremiah 33:1.) 1. It was to Jeremiah; i.e. (1) to a good man. All men may pray, but it is "the supplication of a righteous man that availeth much in its working" (James 5:16); and (2) a prophet. Therefore a prophet needs to pray. No man knows so much or is so far advanced spiritually as to be able to dispense with prayer. Christ prayed. 2. The invitation came to Jeremiah in prison. Stone walls cannot shut out God from us, nor prevent our souls from rising in prayer to him. The persecutor cannot rob his victim of his choicest jewel. God often visits the soul in scenes of earthly distress. 3. The invitation came a second time. God repeatedly visits his troubled children. The prayer of yesterday will not make that of today needless. 4. The invitation to prayer did not bring deliverance from trouble. Though God visited Jeremiah in prison once and again, the prophet still remained there. We have no right to think that when God visits us for good he will remove our earthly trouble; he may find it better to bless us in it. Therefore, on the other hand, the continuance of the trouble is no evidence that we are deserted by God—perhaps the reverse, because "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth." II. THE GROUNDS OF THE . (Verse 2.) God gives to Jeremiah good grounds for assurance in prayer before inviting him to pray. We cannot pray to an unknown God with intelligence and earnestness. To pray with faith we must have grounds of confidence. These are offered to the prophet in the manifestation of the nature of God in his works, and the revelation of his higher character in the sacred Name, Jehovah. 1. The manifestation of God in his works. (1) He is the Maker of all things; therefore he has power to make all right again. (2) He established the world; therefore there is a permanence in the law, and will, and procedure of God, which no passing accidents can set aside. 2. The revelation of his higher Name, "Jehovah;" "The Lord in his Name." This revelation not only suggests the self-existent and eternal supremacy of God, so infinitely superior to all those evil powers of life feared by us timid mortals; it is also associated with the willingness of God to save, since it was revealed in connection with the deliverance from Egypt (Exodus 3:14), it may well be quoted in anticipation of the deliverance from Babylon. III. THE OF THE . (Verse 3.) 1. God invites to prayer. Therefore (1) we may have good assurance that he will hear prayer; and (2) nevertheless, we are reminded that, though he is favourably disposed to us, he waits to bless us until we "call unto" him. 2. God promises a revelation in response to prayer. Here is an encouragement that the prayer will not be fruitless. The Bible does not represent prayer as a mere subjective exercise; it treats it as a power prevailing with God, securing from him blessings asked. We have here a special encouragement for the perplexed to pray for light. Mysteries are not necessarily eternally hidden. Some once hidden have been revealed (e.g. Colossians 1:26); others may yet be made more clear. The seeker after truth should be a man of prayer. The deepest spiritual truth is not discoverable by speculation; it is revealed in communion. It is seen through spiritual thought and sympathy with God, aided by his Spirit’s inspiration. (See on Jeremiah 30:17.) Forgiveness and cleansing. I. AND MUST BE CLOSELY . When God pardons he also cleanses. The first justification that treats as righteous by forgiveness is the seed of the second justification that makes righteous. It is often noted that it would be neither just in God nor wholesome for us that sin should be pardoned without the creation of a clean heart. But we should observe further that it would not even be possible for this to happen. For the essence of forgiveness is reconciliation, not a mere remission of penalties. Even if these are remitted, while personal enmity is cherished there can be no forgiving. To forgive is to effect a mutual reconciliation after alienation through wrong doing on one side, by concession on the other. The very act of reconciliation implies such a change in the person forgiven as involves the cessation of all opposition on his side. Now, in the root of it sin is just departure from God, and its ripe fruit is enmity to God. Forgiveness must, therefore, by its very nature, imply a cleansing from this sin. II. GOD PERFECT AND . 1. This is given by God. He only can forgive, since it is against him that we have sinned. He only can cleanse, since only the Creator can create anew. 2. This is given through Christ. Hints of the means only appear in the Old Testament. The gospel revelation brings it more clearly before us (1 Peter 2:24). In the sight of the cross we see the great assurance of deliverance from sin in the revelation of the means by which this is brought about. Since Christ has died for our sins we have good reason to ask for forgiveness and cleansing. 3. The promised cleansing and forgiveness are perfect; i.e. (1) from all sins—none can be too black for the "Lord of all flesh" to overcome, for "is there anything too hard for him"? and (2) a complete deliverance—a forgiveness that forgets and boars no grudge, a cleansing that leaves no stain and produces a regeneration of life. III. PERFECT AND ARE TO BE THROUGH AND FAITH. 1. As God accomplishes the perfect deliverance from sin, it is foolish for us to begin a small and imperfect and certainly futile cleansing on our own account. But we must desire the justification and the pardon, else it is unreasonable to expect God to bestow them. This desire, real and active, is repentance. 2. Then must follow faith. It is not necessary for us to understand the rationale of the atonement in order to profit by the fruits of it. But it is necessary to trust in the Saviour. Faith is a very different thing from an intellectual comprehension and conviction of a complex set of doctrines. It is a personal trust. This trust is an essential condition of cleansing and forgiveness. Till we yield ourselves to the influence of God’s grace, and trust to his love, we cannot expect him to deliver us. The Church an honour to God. What is here promised to the Jews finds its fulfilment, not in the Jews alone, nor in them at all until they submit to the Christian influences of the new covenant, but in all the spiritual Israel—in the Church of Christ. I. THE FACT THAT THE CHURCH IS AN HONOUR TO GOD. It is described as a "monument of joy" because God takes delight in it (Jeremiah 32:41), and as "a praise and an honour" because by means of it God’s glory is manifested abroad. This, in turn, is an honour to the Church. Though God picks his fallen children up from the mire of sin he does not leave them in shame and degradation. The prodigal is stripped of his rags and clothed with the best robe. God regards his Church, even here, with the stains of war and toil and sin upon her, as capable of manifesting forth his glory. What greater mission could she have? II. INQUIRE INTO THE SOURCES OF THIS HONOUR. How comes it that the Church is an honour to God? Her own excellences can scarcely be considered as glorious in themselves. It is not in the inherent worth of these that we find the secret of the glory given by the Church to God. The Church is formed by God, redeemed by his mercy, delivered by his power, maintained by his help. Her very existence is a witness to God’s forgiving and restoring grace. All that she does for good is not accomplished by her own might, but through the inspiration of his Spirit. The picture is an honour to the painter because it is the fruit of his well directed labour. We do not admire it only for its simple beauty. If it is a representation of the humblest scene in nature, the reality must be infinitely more beautiful than the picture; yet we give great admiration to the work of art because it is a work and because it reveals art. So the Church is an honour to God as the fruit of his work and of Christ’s sacrifice. III. NOTE THE EFFECTS OF THIS HONOUR. 1. It is to impress the world. The Jews were a standing witness of the power and goodness of God to the neighbouring nations. The Church of Christ is called to a similar mission on a world wide scale. The very existence of the Church as the ark upon the waters preserved and blessed by God is one of the greatest means of making known the grace and glory of redemption. More eloquent than any words is the silent testimony of the good and peaceful lives of godly men. 2. Therefore a great responsibility rests upon all Christians. God entrusts his honour to his Church. If, therefore, she can glorify him, she has also the power to bring dishonour on his Name. The "good soldier of Jesus Christ" is an honour to his Captain; but the sluggard, the coward, and the traitor are a discredit to his high name, and their faithlessness does something to smirch the beauty of the banner of redemption. Jeremiah 33:10-13 Town and country life. In describing the happy future of Israel after the restoration Jeremiah draws a pair of idyllic pictures of town and country life. Both the city of Jerusalem and the outlying regions were so depopulated and wasted by the Chaldean invasion that it was difficult to believe the sun of prosperity would ever shine on them again. But under the providence of God there is a wonderful recuperative power in the human world as well as in the natural. It is remarkable how soon the battlefield with its hideous relics becomes a flowery meadow. The rapid revival of the French nation after the war of 1870 was an astonishment to Europe. This may be accounted for partly on natural principles, since war rarely touches the permanent resources of a country; if it drains the stream, it does not stanch the fountainhead. The capital of a country is always being consumed and remade in peaceful times, so that the destruction of it in war is not so great a calamity as might appear at first sight. But a true revival of prosperity depends on higher causes. A nation is only really prosperous when its people are advancing in moral tone, when there is a Divine root to their recovery. This is implied in the description of restored Israel. Let us consider the two pictures of the restoration. I. TOWN LIFE. In the happy city described by Jeremiah there is a repopulation of the deserted streets. What a melancholy sight is a city in ruins, silent and solitary! The very suggestion of life and bustle increases the gloom of the unnatural stillness that haunts the place. The first step towards restoration is to bring back the inhabitants. The strength of a nation resides ultimately in its population. No empire has yet been ruined through over population; many, from Rome downwards, by the decay of population. There was a great economic truth in the Hebrew estimate of the value of a thickly inhabited country. In the city we see this concentrated. That is a human world in itself. If man is a social being, if cooperation and sympathy are good things, there we may look for true advancing prosperity. But the congregation of human beings in a city aggravates the evils of life when these are not restrained. In the city disease, misery, vice, and crime find their victims. The saddest sight in modern civilization (?) is the wretched condition of the back slums of the greatest cities of Europe, and the moral state of too much of the remainder. Men do not find prosperity and happiness by merely crowding together. In Jeremiah’s picture of the new Jerusalem there is no room for those ugly scenes that Victor Hugo and Dickens make familiar in their representations of Paris and London. There is joy. There is worship. There is sacrifice and devotion to God. When the temple is the true centre of the city, when religion presides over her commerce and her pleasure, then, and then only, can true happiness be enjoyed by the citizens. II. COUNTRY LIFE. Jeremiah paints a companion picture of country life with skilful adaptation of parallels and contrasts. The scene is pastoral. Prosperity is witnessed in quiet industry and growing wealth of flocks and herds. Such a life is no more idle than that of the city—often less so, and it is more calm. The stimulus of competition and the aid of cooperation are lost, but the reflections of solitude are gained; communion with nature takes the place of communion with man. This may be an ideal state of happiness to him who knows how to enjoy it. Both forms of life will be blessed when rightly followed; neither when abused. Dr. Johnson showed his wisdom in appreciating the merits of town life, but Cowper had good reasons for preferring the country. Country life has its vices, its ignorance, narrowness, and brutality, its poverty and lonely distresses. This also needs a higher life to keep it pure and happy. The Christian may find good in whichever condition his lot is cast, since God can bless both to him, The Branch of righteousness. If these words were intended by the prophet to refer to a succession of kings the promise they contain is nevertheless fulfilled in one, and one only, Jesus Christ. The glory of redeemed Israel is to find its consummation in the restoration of the throne of David with righteous government. The true glory of redemption is seen in the righteous rule of Christ. Much of what is taught here is similar to the suggestions of a former passage (Jeremiah 23:5). But the verse before us has also some lessons of its own, viz.— I. CHRIST IS A BRANCH (OR SPROUT) OF . He is of the stock of David, preserving the tradition and inheriting the rights of the royal family. But he is far above the old kings in character as well as in nature. Jeremiah repeatedly insisted on a fact that is only too apparent in the historical books of the Old Testament—the fact that the ruin of Israel was largely due to the bad conduct of her kings. Christ is the one perfectly righteous King. This righteousness of Christ is of great significance. 1. It secures and justifies his position. There is no reason to depose him as there was to depose many of the ancient kings. 2. It gives him great claims for honour and obedience from his subjects. Such a king deserves loyal service. 3. It gives worth to his sacrifice. Christ is a Priest as well as a King—the Melchisedec of the New Testament. When he intercedes for the world, and so redeems to himself "a people of acquisition" (1 Peter 2:9), his righteousness affords weight to his pleading. 4. It makes his example to be of supreme authority. As the righteous King he is the type of what the righteous subject should be. A further inference, drawn by the prophet himself, is worth more extended notice. II. CHRIST A . Under a personal rule the character of the administration is an exact reflex of the character of the monarch. We see in the history of the Jews how bad conduct in the kings meant iniquitous treatment of the subjects. Christ, the righteous King, will necessarily rule righteously. From this fact certain important consequences flow. 1. Negatively, Christ will abolish the injustice under which many of his people suffer. It may be necessary that the process shall be slow. But it must be accomplished in the golden future. Meanwhile it is a consolation for the wronged to feel that even now they are not unfairly dealt with by their great Master; and surely to the Christian Christ’s behaviour should be far more important than anything the world may do. 2. Positively, Christ will maintain the right, and effectually rebuke the wrong within his kingdom; he is a King as well as a Saviour, and a righteous King executing judgment. Mild and gentle, he is yet holy and firm. The Christian who would enjoy the favour of his Master must win his approval by loyal obedience and pure living. Christ is no lax and careless Monarch. It would be ill for his Church if he were so. 3. Christ will lead his people into righteousness. He rules in righteousness, not only to execute justice, but to make his people righteous. This is the highest idea of righteous government. How do we stand in relation to this righteous kingship of Christ? Are we submitting to it for our own improvement and his glory? Are we ignoring, or resisting, or dishonouring it only to bring a judgment from the righteous God upon our heads. Let the careless remember that the Saviour is a King and a Judge. (See on Jeremiah 23:6.) Jeremiah 33:19-26 Nature’s aids to faith. We see faith and science flung into conflict. In the Bible they not only harmonize, but science is regarded as a stay to faith, and nature, instead of being treated as a hindrance to faith, is repeatedly called in to strengthen it. As science advances old formulae are necessarily discarded. But may we not approach the difficulties of our age in the spirit of the Bible, and hope for some large synthesis which shall restore the old relation of science as the handmaid of religion? In the mean time the general correspondences suggested by Jeremiah are as true now as they were in his day. I. THE OF NATURE IS AN OF THE OF GRACE. The same God rules in the physical and spiritual spheres. In the one he is not capricious and uncertain. Why should we fear his being so in the other? Night, tempest, winter—things dark and wild—do not set aside the eternal ordinances of beneficent nature. The blue sky survives the black cloud that hides it for a season only to reveal it the more clearly after shedding itself in thundershowers. Why, then, should we think that the heavenly grace of God’s love should be less enduring? If the ordinances of nature fail we may expect the same of the covenant of grace, but not till then, since both depend on the same Divine endurance. II. THE OF NATURE ARE PLEDGES OF THE OF GRACE. Nature is ever changing, though changing according to uniform laws. In spiritual experience we meet with change. Neither of God’s kingdoms is a Chinese empire. Progress marks both; and progress means change. But the change, though it alters events, does not alter principles; it only develops them to fuller exercise. Do the changes of life make us fear the loss of God’s blessing? Let us remember that the changes in nature do not upset its laws, Our experience varies, but God’s love is changeless. He shows this love, however, rather by a succession of blessings than by maintaining present blessings unaltered. So is it in nature day and night, summer and winter, alternate. Today’s grace will not last for tomorrow; but new grace will be bestowed then if we seek it. The succession does not fail in nature, nor will it in grace. III. THE OF NATURE IS A PROMISE OF THE OF GRACE. We cannot count the stars. Can we count the contents of our own world? of one small section of it? The great and multitudinous variety of nature was a wonder to the ancient Hebrews. How much more wonderful is it to us! There we see no failing of resources, but an infinite abundance, an almost reckless prodigality that sometimes shocks our economic notions, founded as they are on the requirements of limited means, but not applicable to an infinite wealth. Why then should we fear that the fountains of grace that flow from the same God should ever run dry? God administers his grace with a royal bounty. There is enough for all; there is abundance for each. BY A.F. MUIR (Cf. Jeremiah 32:1-5.)—M. Revelation of God’s purpose to him who performs his will. Jeremiah had resolutely witnessed to the truth, and now he was confined in the king’s prison in order to his being silenced. But so far from the Divine communications being less frequent, they were more so, and, if possible, more weighty and important. The word of the Lord came to him the second time (verse 1), and a gracious revelation of God’s power and willingness to bless. I. GOD IS WITH THOSE WHO SUFFER FOR HIS SAKE. It was a token of his love that Jeremiah should receive this assurance, and one which he was most certain to appreciate. Prisoners and martyrs for conscience’ sake in all ages of the Church have been similarly consoled. There are special and peculiar consolations for persons so situated. God is nearer then than at other times. His promises are greater and brighter, and his presence more felt. Who would not suffer thus to be thus comforted? II. GOD US TO ASK OF HIM THE THINGS WE MOST DESIRE. Not that there are not circumstances of such a character as to call forth spontaneous proofs of his favour and love. But seeking and asking are exercises of faith, which cannot long be dispensed with in our intercourse with our heavenly Father, even although "he knoweth what things we have need of before we ask him" (Matthew 6:8). And this because: 1. The exercises of the soul in prayer and faith are greater benefits in them selves than most things that are to be procured through them. 2. Such exercises are a preparation of the soul for heavenly gifts and communications, and keep it in readiness for them. 3. They are pleasing to God, and gratify his love. The answer is certain, and, indeed, waiting; but he loves to be asked. There is no more endearing position in the sight of God than that of prayer. III. THOSE WHO OBEY GOD’S WILL, WILL LEARN OF HIS PURPOSE. Revelations of surpassing magnitude await the prophet in the darkness of his prison house. He did not hesitate to proclaim God s will, and to submit to the consequences of so doing; he is to receive his reward in further disclosures. And these are of the most gracious and consolatory description. But apart from this, the mere communication of the Divine purpose to him was a sign of favour and honour; his truest satisfaction and peace were to be found in hearing God’s voice, and being considered worthy to share the secrets of the Divine future. Man is steward of the present; God retains his hold upon the future, and only discloses it for the reward of faithful men, and for great and merciful ends. 1. Great things, in their scope, character, and influences as belonging to salvation. 2. Secret things (Authorized Version renders this word "mighty"). Not belonging to ordinary experience, but to God’s counsel.—M. Jeremiah 33:15, Jeremiah 33:16 (Vide on Jeremiah 23:5, Jeremiah 23:6.)—M. Jeremiah 33:17, Jeremiah 33:18 Perpetuation of the kingly and priestly stock. I. THE OF THESE OFFICES. To single out these two offices from the others existing within the Jewish nation is to emphasize their importance. They are thereby recognized as the pillars of the theocratic constitution. 1. The king. The grandest unit of human society. Evidently no accidental office, but an ordained and significant one. The king, as representative of God, was the supreme authority of the state, As the chosen of God, or as legitimately descended from such a one, he ruled by Divine right. He was the centre of patriotic attachment, and the authoritative embodiment and enforcer of Divine righteousness—at least that was the ideal. How few of the princes of the Davidic succession realized this the history of Judah can witness. But it was ever held before the people as a sacred promise that a "king should reign in righteousness." 2. The priest. The covenant of priesthood was a covenant of peace (Numbers 25:12), of life and peace (Malachi 2:5). It was the mediatorial or reconciling element in the constitution that through which the nation in its individual citizens, and as a whole, was related acceptably with God, and made partaker of his righteousness. The consecration of the priesthood in a mediate sense sanctified the people; and in the continued existence of the priesthood a guarantee was afforded of the favour of God and the permanence of Israel’s mission as the righteous servant of God. II. HOW THE PROMISE WAS . What is actually predicted concerning the Davidic and Levitical succession is that it will never be quite cut off; it will never happen that there is wanting any one in whom the house may be perpetuated. In the Captivity such a gap took place: Jeconiah was written childless. But it was never to occur again. Now, how are we to understand this promise? In its literal sense it was only approximately fulfilled; spiritually and figuratively the fulfilment was complete: 1. In our Lord Jesus Christ. Of the house of David after the flesh, he is eternal King and Lord of the spiritual Israel. He is also "a Priest forever after the order of Melchisedec." As the great High Priest of mankind, he appears before God "making continual intercession" (Hebrews 8:3). 2. Christians, too, realize the ideal here presented. Through the atoning work of Christ they are made "kings and priests," a "royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:5-8). The identification of the Lord with his servant dignifies and ennobles the latter, making him a new centre of spiritual dominion and of intercessory and reconciling influence. "If we suffer [endure] we shall also reign with him" (2 Timothy 2:12) is a promise which looks forward to the completion of the Messianic kingdom. The Levitical priesthood, too, is lost and absorbed in the priestly character of Christ and his people.—M. Jeremiah 33:19-22 The covenant of God permanent as the laws of nature. A curious inversion of Gen 8:22, but very instructive. There, what is considered by the secular mind as secured by the laws of matter operating mechanically, is declared as a promise, and consequently as dependent upon the good will and gracious purpose of God; here, what appears at first to be within the power of one or both parties to it, is stated to be as absolute and permanent as if it were not a moral engagement but a material law. Accepting, as in Genesis 8:17 and Genesis 8:18, the Messianic as the true fulfilment of this prediction, what do we learn? I. THE POWER OF GOD’S WORD. The creative flat was omnipotent; the promise is to be not less so. It is as if a power dwelt within it to bring to pass what it declares. Of course this is not so in the one case any more than in the other. God is in his Word, making it effectual even to its remotest end. We are reminded of Christ’s utterance, "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away," which seems to make an even stronger assertion. Equally potent is the Word of God in the gospel, its warnings, invitations, and transforming energies. II. THE , ETERNAL OF THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST. The human element in the Divine covenant relation has ever been the variable and uncertain one. But through the unique personality of the God Man, and of his atoning sacrifice, that element is strengthened and made secure. An incarnation like that of Emmanuel, an act like the death on the cross, once achieved is irreversible, and its consequences must affect the remotest eternity. The spiritual laws comprehended and illustrated in the transactions of the gospel are as irreversible as those of nature; and in the person and work of Christ there is an objective basis presented that can never be destroyed by the weaknesses or unbelief of men, any more than "my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night." III. THE OF THE NEW . (Genesis 8:22.) It is really a creative word, because it calls into existence the Church or community of believers, who are the true successors of the seed of David and the Levitical priesthood. In its constant triumphs and the ever increasing nature of the Messianic kingdom, fresh securities are given for the perpetuation of the kingly and priestly functions as developed through the grace of God in human nature. Where the gospel is faithfully preached, and spiritual life truly energizes, believers will, as at Pentecost, be "added daily" and "multiplied." It is like leaven, a seed, etc. As appealing to the deepest needs and yearnings of human nature, it is bound to overcome the world and comprehend the whole race within the zone of its influence. "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth; it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).—M. BY S. CONWAY The reasonableness of prayer. "Call upon me, and I will answer thee" etc. This is one of the blessed promises of God given for the help of sorrowful and struggling men. None but God knows how many have been helped by it and by the glorious throng of Divine words which are like unto it, or how often, or how mightily. "Ah! you think so," replies a voice not unfrequently nor too modestly heard in these days. ’Tis the voice of the disciples of science, which says, "Yes; you religious people think God answers your prayers and hears you when you call upon him; but really it is no such thing; it is all a mistake, and, what is more, you ought to know and confess it, and therefore give over what you are pleased to call your prayers. Prayer! how is such a thing possible in a universe governed everywhere by fixed laws as ours is? Where in such an order is there room for what you call ’answers to prayer’? It is scientifically impossible, not to say absurd, and the marvel is that people don’t see this." So speak, and some of them with far more of arrogance and scorn than now represented, not a few of the scientists of the day. The calling upon God in the day of trouble is nothing more, so one of the most distinguished of modern philosophers has said, than the piteous cry of the hare when she knows that the hounds are upon her. A bitter cry of distress wrung out from the soul. It is thought by those who utter it to go up to God, and that God will hear it and help; but that is all a vain imagination; it goes out into mere space; nothing does come of it, and nothing can. This is what is said, and it is based upon the observed uniformity and inflexibility of law. All science is built up upon this faith of the unbroken order and regularity of law, and without it there could be no science, and indeed no life at all. The reign of law is everywhere; how then can prayer be reasonable? and where is there room for those Divine interpositions which prayer asks for and thinks it receives? What is the use, then, of the mother weeping her heart out in her prayers that God would give back the health of her beloved child? What the use of national fasts and days of prayer for rain, for removal of pestilence, for restoration of the health of princes, and the like? If these things lie in the order of fixed law, they will come to pass without any prayer; if not, they will not be in spite of all the prayers of all the Churches in all the world. Now, this is what is so loudly and largely being said on all sides. What have we to reply? Has the Christian preacher nought to urge on the other side? We think he has. He has a right to ask the scientists such questions as these— I. HAS SCIENCE ALL GOD’S FIXED LAWS? Are you quite sure that nowhere there may be some law which shall provide for these results which Christians call "answers to prayer"? We are bound to be grateful for the magnificent discoveries of the laws of the universe which science has already made. But has it discovered all these laws? and if not, why amongst those as yet undiscovered ones may there not be that which the Christian needs to justify his prayer? It is the same argument as John Foster urges against the atheistic doctrine that there is no God! "What ages and lights are requisite for this attainment, the knowing that there is no God! This intelligence involves the very attributes of divinity, while a God is denied. For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in every place in the universe, he cannot know but that in some place there may be manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered Unless he knows all things, that is, precludes another deity by being one himself, he cannot know that the Being whose existence he rejects does not exist." Now, in like manner, the Christian may meet the scientific unbeliever by asking him whether he has traced every effect up to its cause. May not, then, the cause you do not know be the one which meets the Christian’s need and secures answer to his legitimate prayers? II. WHAT MORE RIGHT HAS SCIENCE TO REJECT THE FACTS FROM WHICH THE DEDUCES HIS THAT GOD ANSWERS PRAYER, THAN THE HAS TO REJECT THE FACTS UPON WHICH SCIENCE BASES HER OF LAW? Science marshals her facts. They are a goodly array, and drawn from all departments of creation, animate and inanimate; from all kinds of living organisms, whether animal or vegetable; and they have forced upon you, we readily admit, the conviction of the universality and invariability of natural law. Christians are bound to believe you. We are not going to question your facts, though we may some of your inferences from them. Let your facts once be proved to be facts, as so many of them have been, and we will candidly accept them. Yes, though they compel us to set aside some old and cherished interpretations of Scripture, and to confess that we have read our Bibles wrongly in more than one instance. We trust you in your statement of facts; we believe you to be good men and true. Now we turn and ask you to deal with us and our facts in like manner. For we, too, have facts from which we have drawn the conclusion that, let prayer be according to the will of God, he will assuredly answer it. Some of our facts which have much force with us you perhaps would not admit, since you would explain them on the ground of mere coincidence, and we could not prove that, apart from prayer, they could not have been. E.g. persons in distress have called upon God; relief has unexpectedly come and in very remarkable ways. The believer looks on such instances as answers to prayer; nothing can persuade him that they are not. Still, it cannot be denied that they may have occurred without such prayer. Other such instances are those in which life despaired of has been given back in answer to, or in connection with, fervent prayer for such restoration; as the Prince of Wales’s recovery in 1872. Now, this recovery might have been—we cannot prove that it could not—apart from prayer, and therefore, whilst these instances are very convincing to the believer, they are not so to others. But there are facts concerning which we can say they are valid for our argument, because they never have occurred and never do occur, apart from prayer. E.g. in the coming away of any soul from its attachment to the world to surrender itself in trust and love to Christ—that which is called conversion; was this ever known apart from prayer? Did ever any find the Lord without seeking him—i.e without prayer? Also in the ordinary conduct of the Christian life, who among us is able to keep his garments unspotted from the world, to overcome besetting sin, to confront and conquer temptation, to preserve the hands clean and the heart pure, without continual prayer? Again, who are they that have attained to a high degree of spiritual life and vigour, to whom it is their habit to walk with God; who "rejoice in the Lord always;" who are God’s saints indeed, the very elect, about whose being born of God we have no doubt? Now, every one of these will tell you that they owed their all to the habit their Lord enabled them to maintain of constant prayer. Press on in thought to the realms of the blest, move up and down amid the throng of God’s redeemed; is there one who has or could have attained that blessedness if on earth he had not sought God in prayer and called on the Name of the Lord? So with any really living Church, a Church that is a power for good, a blessing to the neighbourhood, a Church at peace, at work, and blessed with the prosperity of God, is the life of such a Church ever possible apart from this same power of prayer? Its life is nurtured, not by its wealth, numbers, rank, culture, intellect, eloquence, or any such gifts, but by its prayers. All the rest would let it starve; by prayer alone it lives. One other instance—the winning of our children for God. Does any parent or teacher ever secure this great joy without prayer? Never. Such are our facts; in them we are sure that God answers prayer; and hence we believe also that in the material world he does the same. And as we receive the facts of science, so we ask that our facts may be received likewise. III. IS NOT GOD OUR FATHER? The scientific hypothesis denies his fatherhood, if not his very existence altogether. If he do exist, he is, according to the scientist, so enclosed in his own laws and in the visible adjustment of things that he has no room for freedom of choice, for exercise of will. Like the mainspring of a watch, he is shut up in his own works, and can only act in one given way. Or, like the locomotives on our railways, he must keep to the rigid appointed iron track, and not swerve therefrom in the least. But that is not our conception of God. We believe him to have a mind, a will, a heart; and hence we conclude that, like the best earthly parents, whilst keeping ever in view the true welfare of his children, he yet allows himself, within those limits, freedom of action as may seem to him wisest and best. Now, within these limits there is room for prayer and room for answers to prayer. We cannot believe him to be so tied down by his physical laws that, when it is consistent with the highest good of his children, and yet more when it is necessary for that good, he is unable to modify or alter them even though he would. A God so bound by physical law is really no God, and the creed of the atheist will alone harmonize with the assertions of science. If there be a God, he must be a personal God; but if he be a Person, then he must have will, the power of choice; but if he have will, he must be able to modify the action of his laws, as we can and do continually; and if he be our Father, as we believe, then we need not doubt that the fervent believing prayer of his children will avail much to induce him to modify his laws for our good. And hence we maintain that it is good to call upon him, and that he is nigh unto such and will save them. Prayer, then, is not unreasonable if there be a God; not unreasonable if we adopt the very methods of science itself, and deduce our doctrine from our facts; not unreasonable, unless it can be shown that science is aware of and has registered every fixed law of God.—C. The Divine treatment of sin. "Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them." Here, as in so many other Scriptures, the moral, political, social, and spiritual recovery of Israel is spoken of under the image of bodily healing. For all healings of the body are types and pledges of the better healing. If God so cares for the body, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the tomb, shall he not care for the soul, which is eternal? This Jeremiah 33:6 is a promise that the Divine treatment of sin shall be effectual. The Lord is Jehovah-rophi. He heals them that have need of healing. I. SIN IS AN AWFUL FACT. All nations have recognized this and mourned over it. But it has not been created by Christianity. True, the Christian faith brands it with the stigma of shame as none other does; foreverywhere sin has cast its deep shadow and driven noble souls, not a few, to utter despair. But it was here before Christianity. Hence— II. THE OF HAS BEEN—WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH IT? And the answers have been very different. Note: 1. The answer of the philosopher, which extenuates it, on the ground: (1) Of the imperfection of our nature. If we knew more, it is said, had larger comprehension of truth, we should not sin. But is that true? Is increase of knowledge always increase of virtue? Are little children, who know so little, less virtuous than many an educated man? The names that are accursed forever, Nero, Herod, Balaam, Philip II. of Spain, Alva, and many more, were all educated men. (2) Of the tyranny of the body. It is this cursed flesh, they say. Get rid of that, and the soul will be pure. Hence one reason wherefore St. Paul’s doctrine of the resurrection was so opposed at Corinth, because they thought it was a bringing back of all that dread source of evil which it was hoped was done with forever when death came. Now, no doubt, the flesh is the occasion of sins not a few. But there are many sins, and those which probably God will most sternly condemn, which are quite independent of the body. Malice, envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness need no "flesh" for their existence. And even in those sins which are especially of the flesh, myriads of victories over it, victories continually renewed, prove that it can, as it ought to, be kept under and brought into subjection. (3) Of its being a form of good. Without it, it is urged, virtue could not be attained; for it is in the conflict with sin that virtue is developed, disciplined, and strengthened. Virtue would lie dormant, lethargic, and be a miserable weakling, were it not that sin roused her up, exasperated her, and forced her to stand on her defence. But such argument confounds temptation with sin. What is urged is true of temptation, but never of sin. Nor is sin needed as the foil, the dark background on which virtue shall shine out with greater lustre than but for this foil had been possible to it. For sin is, some affirm, a necessary condition, almost an ingredient, of good. Moral evil cannot be so evil as it is thought. The devil is not so black as he is painted. But is sin necessary to manifest goodness? Where, then, is such background in God, or in the angels, or in the saints in glory? None, therefore, of these extenuations will stand. Reason, conscience, and God’s Word alike condemn them. 2. There is the answer of despair, which regards it as inevitable and invincible. This answer does not make light of it, but regards it as that which can neither be helped nor overcome. They believe there is a kingdom of evil, independent of God, with its all but omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient head, like unto God. This was the creed of ancient Persia, against which, that his countrymen might not be carried away by it, Isaiah protested with all his might; cf. Isaiah 45:5-7, "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me … I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." And Manicheism was a like heresy. And the moral despair which regards sin as inevitable is practical Manicheism. But this is a terrible error; for he who has come to believe in the existence of a god of evil as well as a God of goodness will soon come to believe only in the former and not in the latter at all. Moreover, conscience in her deepest utterances gives no countenance to this invincibility of evil. "Father, I have sinned," is its confession. It never urges that it had no power to resist—that it was forced to sin. It is a dread snare of the devil to persuade men that sin is invincible. Believe him not. Myriads of holy souls give him the lie; and, through the might of Christ your Lord, you may give him the lie likewise. But note now— III. CHRIST’S ANSWER TO THIS . This verse is one of innumerable others which affirm the same truth. 1. He does not make light of it or extenuate it. His high and holy teaching, his blameless life, the doom he pronounced on sin, above all, the death he died, were one emphatic protest against and condemnation of sin. But: 2. He did not regard it as invincible. He distinctly promises deliverance from it, and: 3. This he gives. By blotting out the record of the past. By the present help of his Spirit. By the bright prospect of eternal life. Facts prove all this. He healed them that had need of healing. No disease baffled him. His resources did not run out, and the healing was a real one. And so it is still. Let us come to him and see.—C. Fruits of pardon. Some of these are declared here; e.g.— I. IN REGARD TO GOD. 1. Joy. God, not Deus impassibilis—a God who does not feel. 2. Praise and honour. The theme of the Church on earth, and especially in heaven, is this, "Unto him that loved us," etc. There is no glory equal to that which shall accrue to God by "Jesus Christ," for through him pardon comes to guilty men. II. IN REGARD TO THE . They enjoy the goodness and prosperity which God procures them. Pardon is not mere acquittal, but acceptance and adoption, and hence the goodness and prosperity. III. IN REGARD TO THE WORLD AT LARGE. "They shall fear and tremble." Why this? 1. Because of its manifestation of power. His people a feeble flock, but thus raised and exalted. 2. Because of its exposure of idolatry. It will be seen how foolish they have been to trust in their false gods. 3. Because of its manifestation of grace. The fear and trembling shall not be of dread so much as of repentance—repentance wrought by the evident grace of God in the rich pardon he has bestowed.—C. Jeremiah 33:10-18 Paradise lost and regained. I. THE PICTURE OF A LOST. This is given in Jeremiah 33:10. The land desolate; the flocks and herds all gone; no human being to be seen; the cities laid waste. Now, this meagre outline would recall to the mind of the Jews the blessed days when the land teemed with inhabitants; when the cities were numerous, wealthy, populous, and strong; when the hills and dales of their countryside were covered over with flocks; and when, in the glad prosperity of all, the very fields were said "to shout for joy and also sing" (Psalms 65:1-13.). But all that is past; desolation reigns, the lands stripped, the cities burnt with fire, and the people slain or in exile; the whole land desolate of both man and beast. II. . Such is the bright, joyous picture set forth in these verses (11-18). Its elements are: 1. Righteousness. Not mere innocence, as in Eden, but virtue tested and triumphant, and so issuing in a settled righteousness. This must be the basis of all truly blessed life. The people must be all righteous. This secured by him who is called "the righteous Branch, the Lord our Righteousness." 2. Love. (See Jeremiah 33:11.) The joyous picture of the gladness of the bridegroom and the bride. And that companionship which is the most blessed in the world, and that love which is deepest and purest of all, are fitly taken as the symbol of that love which shall constitute the home of God’s redeemed more than a paradise regained. 3. Worship. (Jeremiah 33:11.) The picture of the temple service has risen up before the prophet’s mind. He hears the glad chant, the loud response of the people, "Praise the Lord." He sees the altar fire and the priests and sacrifices, and by this representation he teaches us that worship is part of the blessedness that is to be. 4. Healthful and universal employ. (Jeremiah 33:12, Jeremiah 33:13.) It has often been said, "God made the country, man made the town; and the saying may be read truly or falsely, as each one wills. For he who says there is nought of God in the city speaks as falsely as he who says there is only God in the country. But there can be no doubt that the highest, purest, and most healthful forms of life are connected with the country. "Four words, each of them full of meaning, comprise the conceptions which we attribute to the paradisaical state. They are these innocence, love, rural life, piety; and it is towards these conditions of earthly happiness that the human mind reverts, as often as it turns, sickened and disappointed, from the pursuit of whatever else it may have ever laboured to acquire. The innocence we here think of is not virtue recovered, but it is moral perfectness, darkened by no thought or knowledge of the contrary. This paradisaical love is conjugal fondness, free from sensuous taint. This rural life is the constant flow of summer days, spent in garden and field, exempt from our exacted toil. This piety of paradise is the grateful approach of the finite to the Infinite—a correspondence that is neither clouded nor apprehensive of a cloud" (Isaac Taylor). Now, in these verses, when the prophet would set forth the blessed life that the restored people should enjoy, he draws a picture, not of city, but of country life; not of hard exacting toil, but of healthful, peaceful occupation—the pastoral life of a quiet, beautiful land. It is a symbol of all healthful employ, and such employ shall be a further feature in the blessedness that is to be. Therefore, "Sursum corda!" a righteous, loving, worshipful, and healthful life awaits the sons of men "for I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them," saith the Lord.—C. The prophet’s refrain. "For I will cause to return the captivity of the land." This declaration is heard again and again. We have it in substance times without number in this and in previous chapters. We have a similar statement in Jeremiah 32:37. But we have the exact words, the very same form of expression, in Jeremiah 32:44, and in Jeremiah 32:7 and Jeremiah 32:26 of this chapter. Hence we have called it the prophet’s refrain. And the like theme of God’s purposes of grace towards mankind generally should be the refrain of all the prophets of the Lord in these our days. For— I. THE ASSURED ARE SIMILAR. In connection with each several repetition of this promise, "I will cause their captivity to return," is named some specific blessing which that return shall bring along with it. In connection with its first mention (Jeremiah 32:44) God’s purpose is given as the reason wherefore his now afflicted people should again possess their land. And there is a life eternal, a true, real, blessed life for humanity; a life compared with which this life is like the hard lot of the captive Israel compared with the glowing glad life promised in the days when their captivity should return. Then in connection with its second mention (Jeremiah 32:7 of this chapter) there is the promise of "health and cure," moral and spiritual health, when their iniquity should be cleansed and their sin forgiven. And is not the promise of man’s redemption like to this? In the eternal life there shall be health and cure indeed. And with the third mention of this promise (Jeremiah 32:11) there is associated gladness and joy. "There shall be … the voice of joy and the voice of gladness," etc. (Jeremiah 32:11). And with the fourth there is (Jeremiah 32:26 of this chapter) the promise of permanence for all that has been before, the permanency as of the covenant of day and night, and the perpetual sovereignty of their own royal house, the seed of David. And so we look for a new order of things, which shall not be as this, troubled and transient, but characterized by a rest and joy that shall be eternal. Thus analogous are the blessings promised to the return of Israel and the redemption of mankind. II. THE MOTIVES OF SUCH OF GOD’S OF GRACE ARE ALIKE. The reason of the prophet’s refrain were such as these. 1. He so delighted in the truth he had to tell. Often and often he had been charged with a message of a far less welcome kind; but this was blessed to his soul. And so, would we effectually speak of God’s purposes of grace, they must be the joy of our soul. We must ourselves delight in them. 2. He really believed it. The oft repetition of this word shows his confidence in it. He speaks with no bated breath. "I believed, therefore have I spoken." And this must ever be the spiritual force with which our gospel must be charged if it is to have any effect on those who hear it. 3. He knew it would so comfort the cast down. Many already were mourning along with the prophet over the desolations so surely coming on the land, and many more when away in exile would mourn. But the prophet knew that their hearts would be cheered and sustained by the earnest and confident assurance that "their captivity should return." For their sake, therefore, he reiterated this word. And in order to our now earnestly proclaiming the message of God’s love, we too must believe that it will do the people good, that it will be for their help and comfort. And we must have for them, as the prophet had for his people, a real love and concern. This has ever been an attendant of and is essential to a successful ministry. 4. He knew that it would so vindicate God. Questionings and perplexities not a few were being occasioned by the prophet’s solemn declarations of the coming destruction. They contrasted his terrible word with the oft repeated promises made by God" to David and to his seed forever" and to Zion, concerning which he had said, "There will I dwell, for I have delighted in it." These and the many more like promises seemed forever to forbid the possibility of that which the prophet, and now the actual course of events, declared to be close at hand. How were the two to be reconciled, and the truth and goodness of God to be vindicated? It was by the truth declared in this refrain of the prophet. That rendered both Divine words harmonious and true. Thus the enemies of the prophet would be silenced, and the company of them that feared God would be reassured. The house of God was dear to the prophet; and so must it be to us would we earnestly preach his Word. "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up;" "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?" So was it spoken of or by the Lord Jesus Christ; and so in like manner in our measure and degree must it be true of us if we are to be true witnesses for him and for his grace. The gospel is the vindication of God today, as the return of the Captivity was in the days of the prophet. And being jealous for God, he proclaimed incessantly that return, as we must the redemption of mankind.—C. The Lord our Righteousness. (Cf. homily on Jeremiah 23:6.)—C. Do the prophets prophesy falsely? This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ This chapter must be taken in connection with Jeremiah 35:1-19. The whole section consists of three passages, introduced with a superscription in the same form, but otherwise unrelated. It serves to finish off the earlier prophetic portion of the book, Jeremiah 36:1-32. opening a series of narratives. The first passage (Jeremiah 34:1-7) is virtually a postscript to Jeremiah 32:1-44; Jeremiah 33:1-26.; it apparently contains the prophecy referred to in Jeremiah 32:3-5 as the cause of Jeremiah’s imprisonment. The same prophecy recurs in a shorter form in Jeremiah 37:17, and, by comparing the context of this passage with Jeremiah 32:1, etc; we are enabled to infer that the original prophecy was uttered at the renewal of the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, who had withdrawn for a time on the news of the approach of Pharaoh’s army. Jeremiah 34:1 All the kingdoms of the earth; etc.; rather, of the land. The accumulation of phrases is to convey the composite character of the Chaldean army. And against all the cities thereof; i.e. the fortified cities which still held out—against Lachish and Azekah, if no more (per. 7). Jeremiah 34:2, Jeremiah 34:3 (Getup. these verses with Jeremiah 32:3-5.) Jeremiah 34:4 Yet hear the word of the Lord, etc. Clearly this introduces a limitation of the foregoing threat. Zedekiah will, it is true, be carried to Babylon, but he will not suffer a violent death; he will "die in peace," and be buried with all customary royal honours. A difficulty, however, has been felt in admitting this view. How could Zedekiah be said to die in peace, when he was "in prison till the day of his death" (Jeremiah 52:11)? and how could the deposed king of a captive people be honoured with a public mourning? The reply is (1) that, as compared with a cruel death by flaying or impalement, it was "peace" to live in the obscure quiet of a prison; and (2) that, as the Jews appear to have been left very much to themselves (see Ezekiel, passim), it is credible enough that they were allowed to show the customary honours to a deceased representative of David. At any rate, the alternative view seems not in accordance with sound exegesis, viz. that the verse means this, "If thou obey the word of the Lord, and surrender thyself to Nebuchadnezzar, thou shalt live and die in peaceable possession of the throne." What parallel can be produced for this violent interpretation? Jeremiah 34:5 With the burnings of thy fathers. It was customary to burn spices at royal funerals (2 Chronicles 16:14; 2 Chronicles 21:19). Saying, Ah lord! (see on Jeremiah 22:18). The second of the group of prophecies in Jeremiah 34:1-22; Jeremiah 35:1-19. is composed of Jer 35:8 -22. It contains a denunciation of the Jews who, at the beginning of the siege, had emancipated their Hebrew slaves (according to Exodus 21:1-4; Deuteronomy 15:12), but after the withdrawal of the Chaldeans had resumed possession of them. Verse 21 is couched in a form which indicates the precise date of the prophecy, viz. before the Chaldeans returned to renew the siege of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 34:8 A covenant. The scene of this "covenant" was the temple (Jeremiah 34:15, Jeremiah 34:18). Solemn agreements of this kind were not uncommon. To proclaim liberty unto them. The phrase, a very peculiar one, is taken from the law of jubilee (Le Jeremiah 25:10), though the prescription on which the covenant was based refers exclusively to the seventh year of the slave’s servitude. Jeremiah 34:9 Should serve himself of them; literally, should work through them; i.e. "should employ them for forced labour;" as in Jeremiah 25:13. Jeremiah 34:10 Now when all the princes, etc. This verse should rather be rendered thus: Then all the princes, and all the people, etc; obeyed, every one letting his slave, and every one his handmaid, go free, not serving them. selves of them any more; they even obeyed, and let them go. Jeremiah 34:13 Out of the house of bondmen. Egypt had been a "house of bondmen" to their fathers (Exodus 13:3; Deuteronomy 6:12, and elsewhere); let them not make the holy city thus grievous to those who were equally with themselves children of Jehovah’s redeemed ones. Jeremiah 34:14 At the end of seven years, etc. This is the literal rendering, but the sense, as is clear from the parallel passage in Deuteronomy 15:12, and indeed from the next clause of this very verse, is "in the seventh (not, the eighth) year." Jeremiah 34:15 Ye were now turned; or, ye returned (the primary meaning is simply "to turn;" hence (1) to turn away, as in Jeremiah 34:16; (2) to return, as here; comp. (Jeremiah 8:4). Jeremiah 34:17 I proclaim a liberty for you. Judah is henceforth to be "lord of himself—that heritage of woe;" or rather, he is to become the slave of Sword, Pestilence, and Famine. The "liberty" now proclaimed does not profit Judah, who so much desires it. I will make you to be removed; rather, I will make you a shuddering (as Jeremiah 15:4). Jeremiah 34:18 When they out the calf in twain, etc. This clause should be translated differently, and placed, for clearness, in a parenthesis (the calf which they cut in twain, and between the parts of which they passed). The division of the calf might, in fact, be called in Hebrew either "the covenant" or "the token of the covenant" (comp. Genesis 17:10, Genesis 17:11). It was a solemn assurance that he who should transgress God’s Law should share the same fate as the victim. The same idea seems to have dictated the Hebrew phrase, "to cut a covenant," and the Greek and Latin equivalents (ὅρκιατέμνειν: foedus icere); comp. the parallel narrative in Genesis 15:10. Jeremiah 34:20 And their dead bodies, etc. One of Jeremiah’s repetitions (see Jeremiah 7:33). Jeremiah 34:21 And Zedekiah … and his princes. Graf infers from the separate mention of the king and his princes that these had themselves been unfaithful to the covenant. But the threat in this verse seems merely intended to enforce the preceding one by specializing the most prominent sufferers. Parallel passage: Jeremiah 21:7. Which are gone up from you (see Jeremiah 37:5). Jeremiah 34:1-7 A king’s doom. Jeremiah reveals to King Zedekiah his approaching doom. The invader is already occupying the land and coming up before the walls of Jerusalem (verse 7). It is now too late to escape, resistance is vain, the doom is certain. What a terrible scene is that in the royal palace when the mournful prophet stands up to deliver his message to the terror-stricken monarch! Such events are rare in history. Yet the general truths on which the message of Jeremiah depended are eternal and clear to all who will see them. We have no prophet to tell us of the exact nature and date of our future judgments. But we know the principles of God’s government and can apply them to ourselves. We know that God is just and must punish sin; we know that "the wages of sin is death." Therefore, though no voice sounds in our ears, the sentence is virtually pronounced every day we sin, and hangs over us continually until our sin is forgiven. I. THE DOOM. 1. The city is to be destroyed. She has shared the king’s sin, therefore she must share his punishment. The destruction of Jerusalem was especially a blow to Zedekiah. They who have most can lose most. Jerusalem was a favoured city—the greater, therefore, was the guilt of her apostasy, and the heavier must be her doom. Past favours are no charms against future judgments. 2. The king shall not escape. (Verse 3.) Rank is no safeguard against the judgment of Heaven. God will call kings to account. So all who have accepted responsible posts will have to answer for their conduct in them. Zedekiah would find his sufferings aggravated by being a witness to the triumph of Nebuchadnezzar. Shame, remorse, mental anguish, are to the sensitive worse penalties than bodily torture. II. THE . The doom is not utter. "In wrath God remembers mercy." God never delights to punish, never gives one blow more than is absolutely necessary; does not hate, but pities and grieves for the victim. So Zedekiah’s life is to be spared, and he is to receive a measure of honour in his captivity. There are degrees of punishment in the Divine execution of justice—some will be beaten with fray stripes, some with many (Luke 12:47, Luke 12:48). In this fact we may see the hope of mercy to the penitent, for God does not wholly cast a soul off. The shadows fall thick, but the darkness is not that of midnight. When trouble comes we are too ready to complain if we do not fall into despair. We should look for mitigating circumstances, those rifts in the clouds that tell of the mercy not yet wholly gone, and give hopes of light after the storm is over. But it is foolish for any to take spiritual comfort to himself for the future life in such thoughts as these, for we may well fear that the lightest doom then will be unspeakably terrible. The refuge we are to seek is not in that poor mitigation, but in the full forgiveness and perfect salvation of Christ now offered to the worst men, even to those over whom hangs the heaviest threat of doom (Hebrews 7:25). Jeremiah 34:8-11 Superficial repentance. In liberating their slaves under the influence of terror, and reclaiming them when the cause of alarm had disappeared, the Jews afford a striking instance of superficial repentance. This must be distinguished from an insincere repentance referred to in an earlier prophecy (Jeremiah 3:10). That is nothing but a hollow mockery from the first, a mere pretence of conscious hypocrisy; but this is genuine so far as it goes—only it goes but a very little way. I. THE CAUSE OF IS FEAR OF PAINFUL . When the invader was at their gates Zedekiah and his people were so terrified that they were willing to do and promise anything that would mitigate the wrath of God who had permitted the calamity to visit them for their sins. Fear was the sole motive of their hasty covenant of emancipation. Now, this may be a useful initiative of a thorough repentance; but then it must lead to deeper feelings of hearty detestation of sin on its own account. Fear of penalties, without any abhorrence of the moral evil that merits them can only produce superficial results. Earnest repentance involves a turning from sin rather than a flight from its penalties. Hence the importance of seeking to lead men to repentance through influencing the conscience, rather than by means of mere appeals to selfish terror. Thus St, Paul reasoned with Felix "of righteousness and temperance" as well as of "judgment to come" (Acts 24:25). Lurid pictures of the horrors of hell may work upon the feelings, of people with visible effect, but if these take the place of the far more difficult rousing of the moral sense, the effect of them will be very superficial and not all spiritual. Such a sensational style of preaching is tempting because it is easy, and apparently very effective, but its fruits are disappointing, and come short of the less pretentious efforts that aim at awakening the conscience. II. THE OF IS CHANGE OF CONDUCT WITHOUT CHANGE OF HEART. That was no genuine reformation which Zedekiah hurried through in the face of imminent danger. True, the slaves were freed and the Law was obeyed. But there was no indication of a revived respect for the Law, nor of a lessening of greed and cruelty, nor of a larger recognition of the rights of fellow citizens. There was no change of heart, in fact. Such is the result of a repentance of fear without conviction of conscience. This reformation is worthless in the sight of God, who looks at the disposition of the heart. III. THE EFFECT OF IS A . As soon as Nebuchadnezzar withdrew his army, the Jews renounced their covenant and took back their slaves. The motive for the change was gone, and with it the change ceased. A repentance of terror is not likely to outlive the terror. The fears of the night are forgotten in the thoughtless confidence of the day. This is strikingly illustrated in the vacillation of Pharaoh—willing to let the Hebrews go while a plague was raging, but withdrawing his promise as soon as it was stayed. Therefore this superficial repentance is practically worthless. Nothing can be solid and enduring in life that does not spring from personal conviction and true feeling. We need a real desire to turn from sin, and a determination to seek a better life for its own sake, in order to secure a lasting change. For this we must seek Divine grace, in order that we may be "born from above." Liberal punishment for illiberal conduct. The Jews will not set free their enslaved fellow citizens; God therefore liberates sword, pestilence, and famine upon them. If they are illiberal in their conduct, God will not be stinted in his punishment of them. I. THE EVILS OF LIFE ARE UNDER THE OF GOD. They appear to be uncontrolled, but they are really God’s slaves. He holds in the hounds of retribution with his leash. They would fain tear their victim. But they vent their rage in vain till their Master lets them loose. Men can only be tormented by Satan when they are delivered over to Satan (1 Corinthians 5:5). II. OUR CONDUCT OUR FATE. The terrible doom is no chance accident, nor is it a cruel act of despotism. It depends upon our behaviour whether or no God will liberate the powers of evil to do their fell work upon us. III. CONDUCT WILL LEAD TO LOSS, The mean man overreaches himself. "There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty" (Proverbs 11:24). History has proved that slavery is a commercial failure. Slave labour is most expensive. But beyond this it may bring upon itself justly earned calamities. Slavery was the curse of the ancient world—the scene of its blackest iniquity, and the root of its direst misery. Few things are more terrible in the history of Rome than the social wars rising out of slavery. The persistent clinging to slavery by the Southern States of America caused the evils of war to be set free amongst them. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 34:8-22 False obedience. An incident of the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. At the first alarm the liberation of the Hebrew slaves was declared and solemnly ratified, according to the sabbatic law, which had long sunk into desuetude. The aim of this was a purely military one, viz. the advantage to be derived from the services of the freedmen in the army, and the removal of disabilities that might occasion disaffection within the walls. Yet an appearance of religion was given to it by the form it was made to assume as connected with the Law, and the solemn rites which were observed. That it was really only a time-serving expedient was shown by the restoration of the state of slavery directly it upreared as if the Chaldeans were going to desist from their purpose. I. WHEREIN IT DIFFERS FROM TRUE . This will consist in the essence of the action, which, being moral, must have to do with motives. The form of the action was religions, but the real aim of it was one of selfish policy. Good people and bad are frequently found doing the same good and proper actions, but events frequently prove that they have acted from the most opposite motives. It was not to glorify God or to benefit the bondmen that the edict was put forth, but simply to advance their own interests and to "serve themselves" in a more effective way of their brethren. When righteousness is immediately and evidently advantageous, there are many who will become formally righteous; and when religion is fashionable, there are many who will be religious. When misdeeds are rectified it is so far a good thing; but that the reform may be real and permanent it must proceed from true repentance, and an earnest desire to serve God and the interests of our fellow men. II. THE REAL NATURE OF REPUTED . In discovering the true character of reputed obedience it is well to study: 1. The circumstances. Here there were immediate pressure and distress, the existence of a dangerous element in the state, and the possibility of advantages from the military service of the freedmen. The greatest care is requisite in judging of the professions of persons in straitened or perilous circumstances, and to whom religion presents pecuniary, social, or other advantages. The existence of such circumstances affords a presumption against the genuineness of their conversion; and yet it is not of itself conclusive. A better criterion is to be found in: 2. Subsequent conduct. The speedy consignment of the freedmen back again to a state of slavery showed that the observance of the Law was unreal. Actions are ever more eloquent than words. So, when ardent and apparently enthusiastic professions rapidly cool down, and give place to calculating and selfish conduct, we see that the religious movement has had no deep root or has been unreal from its commencement. Death bed repentances are proverbially doubtful, because of the impossibility in most cases of applying this test; nevertheless we are justified in believing that in some cases these are genuine. Prisoners frequently belie their declarations when set at liberty. The subject of false repentance may deceive himself, the emotion being genuine, but the nature not being radically changed. Hence the necessity of insisting upon continued obedience from all who are under the influence of conviction, or who appear to be so. III. THE OF FALSE . It is not a simple act of transgression, but complex and supremely self-conscious. As on this occasion the Jews were manifoldly sinful in (1) their breach of faith with God and their fellow countrymen; (2) in the dishonour they showed to God by lightly regarding the most solemn oath and ordinance; and (3) in the hypocrisy by which the whole proceeding was characterized; so the false saint is a sinner of the deepest dye. Nor is he at liberty to confine his transgression within definite and foreseen limits; once committed to the false attitude, a repetition and intricate complexity of sin is inevitable. It is, therefore, often a culminating sin. IV. THE OF FALSE . (Jeremiah 34:17-22.) The penalty inflicted is very terrible and thorough; as if there were no hope for such men to be spiritually renewed again. 1. Exemplary. A curious and instructive parallelism between their crime and its punishment is to be observed: "Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you," and "Their dead bodies shall be for meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth." This is in harmony with the didactic and symbolical character of the old dispensation. 2. Thorough and unmitigated. No word of hope or compassion is uttered. An end is to be made of such transgressions. 3. An element of scorn and contempt is discoverable. There is a terrible irony in the words, "I proclaim a liberty for you," etc; which reveal the depth and absoluteness of their curse. The gospel dispensation, as it offers greater privileges and blessings to the truly penitent, is also accompanied with more awful penalties (Hebrews 4:11, Hebrews 4:12; Hebrews 6:4-8; Hebrews 10:29; Proverbs 1:26).—M. BY S. CONWAY The Lord, the prophet, and the king. It is a sad scene that these verses bring before us. I. THE LORD SEEKING TO SAVE THE LOST. This was the intent of the prophet’s being charged with his message to King Zedekiah. If it were possible to save him, the Lord would do so, and, therefore, sent his servant again and yet again. Not lightly will the Lord let any evil doer go his own way. II. THE PROPHET A DUTY. It was terrible every way. 1. In itself. To have to be the bearer of such evil tidings, and to one unprepared and unwilling to give heed to them. How much pleasanter to prophesy smooth things than these evil ones! 2. To his influence as a prophet. Men would desire to disbelieve him, and at length would—as they had done—persuade themselves that they might do so. A whole atmosphere of unbelief and dislike would surround him and shut up men’s ears and hearts against him. 3. To his personal safety. Of course nothing but enmity was to be expected from such messages as these, and the prophet reaped the harvest to the full. They sought his life again and again, and wrought him all the ill they could (cf. subsequent chapters). And yet the prophet of God faithfully went through with his commission. Here is the test of fidelity, not in speaking that which men expect of you and will praise you for, but in speaking, when needful, that which men hate to hear. Can we lay claim to aught of such fidelity as this? III. THE KING BY EVIL . There is reason to believe that, left to himself, he would have hearkened to the prophet. But those around him persuaded him to disregard all that the prophet said. Hence this opportunity of salvation for himself and for his people was put away. For had he obeyed, the threatening would not have been carried out (cf. Jeremiah 18:8-12). But his heart was hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. In face of that, no fidelity, no evidence, no earnestness of appeal, no pleading, no voice of conscience, could prevail. He was joined to his idols. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of man is set in him steadfastly to do evil. Pray that from all such hardness of heart and contempt of God’s Word and commandment, the Lord would deliver us.—C. Jeremiah 34:2 The woe of weakness. "Zedekiah, King of Judah." The life of this unhappy monarch is a piteous but powerful illustration of the misery of instability of character, the sorrows that dog the footsteps of the infirm will. What men need, in order to be happier and better than they are, is not more knowledge of what is right—they are amply supplied with that; or the presence of plentiful good purpose and desire to do the right—hell itself is paved with good intentions; but what is needed is strength of will, firmness and stability of character. It is for lack of that that men go so wrong and make such a miserable confusion of their own life and that of others. The history of Zedekiah illustrates all this. Therefore note— I. HIS AS SHOWN BY HIS HISTORY. He was son of the good King Josiah, and may have been one of the "princes" carried off to Babylon in the days of Jehoiakim. He appears to have attracted the favourable notice of Nebuchadnezzar, probably on the ground of the hope that Jeremiah the prophet cherished concerning him. That hope was expressed in the name given him—Zedekiah, "the Lord our Righteousness," a name fulfilled only in One, but telling of the hopes that gathered round this young king. At twenty-one years of age he was placed on the throne of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar, and then the extreme difficulties of his position became evident. In his own country and in those adjoining, a smouldering rebellion prevailed. This the great enemy of Babylon, Egypt, did not fail to fan and further to the utmost of her power. Only a leader was wanting, and the rebellion would at once break forth. The chief of Zedekiah’s own people were eager for him to head the revolt. For a time he refused, and seems (cf. Jeremiah 51:59) to have taken a solemn oath of allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar. But keeping this oath was not easy. It was a cruel position for him, and he had not the strength which so critical a time and emergency demanded. The influence of Jeremiah and Ms fear of the Babylonian power drew him one way; the clamour of his princes, priests, and people, and the promised aid of Egypt drew him another. And so at length he yielded, and treated his oath as so many idle words. Loud and stern were the protests of the prophet of God against such shameless and senseless falsehood (cf. Ezekiel 17:14; Ezekiel 28:1-26.). But the princes of his court, as he himself pathetically admits (Jeremiah 38:1-28.), had him completely under their influence: "Against them," he complains, "it is not the king that can do anything." He was thus driven to disregard the counsels of the prophet, which, as the event proved, were perfectly sound; and "he who might have kept the fragments of the kingdom together, and maintained for some generations longer the worship of Jehovah, brought its final ruin on his country, destruction on the temple, death to his family, and a cruel torment and a miserable captivity on himself." And there are other recorded instances of his lack of moral strength. His allowing the rich men and all those who, contrary to the Law, had held their, brethren as bondslaves, to enslave them once more, notwithstanding that in the most solemn way they had covenanted with God not to do so; then his treatment of the Prophet Jeremiah,—all showed, not so much that he was wicked, as that he was weak. Cruelly imprisoned by his enemies, the king sent for the prophet and placed him in gentler captivity in the court of his own palace. But there assailed by the angry accusations of the prophet’s foes, the king yielded, and let them cast him into a horrible pit, where, had he been long left, he must have miserably perished. Conscience, stirred up by the remonstrance of a faithful servant, led the king to interpose again for his relief, and to have him remitted to his prison in the king’s court. There Zedekiah treated him kindly; when the famine was raging in the city, he procured bread for him; he asked his prayers, and held long and frequent converse with him, but was all the while in abject fear lest the nobles should discover what their conversation had been about, and ha prevailed upon the prophet to condescend to an evasion of the truth in order not to betray him, poor weak king that he was (Jeremiah 38:1-28.). Altogether wise was the counsel the prophet gave, but the king would and he would not. He did not know his own mind. But events moved on. The city was captured. The king and his household endeavoured to escape, were caught, carried before Nebuchadnezzar; his children were crucified in his presence; then his eyes were put out; and, loaded with fetters, he was dragged across the weary desert to Babylon, where he lived in misery until the Lord visited him (Jeremiah 32:5)—that is, until the Lord mercifully sent death to put an end to all his woe. It is a pitiful story, but one that teaches much concerning this instability of character which was this poor monarch’s ruin. II. WHAT THIS HISTORY AS TO SUCH . It suggests: 1. Its nature. That it is a halting perpetually between two opinions—a condition of perpetual indecision! You never know where to find such men, or can be sure as to what they will do. They promise so well; they turn out so ill. Like a chip on a stream, driven, tossed, turned hither and thither, entangled, engulfed at last—so is such a man. In secular matters it is ruin, in spiritual it is more disastrous still. 2. Its results. What a miserable man this Zedekiah must have been! And so are all such. The debtor’s pillow is proverbially a restless one, because of its wretchedness. Yet more so is that of the man who has no will of his own. And what Sorrow he brings upon others! He drags them down into the same vortex in which he is himself swallowed up. What ruin is wrought by such men in all the circles to which they belong! 3. Its cause. Want of a guiding principle in life. Without this, having no fixed rules, secular life is ruined. But in things spiritual this endeavour to serve God and mammon, this divided heart, is absolutely fatal. In such men the surrender to Christ has never been thorough and complete. They are as the seed on the stony ground. 4. Its cure. Living under the abiding realization of the presence of Christ. In armies that have begun to waver, the approach, the word, the eye of their leader has rallied them again and won them victory. So if, when tempted to waver, we feel the eye of Christ on us, we shall be firm. Therefore let him be the Lord of your souls.—C. Playing fast and loose with God. See the history. Under fear occasioned by the prophet’s earnest appeals and the obvious fact that the judgment of God was drawing near—for the Chaldeans were at the gates—the king and his people solemnly vow to release their slaves. They had no right to retain them; they were sinning against God and them in so doing. Hence they let them go. But the fear departs, they think their danger has disappeared, and they enslave their brethren again. It was an abominable wickedness, and the prophet denounces awful doom upon them for it. Now, concerning such playing fast and loose with God, note that— I. THIS IS A VERY SIN. Illustrations are Pharaoh, Balaam, Israel’s whole career. And there are many such instances now. All insincere repentances are such. They may be: 1. Very general. This was so. All the people joined, high and low. Like the professed repentance of the people at John’s baptism. 2. Very solemnly entered upon. How deeply moved these people seemed! What vows they uttered! 3. And some fruits meet for repentance may be produced. These people did for a while set free their slaves. There was a real reformation for the time. The evil spirit went out of the man. 4. But yet it is all worthless, for the evil spirit returns, and with increased power. The repentance was so short-lived that it was as if it had never been. Yea, worse: "The last end of that man was worse than the first." II. ITS ORIGIN AND CAUSE ARE THE HEART. Underneath the superficial soil there is, in spite of all the seeming repentance, the hard layer of rock. The motive was not the conviction of sin wrought by the Holy Spirit, but a craven fear and a desire, therefore, to buy off God’s anger. And in this ease it was a cheap way, for liberating their slaves was the best means of securing a strong addition to the forces by which they would defend their city and themselves. Hence, when danger ceased, as they thought, their repentance ceased along with it. What need we all have to be on our guard against the semblances of real religion which our evil hearts are so prone to take up with! And what need to pray that the Lord would show us if we be now self-deceived, and that he would perfectly renew our hearts within us! III. ITS GUILT VERY GREAT. What an outrage it is to God! We would not bear the like conduct from our fellow men. What awful presumption it manifests! what hardness of heart! And its guilt is the more aggravated because such conduct so plainly shows that we clearly know and understand God’s will, though we only make pretence of obeying it. IV. ITS DOOM IS VERY . See the burning words of the prophet here (verses 17-22). And we have portents of that future doom in the hardening of the heart, the searing of the conscience, the being "given over to a reprobate mind," the audacity in wickedness which such conduct produces. How hard to bring such men to repentance! or, if conviction of sin do come, into what depths of despair does it plunge the sinner! All these are indications of the holy displeasure of God which rests on such sin. May he keep us from it.—C. Slavery. "Ye have not hearkened unto me," etc. The Jews had become shamefully guilty of this sin of enslaving their brethren. They who had once been slaves themselves, but redeemed by God; they whose whole Law was a protest against it in its real forms of permanence and cruelty; they who were on no higher level than those they enslaved, all being on the same equality with God, members of the same race, worshippers of the same God;—the slavery they were now practising was abhorrent indeed. Concerning slavery—the permanent and absolute possession of a fellow man, to buy and sell and do with him as he please—this is ever a great sin. I. NATURE IT. 1. We have a moral nature, a conscience, and this plainly condemns the degradation of a human being to a mere chattel, 2. Think of ourselves as slatted, and then how prompt we are to condemn. But if one man may be so held, then every man may. 3. All are on an equality before God, and have equal rights and responsibilities. 4. And chiefly because man is made in the imagine of God. Dare we make a chattel of him who bears the image and superscription of Deity? At once our heart condemns. II. THE WORD OF GOD IT. 1. Not by direct prohibition. Enough is known in the circumstances of the ages of the Bible to show abundant reason wherefore the servants of God were not commissioned to go and everywhere denounce this practice. 2. Nor by the absence of examples of good men who kept slaves. It was the universal practice. 3. Nor by absence of implied sanctions of this relationship. These facts have been urged in its favour, but we may urge: (1) That if everything not distinctly prohibited in the Bible be right, then many very wrong things would be justified. For very few detailed rules for definite acts are given, but principles from which the mind of God may be easily inferred and his Law applied to all the minutiae of daily life. (2) Paul no more sanctioned slavery than he did the vilest despotism, for if he told slaves to obey their masters, he bade all men be subject to the higher powers. Now, Nero was on the throne at that time. What the Word of God and experience alike teach is that the violent subversion of evil almost always inflicts greater evil than it removes. (3) And the sacred writers had faith in the sure, even if silent, spread of the great principles of Christ which taught "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." (4) And as to the Old Testament slavery and the Mosaic laws in regard to it, it is to be noted that it was a far milder and more genial thing than aught that modern times have known; and next, that the laws of Moses were given on this matter "for the hardness of men’s hearts," so that, as with the law of divorce, what could not wisely be at once put down should be so limited and controlled as to be divested of its greater evils. But no greater slander or falsehood can be maintained than to say that the Bible upholds slavery. Its tone and teaching and its universal influence have been to put an end everywhere to the accursed thing. III. IT. Its influence on the slave, on the master, on the nation, the Church; its moral, domestic, political influence,—all are disastrous and deadly. It is the prolific parent of the worst vices—selfishness, cruelty, licentiousness, tyranny. It has sealed the doom of all nations that have adhered to it, and must ever do so; whilst justice and freedom have ever had resting on them the manifest blessing of God. Christ came to preach liberty to the captives; his gospel is the Magna Charta of the human race.—C. BY D. YOUNG A right act done in a wrong spirit. I. THE ACT ITSELF. It was emphatically a right act in itself. It did not become right or necessary merely by becoming a covenanted thing. It was an act that meant the attainment of liberty to a very considerable number of people who were not their own masters. God is always on the side of liberty, for only to the free individual is full opportunity given of serving God. And yet this must be said with qualification. External liberty is only of use when it is accompanied with deliverance from inward bondage. Hence, in the New Testament, no great stress is laid upon civil liberty; that would come in due time, and, irresistibly, by the growth and conquering power of Christian principle. The stress in the New Testament is on the maintenance by the individual of liberty within himself. But in ancient Israel there was a God-governed nation as well as God-governed individuals, and civil liberty had to be sought as far as possible by Divine provisions and commands. II. THE CAUSE OF THE SO FAR AS IT WAS . There is some obscurity as to the origin of the covenant and act. Some unmentioned motive seems to have combined king and people to resolve on the liberation of all slaves; but it could only have been a motive of fear and worldly prudence. The same sort of forces must have been in operation as we observe in Pharaoh. A plague drags him a little in the direction of letting Israel go; then the plague ceases, and he draws back again. External force, then, or a shallow repentance, or perhaps something of both, led the people into making this covenant. It was not a deep pity for the oppressed that moved them. The covenant did not come from a deep and perfect insight into the golden rule. Thus there is a revelation of the moral attainments of the people. It is already shown to us how little the better they were for all their opportunities of knowing God’s Law and will. III. THE RESULT OF A RIGHT ACT DONE IN A WRONG SPIRIT. The result is just what might have been expected. Inconvenience, awkwardness, daily, almost hourly, irritation, must have come at once. Just try to estimate some of the results. Only when the slaves had become free would the masters understand how dependent they had been upon them. The work of the covenant was not done when the slave was liberated. Really, it was only begun. The master bad then to set to work for himself. His former servant is now given opportunity to become his rival. Moreover, the liberated slave himself does not all at once get the spirit of a free man. When things have been going wrong for generations, they cannot be got right by some magical swiftness. Hence, many potent considerations tempted the masters in forcing a return to the former state of things. They had not counted the cost in beginning, and thus, it seems, they were able to take only a very few steps in the right course. IV. THE . This is specially attached to the breaking of the covenant. The people had really no excuse to offer for breaking it, save the inconvenience and the temporal loss occasioned by keeping it. As far as we can see, this particular covenant was a voluntary one on their part. It recognized a law that had been made in the very coming out from the land of bondage, and it was a covenant to perform a certain outward act. The punishment was just enough; the real wonder would have been if something of the kind had failed to fall on those breaking such a covenant.—Y. The third member of this group of short prophecies. In it, Jeremiah points to the faithful obedience of the Rechabites, as putting to shame the infidelity of Judahites. It belongs obviously to the time before the arrival of Nebuchadnezzar, perhaps to the summer of B.C. 606. (See Dr. Plumptre’s poem, "The House of the Rechabites," part 2, in ’Lazarus and other Poems.’) Jeremiah 35:2 The house of the Rechabites ("house" equivalent to "family"). From a notice in 1 Chronicles 2:55 it appears that the Rechabites were a subdivision of the Kenites, the nomad tribe so closely connected with the Israelites (Judges 1:16; Judges 4:18-22; comp. Numbers 10:29), especially with the tribe of Judah (1 Samuel 27:10; 1 Samuel 30:29). The names of Jonadab and of Jaazaniah and his progenitors (which include the sacred Name), together with the zeal of Jonadab for the worship of Jehovah (2 Kings 10:15, 2 Kings 10:23), seem to indicate that the religion of the Rechabites approximated closely to that of the Israelites. There seem, in fact, to have been two branches of the Kenites—one having Edomitish, the other Israelitish, affinities. Records of the former still exist in the Sinaitic inscriptions, and in the Arabian histories; indeed, there is still a tribe called Benu-l-Qain (often contracted into Belqein) in the Belqa (the ancient land of Ammon); and it would seem that there is an Arab tribe in Arabia Petraea, eastward of Kerak, which traces itself to Heber the Kenite. and goes by the name of Yehud Chebr, though it now denies any connection with Jews. There were also Jews of Khaibar, near Mecca, who played an important part in the early history of Islam. Into one of the chambers. There were many "chambers" of different sizes attached to the temple, and employed partly for stores, partly for councils and assemblies, partly for guard chambers, and other official purposes. In Jeremiah 36:10 we even find a private person occupying one of the "chambers." That into which Jeremiah conducted the Rechabites was, no doubt, one of the largest size; it was appropriated to the use of a single priestly family—the "sons of Hanan" (verse 4). Jeremiah 35:4 A man of God. The title, according to Hebrew usage, belongs to Hanan, not to his father, and means "prophet" (see e.g. 1 Kings 12:22); comp. Plumptre— "There the chamber stands Where Hanan’s followers gather up the words Their master speaks." The chamber of the princes; i.e. the room "where the princes," i.e. the most distinguished laymen, especially the "elders of the people," assembled before the temple services. Maaseiah the son of Shallum. Probably the father of Zephaniah, "the second [or, ’deputy’] priest" (Jeremiah 52:24), himself a functionary of high rank, as he is called a keeper of the door (or rather, threshold). There were three of these "keepers," corresponding to the number of the gates of the temple, and they ranked immediately after the high priest and his deputy (Jeremiah 52:24); comp." I had rather be a doorkeeper," etc; in one of the Korahite psalms (Psalms 84:10). Jeremiah 35:5 Pots full of wine; rather, bowls, large round vessels (crateres), out of which the drinking cups were filled. Jeremiah 35:6 Jonadab the son of Rechab our father. Jonadab (the contemporary of King John) is here called the "father" of the Rechabites (comp. Jeremiah 35:14, Jeremiah 35:16), in the same sense in which the disciples of the prophets are called the "sons of the prophets;" he was a teacher, if not (in some sense) a prophet. This illustrates the uncompromising zeal of Jonadab in 2 Kings 10:23; the religion of Baal was probably at the opposite pole in the matter of luxury to that of Jehovah as practised by Jonadab. "Not for you the life Of sloth and ease within the city’s gates, Where idol feasts are held, and incense smokes To Baalim and Ashtaroth; where man Loses his manhood, and the scoffers sit Perverting judgment, selfish, soft, impure." (Plumptre.) Ye shall drink no wine, etc. The Rechabites were, in fact, typical Arabs. The Wahhabee movement, in our own century, may be taken as partly parallel, though, of course, a settled life is not one of the abominations of the neo-orthodox Islam. A still more complete parallel is given by Diodorus Siculus (19.94), who states it to be the law of the Nabataeans, "neither to sow corn, nor to plant any fruit-bearing herb, nor to drink wine, nor to prepare houses," and gives as the motive of this the preservation of their independence. Jeremiah 35:11 And for fear of the army of the Syrians. We are expressly told in 2 Kings 24:2 that, after the rebellion of Jehoiakim, "bands of Syrians" made incursions into Judah. Jeremiah 35:12 Then came the word of the Lord, etc. The substance of the severe address which follows must have been delivered in one of the outer courts of the temple, when Jeremiah had left the Rechabites. Jeremiah 35:16 Because, etc. This rendering is against Hebrew usage, and any reader will see that the obedience of the Rechabites stands in no inner connection with the sentence pronounced upon Judah. Jeremiah 35:16 is rather an emphatic recapitulation of what has preceded. It runs literally, (I say) that the sons of Jonadab have performed, etc; but (that) this people hath not hearkened unto me; or, in more English phraseology, "Yea, the sons of Jonadab," etc. Jeremiah 35:18, Jeremiah 35:19 A promise to the Rechabites (perhaps removed from its original connection). The form of the promise is remarkable; it runs, Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me forever. The phrase is, as Dr. Plumptre remarks, "all but essentially liturgical. It is used of the Levites (Deuteronomy 10:8; Deuteronomy 18:5, Deuteronomy 18:7), of the worship of the patriarchs (Genesis 19:27), of the priests (1 Kings 8:11; 2 Chronicles 29:11; Nehemiah 7:65), of prophets (1 Kings 18:15), of priests and Levites together (Psalms 134:1; Psalms 135:2)." It is, however, rash, perhaps, to maintain, with the same acute scholar, that the Rechabites were adopted into the tribe of Levi. The phrase may be simply chosen to indicate the singular favour with which Jehovah regarded the Rechabites—a favour only to be compared to that accorded to his most honoured servants among the Israelites—the patriarchs, the priests, and the prophets. Jeremiah 35:1-11 The Rechabites. A curious interest attaches to these singular people, whose relation to the settled life of the Jews may be compared to that of the gipsies in modern Europe. They were nomads in the midst of cities, preserving the habits of the desert among all the scenes of civilization. But they were in some respects strikingly superior to their more civilized neighbours—a people whose simplicity and abstemiousness was a living rebuke to the debased luxury of the times. Three leading characteristics of the Rechabites are worthy of special note. I. THEIR NOMADIC HABITS. It is refreshing to meet these quiet, simple people after wearying ourselves with sickening sights of the vice and hyprocrisy of the court and city life of Jerusalem. We are inclined to think too much of external civilization. Making allowance for exaggerations and eccentricities, we may find some much needed lessons in the protest of Mr. Ruskin against the industrial ideal of the age. Inventions, commerce, wealth,—these are but means to an end. What is the use of the working of wonderful machinery if the outcome is poor and profitless? Many a man’s business is a Frankenstein which becomes a tyrant to him. By others the science and resources of the age are only used as ministers to selfish pleasures. Thus the men and women may be none the better for all the advance that is made in the material appliances of the most complex civilization. Yet the personal condition of these men and women, and not that of the machinery of life, is the one matter of final importance. The quieter, simpler life of the Rechabites had many points which it would be instructive for us to consider. It was out of all the rush and worry of town life. It was calm and comparatively free from care. With few wants, the Rechabites had few anxieties. Are we so much better off than they in this respect? Then, as a wandering life, it was a reminder of the truth, so often forgotten to our serious harm, that all men who live a life higher than the earthly must be pilgrims and strangers here, and must "seek" a better country, that is, a "heavenly." The man of the world is rooted to the earth; and is there not a danger lest many of us should be so absorbed in the busy pursuits of the world as to neglect greater interests, or so satisfied with earthly possessions as to forget that this is not our rest? II. THEIR . These Rechabites were the prototypes of the modern teetotalers. They were no ascetics. They made no pretence to the peculiar holiness of the "self-imposed worship" of "dealing hardly with the body" (Colossians 2:23). On the contrary, they were probably a cheerful and unpretentious people, finding more human happiness in a simple abstemious life than the citizens of Jerusalem could ever discover in the unwholesome luxuries of a corrupt civilization. They teach a lesson which our age greatly needs. We may differ as to the necessity or desirability of total abstinence from wine and such things. But all of us should feel the terrible danger that comes from the enervating influence of luxury. In the present day we see little of "plain living and high thinking." Life is both eager and materialistic. It would be well if we could deny ourselves more, that there should be less grossness about our habits, dragging us down from the calm heights of spirituality. III. THEIR . The Rechabites are like the Arabs of the desert who were contemporaries of the Pharaohs, and who live now just as they lived in the days of Abraham. Where shall we find such staunch conservatives? Now, of course, we Western Christians believe in a principle of progress, and rightly set ourselves to realize it. But in the pursuit we may lose something that the Rechabites retained. Mere change is not progress, and a restless love of change endangers the fruitfulness of measures which take time to ripen. On the other hand, there is a true loyalty to the past, a just fidelity to our forefathers. At all events, it is grand to see a people independent of passing fashions, bold to resist the spirit of the age when they think that wrong for them, and firm in their own convictions and determinations. Such conduct is bracing to witness; unhappily it is not common. Jeremiah 35:11-17 Filal obedience. The filial obedience of the Rechabites is here adduced as a rebuke to the people of Israel for their disobedience to their Father in heaven. I. WE OWE A DUTY OF FILIAL TO GOD. Obligation corresponds to privilege; peculiar relationship involves peculiar duties. If God is our Father, we owe special obedience to God on account of our relationship with him. The doctrine of the fatherhood of God is no excuse for the relaxation of the fidelity which we felt to be obligatory so long as he was regarded only as our supreme Ruler. Instead of making us more careless, this doctrine should increase the assiduity of our devotion. Strict religionists who dread the moral effects of the modern broad enunciation of this great truth, and lax self-indulgent people who fancy it will allow them to defy the Law of God at pleasure, both fall into a grievous mistake. The father has rights over his children possessed by no one else, and they owe obedience to him as to no other person. This was recognized and carried out much further in the ancient world than it is among us. 1. It is based on nature; the child naturally belongs to the parent. 2. It is increased by experience. For years the child is wholly dependent on his parents. Helpless, and needing constant attention, he finds in them sustenance, protection, and happiness. Parental anxiety, labour, and sacrifice should bind the children by ties of deepest gratitude. Repayment is impossible, nor is it expected; but the least that can be done is to offer, obedience. 3. It is recognized by law. The old Roman law gave the father absolute power over the life of his child. Modem law, though it interferes more with the relations of the family, sanctions wide parental fights. Now, if God is our Father, similar obligations bind us to filial obedience to him over and above the obligation we may feel to his Law, his holiness, and his supremacy (Malachi 1:6). II. THE NEGLECT OF FILIAL TO GOD IS REBUKED BY THE NEGLECT OF FILIAL TO MEN. The Rechabites were a rebuke to the Israelites. Yet the Israelites had less excuse for disobeying their heavenly Father than the Rechabites would have had for neglecting the ordinances of their ancestor. Matthew Henry clearly indicates the points of contrast somewhat as follows. I give his thoughts with abridgment:— 1. The Rechabites were obedient to one who was but a man; but the Jews were disobedient to an infinite and eternal God. 2. Jonadab was long since dead, and could neither take cognizance of their disobedience nor give correction for it; but God lives forever to see how his laws are observed, and to punish disobedience. 3. The Rechabites were never put in mind of their obligations to their father; but God often sent his prophets to his people, "rising early and speaking," etc. 4. Jonadab never did that for his seed which God had done for his people; he left them a charge, out left them no estate to bear the charge; but God had given his people a good land, etc. 5. God did not tie up his people to so much hardship as Jonadab required of his descendants; and yet Jonadab’s orders were obeyed, and God’s were not. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 35:1-6 Termination by Divine command. I. SO FAR AS IT WENT IT WAS REAL. The scene and the circumstances of authority and religious sanction given to the invitation were calculated to influence the mind. The "pots full of wine" were also an appeal to the eye. God has tried his servants often, but with no intention of making them fall. He tried Job, Abraham, David, etc. He often does this by his providence, the withholding of his grace, etc. II. IT WAS DONE WITH THE THAT THE WOULD BE . The same wisdom that devised the incident knew what would be its issue. We are assured of God that he tempteth no man (James 1:13), and that he will not suffer men to be tempted beyond their ability to resist (1 Corinthians 10:13). Yet God is continually testing and trying his people, that they may discover their own weaknesses and apply to him for succour. III. A GREAT END WAS TO BE SERVED. The scene is dramatic and carefully arranged, that it may be publicly impressive. The lesson to be learnt on this occasion is not that of temperance, but simply of filial obedience in one of its most singular and emphatic illustrations. To Israel the lesson was a comparative one. They were put to shame by the steadfastness of men who had no such exalted Person to obey in the matter of their peculiar customs, but who yet had unswervingly adhered to it. Israel, with all the reasons for a similar fidelity, had been weak and fickle, and finally apostate. Men are tried, not only for their own sakes, but for the sake of others. The patience of the saints is a potent reason for our patience and obedience. Christ himself is the Example and Inspiration for all mankind. He was faithful when he was tempted by. circumstances infinitely more trying than any that can assail us; and his power is at our disposal when we ask for it.—M. Jeremiah 35:6-10 The filial obedience of the Rechabites. There is something very remarkable in this simple history. Originally aliens in race (1 Chronicles 2:55), they gained a place in the land of Israel (Judges 1:16). Jonadab the son of Rechab, the ancestor of the race, was the true founder of the family. His character was so high that Jehu affected his company in order to gain esteem from the people (2 Kings 10:15, 2 Kings 10:16). From him their ascetic rule of life was received, and they had continued to observe it with unswerving strictness. We have here an illustration of— I. AN VIRTUE. 1. Their asceticism was a real virtue. In its various elements of temperance, simplicity, and hardihood, it presents a most exemplary and attractive aspect. It must have tended to holiness and happiness. It would be well for the men of our own day were they to imitate this race in these respects. Most of our social evils are easily traceable to the influence of intemperance, luxury, etc. It was a noble ideal nobly realized; yet: 2. It was exaggerated beyond natural limits. This is the penalty of those who rigidly observe one mode of life. Excellent as that may be at the first, and, as a whole, may still continue to be, it gets out of joint with the advancing customs of the age, isolates its votaries from the general current of the national life, and stereotypes the degree of civilization or barbarism which gave it birth. In its rigid observance it leads to anachronisms, inconveniences, etc. Its accidental features become more noticeable than its essential ones. Unless grounded on sufficient reasons and continually referred to these, unless adapted in its accidental features to the changing circumstances of the world,—it tends to become unreal, and to produce unreal moral distinctions. There is something of weakness to be detected in the explanation of their presence in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 35:11). They were out of place. 3. The secret of this was float it was founded upon an exaggerated sentiment. Asceticism is in itself neither good nor bad. It receives its real moral importance from the motives and aims that underlie it. In this instance the motive was excellent so far as it was legitimate, but it was clothed with a factitious sacredness and obligation. Consistently carried out, such a principle would stay all progress and sanction the most horrible crimes. That their ancestor had enjoined their mode of life was hardly a sufficient reason for it, and the motive of policy with which he had commanded it was not an exalted one. The true justification for a peculiar mode of life, especially when of this trying description, must be found in the great human and spiritual aims which religion—especially in its later evangelical phase—presents for our achievement. To guard the weakness of a brother, to further the moral and religious welfare of men, and to glorify God by holiness and unselfishness of conduct, are aims that may be ours if we will II. A . The hold this man obtained over the conduct of his descendants through so many generations was most remarkable. A man or marked character, great reputation for sanctity, wisdom, and power of impressing others with his peculiar views, forms a conception of what life ought to be, especially for those who, like his own family, are strangers living on sufferance in the midst of another people. The Eastern feeling of respect for parents and reverence for ancestors and of the sacredness of tradition and custom associates itself with his teaching and example, and soon his rule of life becomes a fixed, ineradicable principle amongst his descendants far more potent than any law of the statute-book. This shows: 1. The power of personal influence. "Influence is the best kind of power." It belongs more or less to all of us; and we shall be held responsible for its legitimate increase and direction. The influence of any one of us is probably both greater and less than he suspects. It is a natural and proper instinct for man to seek this moral power, and the relations of life afford many opportunities for acquiring and exercising it. Parents. 2. The importance of securing that our influence shall be of the right kind. Ultimate results and effects must be left to God; but we have to do with our own character and aims, and with the known tendency of the means at our disposal. We should seek that our influence should be of the very highest kind. It is better to discover moral principles and’ communicate spiritual inspirations than merely to initiate a custom. Jonadab’s influence was on the whole very salutary, but it was not of the highest kind, because he did not famish his imitators with a morally sufficient motive. So fixed and mechanical, indeed, had their obedience become that they appeared to have more regard to his precept than for the direct command of God (Jeremiah 35:5). In this respect Jesus Christ is immeasurably his superior. His precepts are self-evident, and commended by his own personal example. He did not appeal to mere self-preservation, but to the noblest moral instincts and principles of our nature. We are not coerced by the personality of Jesus, but persuaded by the sweet reasonableness of his doctrine and Spirit. Influence like this may be slower in making its way, but in the end it is sure to be more lasting and universal.—M. The blessing of the Rechabites. I. WHAT IT . It is very startling to find that their blessing is precisely that which is pronounced upon the spiritual Israel of the future. There are two factors in the blessing. 1. Continuity of the fatally. 2. Perpetuation of its religious standing and moral character: "To stand before me forever. It is said that descendants of the Rechabites have been discovered in Yocan, and that they still observe the strict regimen of their forefathers. II. WHY IT WAS . The reason given is simple enough, viz. their filial obedience; hut it hardly seems to account for the character of the blessing. It is manifest that the bestowal of such a blessing is not to be taken as implying that their conduct had attained to the highest moral standard. But it is significant that the fifth commandment, enjoining this very duty, should be the first with promise. Why is emphasis laid upon filial obedience in the Old and New Testaments? Is it not because the sentiment of filial affection and respect is a necessary antecedent and preparative for the love of God, which is the supreme and universal law of life? Of the latter it is the shadow and type. Secondary occasions for the solemn utterance of the blessing on this occasion were probably found in (1) the fact that their conduct had furnished a signal reproof of the apostasy of the nation from its true, eternal Father; (2) that they acted up to the light which they had; and (3) that the principle of filial obedience, and the habits of temperance which in their case it had enjoined, were thereby more powerfully commended to the observance of men.—M. Jeremiah 35:5, Jeremiah 35:6 Fathers of temperance "Intertwined with the history of Israel is that of a wild and independent tribe of Kenites. When the western Israelites abandoned the roving Arab life to settle in the cities of Canaan, the Kenites still retained their pastoral habits. One of the characteristics which we trace in their history was a fierce resentment against oppression and idolatry. It was a Kenite woman, Jael, who smote Sisera, even in her own tent. It was a Kenite sheik, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, who washed his fierce hands in the blood of Baal’s worshippers and Ahab’s house (1 Kings 16:1-34.)." The free and eager air of the desert had passed into their lives, and they loved it dearly, and determined never to abandon it, especially when they saw the rum wrought by the oppression and luxury which were overspreading the inhabitants of the cities they knew most of. Hence the Rechabite vow. But the triumphant march of the vast squadrons of Nebuchadnezzar swept the deserts as well as the cities which lay in his way. And for the time even the hardy Kenites were compelled to set up their tents within the walls of Jerusalem. To them God sent Jeremiah, that he might test and behold and then declare their fidelity to their ancient vow. Amid a population given to excess and gluttony, their total abstinence from wine and their temperate habits could not but excite attention, as much as the strange sight of their black tents pitched in the open spaces and squares of the city. intimation was given to Jeremiah to teach from their obedience a lesson on the disobedience of the people amid whom they were sojourning. "Inviting these rude and faithful Bedouins into a chamber of the temple, he gave them the invitation which the revellers of Jerusalem would only have been too eager to accept, ’Drink ye wine.’ But the Rechabites were not to be tempted. They had adopted their law of temperance at the bidding of a mighty ancestor, as a protection against the temptation of cities. They continued it because conscience approved and health rewarded a noble choice. Broken once—even to please a prophet of the Lord—it might be broken again, and soon the glory of their race would have fled. Therefore they at once replied, plainly, even bluntly, ’We will drink no wine; for,’ etc." Now, learn from this— I. GOD THE VOW. (Cf. verse 18,) How many and manifold are these sanctions! By the rewards of obedience thereto; by the doom which follows disobedience to the laws of temperance; by his providence and his Spirit speaking within; by the laws of health, of thrift, of social well being, of conscience; by sanctions negative and positive alike; by the example of some of the foremost and best of men, and by his Word;—by all, he witnesses in favour of the temperance vow. II. AND THERE IS SORE NEED FOR IT. "If I were to tell you," says one, "that there is in the British Isles a being into whose treasuries are annually poured in unproductive consumption more than one hundred and forty millions of our national wealth; whose actions crush year by year more victims than have been crushed for centuries together by the car of Juggernaut; whose unchecked power causes year by year horrors incomparably more multitudinous than those which the carnage of any battlefields can present; if I were to say that the services wrought by this being were, if any at all, which is an open question, yet almost valueless in kind, infinitesimal in extent, while, on the other hand, the direct admitted indisputable miseries he inflicts were terrible in virulence and vast in ramification; if I were to say that at his right hand and at his left, as eager and ever active ministers, stood Idiocy and Pauperism, Degradation and Brutality; and at that point you were all to rise up at once and cry aloud, ’Tell us the name of this being, that we may drive him with execration from the midst of us, and that every one of us may strive to extirpate his power and expel his polluting footsteps from our soil;’ and if I were to say that, far from doing this, we all as a nation, and nearly all of us as individuals, crown him with garlands, honour him with social customs, introduce him into gladdest gatherings, sing songs in his glory, build myriads of temples to his service, familiarize our very children with his fame and praise;—were I to say this, then sentence by sentence, clause by clause, word by word, it would be literally true, not of a man, but of a thing, and that thing intoxicating drink." III. HOW MAY WE FURTHER THE CAUSE? Certainly there is no help equal to that of taking this vow ourselves. If, wherever we are, we will touch not, taste not, handle not, on the ground that we regard it as the curse of this land, that entire abstinence will speak more eloquently than aught beside. And besides this, train your children as Jonadab trained his; command them, saying, "Ye shall drink no wine." A generation so trained, what a difference they would make on the side of temperance and all that is good! Never allow a sneer at those who have taken the temperance vow. Strike at the aids and abettors of intemperance, such as badly drained, ill-lighted, comfortless, unventilated houses; lack of means of reasonable recreation and amusement; want of education and leisure, etc. Never treat drunkenness, however grotesque and absurd its forms, as a thing to be laughed at. We never really hate that at which we laugh. And let each one be sure that he does something in this great cause, that he comes "to the help of the Lord against the mighty."—C. Jeremiah 35:14 The children put to shame by the stranger. The men of Judah were the children, inmates of God’s house, members especially of his family. These Rechabites, a wandering tribe of the desert, were the stranger. But their fidelity to the command laid upon them by their ancestor Jonadab is contrasted with and rebukes the shameful disregard of the laws of God, of which the men of Judah were so guilty. For near three hundred years the Rechabites had, out of regard for their father’s ordinance, adhered to their self-denying customs, and were adhering to them still, whilst God’s own people had set at nought all his counsel and would none of his Law. I. OBSERVE THIS . 1. In the motives for obedience which existed on either side. The one was an earthly father, the other Divine; the one man, the other God. The one, long dead, and whose right to control the actions of his descendants had therefore lapsed; the other, the ever-living God, whose right is as eternal as himself. The one had given an arbitrary command against which much might have been urged; the other had given commands which reason, conscience, and experience alike consented to as wise and good. 2. In the nature of the obedience rendered. The one was full of self-denial—a hard, stern law; the other contemplated life in a land flowing with milk and honey, and its ways were ways of pleasantness, and all its paths peace. 3. In the results of obedience. In the one, obedience had kept together a small, hardy tribe of half-barbarian herdsmen, without home, friends, religion, wealth, or any marked earthly good. In the other, obedience had been crowned with every blessing, so that all men confessed," Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord." And yet, notwithstanding the service of the Lord was every way better, that service was disregarded by his people, whilst the ill-requited obedience to a long deceased ancestor had been so faithfully maintained. II. AND SUCH STILL EXISTS. Look at the obedience rendered to the laws of the Koran by the followers of Mahomet; to the laws of honour, of trade, of human masters; everywhere we may see human law obeyed, whilst. Divine are set at nought. The world can Command the prompt, implicit obedience of her votaries; but God calls, and no man answers. III. EXPLAIN SUCH . It is because to those who faithfully obey human laws the transient and inferior are as if they were eternal and supreme, whilst to those who profess to be bound by Divine laws the eternal and supreme are as if they were transient and inferior. IV. WHAT DO SUCH FACTS SAY TO US? Seek the purged vision, that we may clearly see the relative values of things, that our estimates may be corrected, and so we may come to regard as "first" the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and "all other things" as secondary thereto.—C. Jeremiah 35:15 —C. Rewards of filial piety. We have an instance here. Literally, the promise annexed to the commandment, "Honour thy father," etc; was fulfilled; for their "days were long in the land which the Lord their God gave them." Now— I. THERE ARE SUCH REWARDS. 1. Promised in God’s Word (cf. passim). 2. Visible in happy home life. 3. Perpetuated in prosperous communities, nations, etc. 4. Sanctioned by the laws of nature, of man, and of God. II. THEY ARE THE AND PROOFS OF THE LOVE OF GOD TO MAN. Hence: 1. The heart of the parent is filled with love to his children. 2. This love leads to desire earnestly the child’s well being. 3. To secure this, God has given (1) a responsive love in the heart of the child towards its parent; (2) the instinct of trust; (3) the direct sanctions of his Word, his Spirit, his providence, to strengthen and maintain that filial piety which so ministers to the good of all. III. THE GREAT OF SUCH PIETY. Our Lord Jesus Christ. "I do always," he said, "those things which please my Father." As God is the realization of perfect fatherhood, so is the Lord Jesus Christ the embodiment of perfect sonship. That sonship was tested and tried as no human sonship ever can be, and it never failed, even under the pressure of the agony, the cross, the seeming abandonment. In him, therefore, we see our Model, and in his exaltation now our reward.—C. BY D. YOUNG The power of a fathers command. The Rechabite habit is, of course, brought forward here to contrast obedience to an earthly and arbitrary demand with the disobedience of Israel to heavenly and essentially righteous laws. But it is worth while to look into this Rechabite habit altogether, in its origin, its causes, its results, its power. I. THE ORIGIN OF THIS HABIT. The only information we have here is that the habit originated in a command of Jonadab. But, of course, Jonadab must have had some reason seeming weighty to him; and on looking at 2 Kings 10:1-36. we can make a shrewd guess as to the ends he had in view. He sees the sanguinary and extirpating zeal of Jehu against the scions of Ahab and the worshippers of Baal, and is it not fair to presume that he wished to guard his kinsfolk and posterity against falling into idolatry such as would involve a like terrible fate? Then it occurs to him that he can best do this by separating his people from the dwellers in Israel This can best be done by urging on them to live a wandering and pastoral life; and still again, the tent life is to be secured by separating the Rechabites from the Israelites in their pleasures. The Rechabite has his plain rule of conduct: "I drink no wine." "Very well," says the indulgent, idolatrous Israelite, "I care not for your company." Idolatry was always connected with debauchery, sensuality, and indulgence of animal passions, and to all these things wine might come to be a minister. Unquestionably Jonadab was a shrewd man, and something of what he aimed at he seems to have gained. II. THE TEST OF THIS HABIT. No doubt the habit had often been tested, and presumably the same answer would ever be given: "Our father has commanded us to drink no wine." Was it a sufficient reason, one may ask? To which it may be replied that, generally speaking, a father’s command would not be enough. We must always ask—What is the thing commanded? Here the question is simply one of positive precept. No one could say that drinking wine was a moral duty, or that the Rechabites injured any one by refusing to drink it. And, indeed, they might have enlarged on the advantages that had come to them through their strict compliance with Jonadab’s command, But, in doing so, they entered on debatable ground, and might have been forced into argument. They did the best thing in their position—they fell back on a simple, unreasoning assertion of ancestral custom. Notice, too, the circumstances in which this habit was tested. They are divinely prepared circumstances. It is not a band of revellers in the house of feasting who ask them to drink wine. God commands it to be put before them in the house of the Lord, and in the chamber of a man of God. God wishes his people to see for themselves the power of a paternal request; for never before surely had the reasons seemed so great for departing from the rule. III. THE OF THIS HABIT. The habit did secure what Jonadab meant it to secure. The Rechabites had been kept apart from Israel. But now notice that an advantage gained from some purely external practice is very likely to have some accompanying disvantage. The Rechabites become tent dwellers, and then, on the approach of the Chaldeans, having no continuing city, no place of defence, they flee to Jerusalem. After all, the principle of Rechabitism, the principle of separation and isolation, has its limits. If we would fairly claim the advantages of human society in times of peril, we must not play the hermit and ascetic at other times. To be in the world and yet not of it, that is both the problem and the possibility.—Y. Jeremiah 35:12-17 Rechabites unconsciously reproving Israelites. I. HOW FAR THE MEN OF JUDAH WERE REALLY ; i.e. How far were the cases really parallel? The first question to be asked is—Were the men of Judah as able to obey the commandments of Jehovah as the Rechabites were to obey the precept of Jonadab? and, of course, the answer is that for many reasons they were not. But passing this over for the present, let us notice the one respect in which Israelites were lamentably different from Rechabites. The Rechabites gloried in their attachment to the precept of their ancestor; it was a sort of point of honour with them; whereas the Israelites were in no way grieved, humiliated, or ashamed because of their disobedience. If only it had been a continual and sore trouble of heart that there was not in them strength to obey God, why, this very trouble would have been a measure of obedience. But they both disobeyed and disobeyed in the most heedless and audacious way. Instead of receiving prophets with contrition and as messengers of God, they laughed them to scorn, abused them, and even put them to death. And similarly the Rechabites reprove us. In the midst of all our natural inability to give a true obedience to Divine requirements, we should be incessantly troubled by this; then would the way be made open for revealing to us how obedience becomes possible. II. HOW FAR THE WERE REALLY PRAISED. After all, Rechabite and Israelite were really the same sort of beings. If they had exchanged places, they would have exchanged conduct. The Israelite was quite capable of sticking, with utmost tenacity, to some external rule. And the Rechabite, we may be quite sure, was equally incapable, with the Israelite, of obeying the commandments of God. But the Rechabite was to be praised in this that he recognized an authority outside of his own wishes. The law under which he lived might not go very far; but it operated with certainty so far as it did go. The Rechabite would have died rather than violate the ancestral prohibition. God ever recognizes conformity to law as a good thing. We must, therefore, not go seeking in these Rechabites more than God has appointed us to find. The one good thing in them was singled out to point a most humiliating lesson and vindicate the need of a severe chastisement. Compared with the benefits of Jehovah toward Israel, what had Jonadab done for the Rechabites?—Y. God’s recognition of the Rechabite obedience. This is just in accordance with what we might expect. The Rechabites, when they have been used to put Israel to shame, are not allowed to go away without a sufficient stamp on their noble conduct. The Divine estimate of that conduct is sufficiently shown by the words Jeremiah is authorized to speak. I. GOD WILL ALWAYS A SPIRIT OF . Here we lay emphasis, not so much on actual obedience, as on a spirit of obedience. As to actual obedience, there may be dispute of claim and conflict as to authorities. But the spirit of obedience is one running through the whole of life. And God must have seen the spirit of obedience very strong in these Rechabites. Perhaps it is not too much to say that, if they had been in the place of Israel, it would have been a sore grief to them that they were not able properly to obey the commandments of Jehovah. Their obedience was tried, it must be remembered, not in the ordinary associations of life, but in extraordinary and difficult circumstances. They showed the stuff that martyrs are made of, and if God specially recognized their obedience in what was only a matter of external conduct, how sure we may be that he will recognize all obedience that goes deeper! The thing he would have us do is to find out the right Master, right Teacher, right Leader, and then follow him to the death. II. THE PROMISE WHICH GOD MAKES HERE. Very likely, in a certain sense, it was literally fulfilled. We must take "forever" in the limited meaning so often found in the Scriptures, and then we shall have no difficulty in believing that the Rechabites for many generations had a special providence surrounding them. But recollecting the spiritual significance of prophecy, we may take "forever" in its largest sense. The essence of the promise is not fulfilled to sons of Jonadab according to the flesh. Promises to natural succession were only to serve a temporary purpose. As all who have a spirit of trust in them are reckoned children of Abraham, so all who have in them the spirit of obedience may be reckoned children of Jonadab. Where the spirit of obedience is, knowledge of God’s will becomes easy. Where the spirit of obedience is, actual obedience becomes easier and easier and more a matter of satisfaction.—Y. 36-38. OF EVENTS THE SIEGE OF . Jeremiah 36:1-32. THE ROLL OF BY . In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (which, it is important to remember, was the first of Nebuchadnezzar) Jeremiah was directed to write down all his previous revelations, from the beginning of his ministry to the present day. Such, at least, is the literal meaning of verses 1, 2; but it would seem that the literal meaning can hardly be the right one. First of all, a historically accurate reproduction of the prophecies would not have suited Jeremiah’s object, which was not historical, but practical; he desired to give a salutary shock to the people by bringing before them the fatal consequences of their evil deeds. And next, it appears from verse 29 that the purport of the roll which the king burned was that the King of Babylon should "come and destroy this land;" whereas it is clear that Jeremiah had uttered many other important declarations in the course of his already long ministry. Now, it is remarkable, and points the way to a solution of the problem, that Jeremiah 25:1-38. is said (Jeremiah 25:1) to have been written in the very same year to which the narrative before us refers, and that it is mainly concerned with the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar and its consequences (indeed, entirely so, if we admit that Jeremiah 25:12, Jeremiah 25:26 have received interpolation). Is not this the prophecy which Jeremiah dictated to Baruch? ‹je-2› and is not verse 2 a loose, inaccurate statement due to a later editor? That the prophetic as well as the historical books have passed through various phases (without detriment to their religious value) is becoming more and more evident. The seventh and eighth chapters of Isaiah, and the thirty-seventh and thirty-eighth of the same book, have demonstrably been brought into their present shape by an editor (see Cheyne’s ’Prophecies of Isaiah,’ vol. 1.); is it not highly reasonable to conjecture that these narrative chapters of Jeremiah have, to a greater or less extent, passed through a similar process (see below on verse 6)? Jeremiah 36:4 Baruch. Already mentioned as Jeremiah’s attendant, in Jeremiah 32:12. He appears to have been of high rank (see on Jeremiah 32:15), as Josephus, indeed, expressly states (’Ant.,’ 10.9, 1). Maaseiah, his grandfather, was governor of the city (2 Chronicles 34:8), and Seraiah his brother (Jeremiah 51:59) held some equally honourable, though not so easily definable, position in the court. Jeremiah 36:5 I am shut up. Not so; Jeremiah was not detained by material force. Some strong reason he had (perhaps of a ceremonial kind), but as it was irrelevant to the narrative, it is not given. Render, I am detained (same verb as in 1 Samuel 21:7). Jeremiah 36:6 Upon the fasting day. The mention of the fast day suggests that Jeremiah 36:9 is out of its place, which again confirms the view that the narrative before us has received its present form from an editor. In the ears of all Judah (see Jeremiah 36:9). Jeremiah 36:7 They will present their supplication; literally, their supplication will fall. The phrase seems to be suggested by the gesture of a suppliant. Hence humility is one idea; but success is entirely another. That which lights down before one’s eyes cannot be disregarded. Hence, in Jeremiah 37:20 and Jeremiah 42:2, the Authorized Version renders, "be accepted." This is, at any rate, a better rendering than that quoted above, which is both weak in itself and obscures the connection. And will return; rather, so that they return. "Returning," i.e. repentance, is necessary, because their "evil ways" have provoked Jehovah to "great anger and fury;" but is only possible by the Divine help (comp. Acts 5:31, "To give repentance unto Israel"). Hence prayer is the first duty. Jeremiah 36:9 In the fifth year of Jehoiakim. It is remarkable that the Septuagint has here the eighth year; and Josephus, too, relates that Jehoiakim paid tribute to Nebuchadnezzar in his eighth year. This latter statement seems to tally with the notices in 2 Kings 24:1-20. The vassalage of Jehoiakim is there said to have lasted three years; this followed the rebellion; while the siege of Jerusalem was reserved for the short reign of Jehoiachin. Now, as this siege must have been the punishment of Jehoiakim’s rebellion, and as the reign of the latter king lasted eleven years, we are brought to the same date as that given by Josephus for the commencement of the vassalage, viz. the eighth year. It is to this year, then, that 2 Kings 24:1 refers when it says, "In his days Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant;" and also the narrative before us in the statement that "they proclaimed a fast before Jehovah to all the people in Jerusalem, and to all the people that came from the cities of Judah unto Jerusalem." What other event would have produced such a concourse of worshippers? The battle of Carchemish (which took place in the fourth year of Jehoiakim)? But it was by no means clear as yet that the consequences of this would be disastrous for Judah. Carchemish was too far off for the people of Judah to show such serious alarm. If so, Jeremiah kept his prophecy by him for several years, till the fight moment came. The ninth month. As this is a winter month (see verse 22), Jeremiah evidently reckons by the Babylonian calendar, the ninth month of which, Kisiluv (Hebrew, Chisleu), began from the new moon of December. Jeremiah 36:10 The chamber (see on Jeremiah 35:4) of Genesisariah …the scribe. Genesisariah was favourably disposed to Jeremiah (verse 25); he was probably the brother of Jeremiah’s friend, Ahikam (Jeremiah 26:24). He was one of the royal secretaries, and reckoned among the "princes" (see verse 12). In the higher court. "Higher" equivalent to "inner." The new gate (see on Jeremiah 20:2). Jeremiah 36:12 He went down (see on Jeremiah 26:10). Sat there. In deliberation on the affairs of the state. Elishama the scribe. Gemariah, then, had a colleague. So in Solomon’s cabinet there were two soferim, or secretaries, one perhaps for the civil and one for the military business (1 Kings 4:3; comp, Jeremiah 52:25). Elnathan. Mentioned already, Jeremiah 26:22. Jeremiah 36:14 Jehudi … the son of Cushi. A genealogy which contains a history. Jehudi is not a true proper name, any more than Gadi ("a Gadite"), the quasi-name of the father of Menahem (2 Kings 15:14), or than Cushi, the quasi-name of Jehudi’s great-grandfather. Cushi himself was, doubtless, an Ethiopian, and probably (like Ebed-melech, Jeremiah 38:7) a eunuch, or at least chamberlain; his son and grandson were both worshippers of Jehovah (as their names indicate), but were not qualified to become Jewish citizens. The Egyptian was not, indeed, to be abhorred, but not until the third generation could his descendants be admitted into" the congregation" (Deuteronomy 23:8). Egypt and Ethiopia were historically connected (see Lenormant’s ’Ancient History,’ index to vol. 1.). For the name of "Jehudi," comp. "Jehudith," daughter of Beeri the Hittite (Genesis 26:34). Jeremiah 36:15 Sit down now. The princes evidently recognize Baruch as belonging to a family of distinction (see on verse 4); and from verses 19, 25 we may infer that they were favourably inclined beth to Baruch and to his master (comp. ch. 26.). Jeremiah 36:16 They were afraid both one and other; rather, they turned shudderingly one to another. Such an announcement as Jeremiah’s at such a serious crisis startled them by its boldness. We may infer that the prophet had for some time, by Divine command, kept his sombre anticipations in the background. We will surely tell the king; rather, we have to tell the king. Friendly feeling would have prompted them to hush up the affair (see Jeremiah 27:20, Jeremiah 27:21), but duty forbade. Jeremiah 36:17 How didst thou write all these words at his mouth! Two questions seem to be combined here—"How didst thou write all these words?" and "Didst thou write it all at his mouth?" Baruch’s answer is good for both. Jeremiah 36:18 He pronounced, etc.; rather, He kept dictating … while I wrote with ink, etc. The addition of the last clause suggests (and was, perhaps, intended to do so) that Baruch’s function was simply mechanical. Jeremiah 36:20 Into the court; i.e. into the inner court, in which the royal apartments were apparently situated. Jeremiah 36:21 Which stood beside the king; literally,…above the king. The standing courtiers, of course, rose above the king; comp. Isaiah 6:2, "Seraphim stood above him." Jeremiah 36:22 In the winter house; i.e. that part of the royal palace which was arranged for a winter habitation (comp. Amos 3:15). According to Dr. Thomson, the more airy part of a house is called "summerhouse," and the more sheltered room "winter house." The ninth month, in which the events now being related took place, corresponded approximately to our December. It was, therefore, the cold and rainy season; December is a stormy month in Palestine. A fire on the hearth; rather, in the chafing dish (or, brazier). It was a vessel with live coals placed in the centre of the room, still used in the East in cold weather. Jeremiah 36:23 Three or four leaves; rather, columns or compartments. "Leaves" would imply that it was a book out of which Jehudi read, Whereas it was a roll (m’gillah never has any other meaning). But "books" were not yet known, nor would a knife have been necessary to separate the pages. He cut it. The subject may be either the king or Jehudi (at the bidding of the king). The term implies that the action of cutting was repeated several times; but we are not to suppose that each successive portion was cut off as it was read. The indignation of the hearer translated itself into the repeated mutilation of the roll, until all the roll was (east into the fire and) consumed. With the penknife; literally, with the scribe’s knife. On the hearth; rather, in the chafing dish (or, brazier). Jeremiah 36:24 Yet they were not afraid. Unlike Josiah (2 Kings 22:11), and even Ahab (1 Kings, 1 Kings 21:27). Nor any of his servants; i.e. the courtiers, as opposed to the "princes." Jeremiah 36:26 The son of Hammelech; rather, a royal prince (we should render similarly in Jeremiah 38:6; 1 Kings 22:26; 2 Kings 11:1, 2 Kings 11:2; Zephaniah 1:8). We have seen already that the number of such royal princes was very large (see on Jeremiah 17:9); any one, in fact, who had a king among his ancestors was a "royal prince." The Lord hid them; i.e. saved them from discovery. Jeremiah 36:27-32 Punishment denounced against Jehoiakim, and second writing of the former prophecy. Jeremiah 36:29 Thou shalt say to Jehoiakim; rather, concerning Jehoiakim. Intercourse between Jehoiakim and the prophet was broken off by the preceding scene. The speech begins in the oratio directa, but soon passes into the obliqua. Cause to cease … man and beast. A forcible description of the completeness of the devastation. Jeremiah 36:30 He shall have none to sit, etc. Substantially a repetition of the prophecy in Jeremiah 22:18, Jeremiah 22:19. Jeremiah 36:31 I will bring upon them, etc. (comp. Jeremiah 35:17; Jeremiah 19:15). Jeremiah 36:32 Many like words. Thus Jehoiakim gained nothing by his sin (comp. Introduction). Jeremiah 36:1-4 The writing of the roll. I. WHO WERE ENGAGED IN THE WRITING OF THE ROLL? 1. God. (1) The thoughts of the prophecies to be recorded were inspired by God. "Prophecy" means "inspired utterance." Jeremiah was to write the words that I have spoken unto thee. We should seek in the Bible chiefly, not the scribe’s letters (grammatical study), nor the prophet’s words (historical theology), but God’s thoughts (spiritual truth). (2) God commanded the writing of the roll (verse 2). The Bible is given to us by God. It is his will that the sayings of ancient prophets and apostles should be the lamp for all ages. Therefore (a) he will bless the right reading of the Bible, and (b) he will call us to account for the use we make of it. 2. Jeremiah. God does not speak to mankind by a direct and audible voice as with the thunder tones of Sinai. He speaks through an instrument—a man, a prophet. And this prophet is plainly not just a mechanical mouthpiece to the Divine voice. His personality counts for something. His style, mode of thought, experience, general knowledge, spiritual condition, etc; all mould his utterances of inspired truth. Jeremiah’s prophecies are characteristic of Jeremiah. 3. Baruch. The scribe has neither the genius to conceive the thought, nor the oratorical and literary gifts to clothe it in language. He is a simple amanuensis. Yet his work is important. For some reason not expressed, possibly like St. Paul on account of bodily weakness, Jeremiah did not write out his prophecies with his own hand. Thus work was found for Baruch. God finds offices corresponding to all varieties of gifts. But the less gifted are too often ambitious to per, form the more honoured tasks of greater men, or, fading in these, they are often reluctant to fulfil their more lowly calling. II. WHY WAS THE ROLL WRITTEN? This roll was not to contain a new composition. It was to be only a writing of utterances which had already been made public. Why, then, was it written? 1. That the prophecies might be preserved. Truth is eternal. A truth once discovered should be cherished as a lasting possession. It may be lost, but it can never decay. "The Word of the Lord endureth forever;" therefore the record of it should be preserved as of permanent value. 2. That the prophecies might reach a larger audience. The roll could be frequently perused and by various readers. Revelation is not for the few initiated; it is for all who need its light. 3. That the prophecies might be reread to those who had already heard them. The use of them was not expended when they were first spoken. We are too ready to be attracted by mere novelty. The latest books and the latest ideas are run after to the neglect of greater thoughts and greater works of older date. But truth is more important than novelty. And old truths need to be repeated, because (1) they may have been received with inattention at the first hearing; (2) they may be better understood or newly applicable under fresh circumstances, and after the hearer has gained larger powers of insight by his growing experience; (3) they may be so profound as to be practically inexhaustible, or so eternally fresh and inspiring as to be always useful; (4) they fail of their end till they affect our conduct, and must be repeated "line upon line" while men fail to do what they know. 4. That the prophecies might he studied carefully and compared together. So we should study the Bible, searching the Scriptures and comparing parts together, as we can only do when the whole lies written before us. III. WHAT WAS THE SCOPE AND AIM OF THE ROLL? 1. It was a record of God’s wrath against sin and a denunciation of judgment. The words so important that they needed to be thus recorded were spoken "against Israel, and against Judah, and against all the nations" (verse 2). People like to forget disagreeable ideas and cherish only those that please them. Yet there are times when it is for our own profit to face them. Surely it is best to know our danger if by the knowledge of it we can find a means to escape it, or, at the worst, be prepared to meet it. But if the revelation of judgment, and of temporal judgment, contained in Jeremiah’s prophecies was so precious as to be committed to writing under a solemn Divine commission, what value shall we set on the revelations of heavenly things and declarations of the glad tidings of salvation that are written in other parts of the Bible? 2. It aimed at leading the people to repentance. (Verse 3.) The threats of future calamities were first uttered with this end, and they were to be repeated for the same object. Thus the darkest words of revelation are spoken in mercy. If they are repeated, it is because God is so forbearing and anxious to save that he will not give his people up. The aim of revelation is practical. It is a lamp to our feet (Psalms 119:105). The chief purpose of its warnings and its words of grace is to lead us back from sin to God. Thus the Bible, though the crowning work of all literature, should not be regarded chiefly from a literary point of view, but rather as containing messages from our Father to guide and help our conduct. Jeremiah 36:5-21 The reading of the roll. I. THE READER. Baruch, the secretary of Jeremiah, is sent to read the roll. We do not know what cause detains the prophet. He has often made bold utterances in public before this. But if he cannot go the truth must not be hidden. "The Word of God is not bound" (2 Timothy 2:9). Truth is more important than the speaker. It matters little who is the messenger; all importance attaches to the message. Men forget this when they run after a Jeremiah and neglect a Baruch, though the scribe may be the bearer of the prophet’s teachings. We should recollect how much more important the gospel preached is than the man who preaches it. If a Chrysostom, a Paul, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel but the true gospel of Christ, "let him be anathema." But if Christ is proclaimed, we must be thankful for that, though the preacher and his conduct may not quite approve themselves to us (Philippians 1:18). Perhaps it was best that the prophet should not appear in person to repeat his message. His presence might reuse personal feelings to the neglect of bin message. He desired the truth to carry its own fair weight. Baruch did his work bravely and modestly. In repeating the prophet’s unpopular words, he would invite the odium that attached to them to pass on to himself. But his duty was to read the roll. God would see to the consequences. With this courage there was a remarkable modesty. The occasion was a tempting opportunity for Baruch to exercise his own powers by way of comment of addition. But he said nothing beyond what was written in the roll. He knew his place. The scribe is not a prophet. Why should not the great sermons of great preachers be sometimes read in our churches? II. THE OF THE READING. The roll was read to three audiences. 1. The people (verses 9, 10). The Bible is a book for the people, not for the priests or the learned only. The occasion of that reading was "a fasting day" (vex. 6). Then the people would be in the best mood for receiving the call to repentance. We should learn to speak "in season." The place of the reading was the temple (verse 10). Instruction should be associated with worship. 2. The princes (verses 11-19). Divine truth is of importance to all classes. They who are in responsible positions are especially called upon to study the signs of the times. 3. The king (verses 20, 21). It was necessary that what concerned the fate of the kingdom should receive the most careful consideration of its monarch. Even kings must bow before the utterance of truth. A prophet can speak with authority to a king. III. THE EFFECT OF READING. The effect on the people is not here indicated. Probably little moral good came of it; but there was evidently some impression made if the feelings of one man, Michaiah, may be taken in illustration. This man was so much stirred by what he heard that he immediately reported it to the princes at the court (verses 11-13). From this report other consequences flowed. If but one man out of a great congregation is seriously impressed by a sermon, that sermon has not failed; possibly through the one man it may be instrumental in effecting vast and lasting good. When the roll was read to the princes they were first dismayed (verse 16). How graphic is that picture of the great men of the kingdom as "they turned shuddering one to another," terrified and confounded by the prophet’s words! Perhaps some of them had heard the same words before unmoved. The time may come when the most hardened will be roused. The terror of princes might be a wholesome beginning of a genuine repentance. But if no appropriate action followed, it would soon die away, leaving the conscience the more hardened and demoralized. We need to "bring forth fruits meet for repentance." The princes inquired as to the origin of the roll. Were its words true? On what authority were they written? Such inquiries are reasonable. We should have a reason for accepting what we believe to be a Divine message. Yet it is dangerous to divert attention from the moral weight of truth by too much intellectual criticism about literary curiosities. The princes reported the matter to the king with a warning to Baruch—patriotic and generous conduct. The king’s reception of the book was very different. Unlike the princes, who neither accepted the message without question, nor rejected it for its unpleasant contents, but inquired calmly and carefully as to the authority of it, Jehoiakim flew into a rage and hastily destroyed it. What an act of supreme folly! The truth was not the less important because the record of it was burnt. "We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth" (2 Corinthians 13:8). Jeremiah 36:22-26 The burning of the roll. When the princes informed Jehoiakim of the circumstances connected with the reading of Jeremiah’s prophecies, the king sent an attendant, Jehudi, to fetch the roll and read it to him. It has been said that he showed contempt for the Word of God by relegating the reading to a page instead of sending for Baruch. But Baruch had probably escaped to seclusion at the warning of the courtiers (verse 19), and as he had left the roll in other hands, what was more natural than that Jehoiakim should send for it without a thought of Jeremiah’s appointment of a reader? Indeed, it matters little who reads; the question is—How is the reading received? I. THE ACTION OF THE KING. It was December—the cold and rainy month. A fire blazed on the brazier. As the roll was read, the king cut it up and flung the sections into the fire, till he had destroyed the whole of it. His action was one of rage and folly. He would have no more of the prophet’s dreadful words for himself; he would prevent them from further influencing others; he would vent his rage upon the record, though he could not touch the truths contained in it. Are there not many who inwardly sympathize with this violence of Jehoiakim? They dare not say they wish the Bible to be destroyed. But there are things in it which testify against them so strongly that they would keep them forever out of sight. The special features of Jehoiakim’s action are significant. 1. It was beyond his rights. King as he was, the roll did not belong to him. Neither had he any authority over the inspired word of prophecy. Earthly power confers no privilege and power in Divine things. 2. It was brutally violent. Jehoiakim cut up and burnt the roll—that was all he could do. To refute its contents was beyond his power. 3. It was vain and futile. The roll might be burnt, but the truth it contained could not be destroyed, nor could it even be suppressed. Another roll could be written, and the burning of the first would be an advertisement for the second. Violent opposition thus benefits the cause it would destroy. The burning of Tyndale’s Bibles was one of the best means for securing the circulation of a larger number of English Bibles. 4. It was suggested by a temptation. The fire was at hand—an unusual thing, apparently, just suited to the occasion. There is an evil providence as well as a higher providence of good. It is not safe to follow the superficial indication of events. That is as likely to come from below as from above. 5. It was deliberate. Piece by piece the roll was cut up and burnt. Hasty passion might excuse the first burning, but not the whole process. 6. It was complete. All the roll was consumed. There was no discrimination. The act was symbolical. The rejection Of one part of truth will lead to the rejection of the whole of it. 7. It was really injurious only to the perpetrator. The roll could not feel; the truth could not be destroyed; another roll could be written. But the burning of the roll was to the king’s own loss. That roll contained the only available prescription for the healing of the distresses of himself and his kingdom. The Bible is really sent for the good of the worst of men. Their rejection of it is only to their own loss. II. THE CONDUCT OF THE . 1. Some stood by and watched the burning. They did not aid it; but they did not hinder it. Therefore they shared the responsibility of the king. For we are responsible for the evil we will not restrain as well as for that we commit, so that in doing little harm we may yet be guilty of much. The courtiers had no valid excuse for their indifference. Royal authority cannot justify acquiescence in wrong. Personal fear is no excuse, since it is better to die for the right than desert it in sheer cowardice. These men showed no fear (verse 24). They had been alarmed (verse 16). But religious fears are transitory, and if not acted on leave the heart more hardened than they find it. 2. Some expostulated. These men had been more permanently affected by the reading of Baruch. They carried the impressions made in the temple to their conduct at the court. That is a proof of a real influence of the words of Jeremiah upon them. It is little that we feel the weight of religion in church. The test is how far this dwells with us in the world, and when it would urge to unpopular, difficult, or dangerous actions. The rewriting of the roll. Under the inspiration of God Jeremiah requires Baruch to write another roll, containing all that was in the burnt roll and also some additional matter. We may take the following points connected with the rewriting of the roll— I. THE OF ALL TO DIVINE TRUTH. Jehoiakim is a king and a tyrant. But there is a limit to his power. It is vain for him to attempt to hinder the declaration of God’s truth. If one roll is burnt another can be written. If one prophet were killed another could be raised up. Truth is eternal. It will survive all enmity, and it will find its way ultimately to the light. He who is against it plays a losing game. II. THE OF GOD’S DESIGNS. They are not to be set aside by all the scheming and all the violence of men. God does not change because we oppose his will. There is something awful in the thought of that great, inflexible will, firm as granite against all the raging of man’s foolish passions. By opposition we can only bring ourselves into collision with it to our hurt, as the waves dash themselves to spray on the rock they cannot break. We cannot stay its invincible progress— "Though the mills of God grind slowly, Yet they grind exceeding small." If we wish to find God’s will working with us and for our good, we must submit to it. We cannot expect the great God to change his plans to suit our inclinations. III. THE OF GOD’S MERCY. Why should the roll be rewritten? The threats it contained could be executed without any reissue of them. If all fair warnings were disregarded, no more could be required. True, and no more were required, Yet out of his great, long suffering grace God issued his warnings afresh. This is the deeper truth that underlies the command to write out the prophecies once more. The same truth is illustrated in all the history of the Jews. God sent a succession of prophets, "rising up early and sending," to impress upon the people the same unheeded lessons. The continuance of revelation with us is a reminder of God’s forbearing mercy. (last clause) The development of revelation. "And there were added besides unto them many like words." The second roll was a transcript of the first, but with numerous additions, though these were all similar in character to the original prophecies. We have here, on a small scale, an instance of that development of revelation which is evolved on similar principles through the whole realm of knowledge. I. FOLLOWS A PROCESS OF GRADUAL . There are those to whom the word "development" has an evil sound, because of the excuse Roman Catholics have found in it for perversions of New Testament doctrines; while others object to it on account of its use in the scientific world, where they think it is meant to take the place of the will and wisdom of God. But the abuse of a word should not hide us from the important idea that it naturally denotes. Nothing is more true and grand and wonderful in all God’s works than the principle of development which his great power and wisdom has made to run through them. The dawn advances through twilight to full day; the seed grows slowly—"first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear;" man begins life as an infant, and toils up to his full stature through years of childhood and youth; the kingdom of heaven began as a grain of mustard seed, and is slowly spreading till, from the work of that little company in the upper room at Jerusalem, "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." Revelation is no exception to the same universal Divine process. God did not flash all his truth upon the world in one dazzling moment. The Bible is a slow growth of many centuries. Progress is observable in the Old Testament. Isaiah saw further than it was given to Abraham to see. Jeremiah’s vision of the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34) is in advance of the Levitical Law. The New Testament is a decided manifestation of broader knowledge and fuller light than the earlier revelation contained. Christ said to his disciples, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now" (John 16:12). St. Paul’s teachings go beyond the doctrines held in his day by the Church at Jerusalem. We cannot say that God has nothing further to reveal. The Christian believes that "holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation." But all the analogy of God’s past action would lead us to think that there may be much truth which men were not at first able to see in the Scripture, and yet which may be known in successive ages and found to be of great profit. 1. The human occasion of this development of revelation may be seen in the fact that the thoughts of men grow. God reveals his truth in human thinking. Men must seek him, and, feeling after the truth, are rewarded by God’s revelation. But the revelation is proportionate to the progress of the search. 2. The Divine purpose of this development may be noted in such facts as these: God reveals truth as man is able to receive it, as he is spiritually educated to understand it, as he is in a moral condition to profit by it, as changing circumstances may bring need for new stages in the development of it. II. THE OF IS WITH ITSELF. 1. It does not set aside old truth. In the new roll all the contents of the old roll were rewritten, so that the fresh matter was not a substitute but an addition. Christ came to fulfil the Law and the prophets, not to destroy them (Matthew 5:17). The gospel exceeds but does not supersede the spiritual truth of the Old Testament. No new discovery can ever destroy what is once known to be real and true. 2. This development maintains an essential likeness between its earliest and its latest stages. The added Words of Jeremiah’s roll were "like unto those which were first written. All truth must ultimately harmonize. One great test of a new doctrine is its agreement with previously established truth. All Christian truth must agree with the teachings of Christ and his apostles. That many so called developments of truth are really perversions of truth may be proved by the application of this test. Thus to us Protestants it seems clear that many Roman Catholic dogmas which profess to be developments of Christianity are so utterly contrary to its spirit that they must be regarded either as pagan additions or as relapses towards Judaism. So there are "liberal" notions that are really negations of essential elements of the gospel. It is monstrous to call these developments. The oak is a development of the acorn; but the hollow, blasted stump, which is the last stage in the history of the tree, is surely not a further result of the same process. Decay is not development. BY A.F. MUIR (Vide Jeremiah 30:1-3.)—M. Jeremiah 36:5-8 Vicarious ministry in holy things. The "vicar," an ecclesiastical officer of mediaeval times,—explain the origin and nature of his duties. Show how large this question of vicarious service, and how universal its necessity, in business, society, the state, the Church, etc. This incident illustrates— I. ITS NATURE. Not merely that one should do, be, or suffer instead of another, but as representative of him. More or less consciously, sympathetically, adequately. That one man and not another should do a given duty, for instance, may be but the chance of fortune; but that he should do it for and in place of that other is for him to be that other’s "vicar." This essential character of the transaction is not altered by the fact of the superiority, equality, or inferiority of the substitute. II. ITS . An element of pathos and mystery. Perhaps the end better served in this than in the alternative way. Conceivable that the reading, the authoritative publication, and the supernatural interest, may have been enhanced rather than otherwise by the substitution. 1. The community of true service. How different in importance, etc; the function of the prophet in receiving the message and communicating it from that of the scribe! yet both are on this occasion indispensable. One man’s service the condition of another’s or its complement. All true service associated in relation to final ends and rewards (John 4:37, John 4:38; Hebrews 11:40). 2. An impression of urgency produced. This was the message it was absolutely important for Judah to hear at that time. God always speaks at the right time, even when that requires extraordinary efforts and unusual means. The latter on this occasion must have eloquently suggested that now was the "accepted time" and "the day of salvation." 3. The earnestness of the prophet and his Inspirer. Jeremiah was the true friend of the nation and the devoted servant of Jehovah, therefore he did not excuse himself from the task because of its difficulties. 4. How inevitable the message? It was not to be evaded or suppressed. From the prison or hiding place the prophet wilt still be heard. III. ITS ETHICS. Service of the kind here described was justifiable only on the supposition that the original or principal in responsibility is unable to do his own proper work, or that it can be better done by being delegated to another. Jeremiah is careful to explain why he does not do it himself. Would that the reasons for non-attendance in the sanctuary, or inoccupation in spiritual work, were as real and valid in the case of professing Christians! 1. On the part of the person instead of whom the service was rendered. He did not ask his substitute to do what he could do himself; and what he alone could do was done with the utmost care and diligence. It is calculated that the writing out of the roll from the prophet’s dictation occupied nine months, and many delays and difficulties must have been experienced. His solicitude, too, on behalf of the proper delivery of the message by Baruch, is very instructive and inspiring. He sought (God’s end in) the repentance of the people, and everything was to conspire to produce this. By example and moral influence he sought to fill Baruch with his own enthusiasm, and a sense of the importance of the task. The preacher is the vicar of the Church; so with the Sunday school teacher, etc. By prayer, sympathy, and loving cooperation Christians should encourage these. 2. On the part of the substitute. Baruch sought to do his part faithfully and with minute exactitude. His success in producing an impression proved how he exerted himself. A sense of responsibility should ever rest upon those who minister in the house of God. A certain measure of boldness was also required to do such a thug. The people or their princes might turn against him. Boldness is essential to the preaching of the gospel. But there cannot but occur to most readers the parallelism there is in all this to what Christ has undertaken for us. Another temple from whose service we are "shut up" by reason of personal unfitness, or that we remain in the flesh. Christ, our great Forerunner and Vicar, or Substitute, has entered into its holy of holies, with his own eternal sacrifice and intercession. Upon him all our hope must be placed; we must follow him in spirit; and we must imitate Jeremiah in the zeal and labour with which we execute our part of the great process of salvation.—M. Jeremiah 36:9-16 Free course of the Word of God. The progress made by the messages of Jeremiah when read aloud in the scribe’s cell at the entrance of the higher court of the temple was very remarkable, and fully justified the great care and ingenuity with which it was effected. I. A SHOULD BE SHOWN IN TAKING OF OR FOR MAKING KNOWN GOD’S WORD. II. THE WORD OF GOD IS BY ITS GENERAL AND SPECIAL HUMAN . III. WHEN ONE FAILS, GOD WILL RAISE UP ANOTHER, UNTIL HIS MESSAGE ATTAINS ITS .—M. Jeremiah 36:16-18 The mystery of inspiration. I. THE NATURAL DESIRE TO SOLVE IT. 1. This has its root in mere curiosity. A desire to know for the sake of knowing—laudable enough in itself, but in danger of passing into irreverence and idle speculation. Religious movements and supernatural phenomena have excited this wonder in all ages. Religion interests many as a problem, where it is refused attention or respect as a law. 2. This is increased by the attraction of the forbidden and unlawful. An anticipation of the "profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science [the knowledge] falsely so called," against which Timothy is warned (1 Timothy 6:20; cf. Colossians 2:8, Colossians 2:18, Colossians 2:19). The sin of Simon Magus was analogous. 3. It is also increased by the natural mind’s intolerance of mystery. There are multitudes who would willingly inquire how a miracle may be wrought, who have no desire to learn why. It is humiliating to our natural pride to realize that there are so many things in the universe we cannot explain. The authority which the supernatural lends to the doctrines and revelations of religion is resented. II. HOW IT IS . 1. The direction of their questioning. They asked concerning the mechanical process—the manner, etc; of the prophet, apparently unconscious that the real problem lay behind all that. "Did the prophet stammer whilst the inspiration was upon him? Was his manner wild or strange?" Now, we know that the manner of the person receiving Divine inspiration may be perfectly indistinguishable from that of those who are under ordinary human conditions. But they fell into the error of supposing that, when that was determined, the solution of the problem would be advanced. 2. Where it ended. There is no further curiosity; they remain at arm’s length from the kernel of the whole question. The moral conditions of it are of no concern to them. Theirs is the radical carelessness with respect to religion as such which characterizes the carnal mind. Their inquiries ended just where they ought to have begun; just as those of many nowadays—lingerers or loiterers in the perch, who never enter into the temple. Conscience could answer much that curiosity leaves untouched. The deep necessity of God communion forevery man and nation to which it witnesses, is what the whole process of revelation presupposes. God will not leave man alone. His supernatural workings continually witness to his presence and authority. And man cannot do without God and his Word.—M. Jeremiah 36:20-26 Jehoiakim’s penknife, This became a proverbial phrase for religious indifference of the most callous description. Not that Jehoiakim actually cut the roll himself; but Jehudi, who did it, was evidently under his orders. It is a little uncertain as to whether the whole of the manuscript, or a part only, was read; but as "had read" represents an imperfect tease, and the words "till all the roll was consumed" imply a gradual process, it seems more probable that the former was the ease. There is here the same unconquerable spirit of curiosity to know what the prophet said, utterly separated from religious earnestness or obedience. It is a fearfully impressive tableau which is presented, suggestive of— I. THE ENMITY OF THE CARNAL MIND TO DIVINE TRUTH, The king cannot leave the manuscript alone, but he strives to make up for that weakness by: 1. Contempt. A page or domestic scribe is employed to read, instead of the king reading for himself; whilst the chief officers sit with their royal master, ridiculing it. There are many who dare not part company with religion, who revenge themselves by making light of its warnings and ordinances. Their contempt is a little overdone, in proportion to the latent, unconfessed fear. 2. Destruction. Dislike of the truth itself transfers itself also to the vehicle by which it is conveyed. It is a sign of the indwelling of the evil one, who seeks to destroy the works of God. 3. Persecution. The servants of God who have communicated his Word are also hated, and they are sought out with a view to their hurt. This is a characteristic of the confirmed sinner, which repeats itself over and over again in history. The world hates the servants of Christ because it hates their Master. II. THE OF HEART BY SIN. 1. Deliberate profanity. If the text is rightly interpreted, it describes a repeated action, performed with the greatest coolness and clearest intention. How different from that young king who rent his garments at the message from the book so mysteriously lost and found again! 2. Resolute disobedience. The treatment to which the roll was subjected showed how thoroughly the mind of the king was made up. And the remonstrances of his councillors were unheeded. Evidently the messages of God would be wasted upon such a king, and consequently his doom would be forthwith pronounced (Jeremiah 36:30, Jeremiah 36:31). III. THE OF THOSE WHO FIGHT AGAINST GOD. This is revealed in their methods. Here the burning of the book and the persecution of its authors are all that occurs to the infatuated king to do. But the prophet and his scribe are nowhere to be found, for "God hid them;" and the burnt manuscript appears in a second and enlarged edition. Persecution and the Index Expurgatorius have been potent allies of the truth they have been used to suppress. It is an unequal warfare when God is on one side and man on the other. In such a ease the truest wisdom is capitulation. God’s indictment against us is unanswerable, and there is no escaping his judgments. When such devices occur to the sinner, he may well fear for himself. Truly understood, these warnings are but the efforts of Divine love to awaken to repentance, and thus afford opportunity for its free and uninterrupted exercise.—M. The Lord hid them. I. TO WHAT STRAITS THE CAUSE OF GOD IS REDUCED! Those in high position are opposed to it, and its advocates and representatives have to seek concealment. No open ministry was, therefore, possible. Self-preservation had to be first attended to. There have been times when religion was tolerated, but as under apology; this was an instance of utter exclusion. How good men must have despaired and bad men triumphed! All that God could do for his servants seemed to be to hide them. At the same time, how easy it would be to miscalculate the moral power of the Word! Is not persecution better than languid indifference? II. HOW THEIR EFFORTS WHO CONTEND WITH GOD! With seeming ease and yet mysterious skill, the secrets of nature are made to subserve his will. And even that which is, as it were, an extremity—a last resource—is so mysteriously effected as to convey the impression of infinite skill and endless resources. 1. They are baffled at the very outset. There seems to have been some interposition of the Divine in making the concealment of the prophet and his companion so inscrutable; and it impressed men. All the means at their disposal were exhausted in their efforts to discover them, but in vain. It is: 2. With an apparent ease. It is but one move on the great chessboard, but it is effectual and sufficient. It is even conceivable that the pursued took no special pains to conceal themselves, but left it in the hand of him whom they served. 3. And with significant gentleness. Some grander deliverance he might have effected, but this is enough. And it simply prevents the wicked king and his court from adding further to their guilt. How thankful ought wicked men to be that they are not suffered to carry out all their evil designs! So God sometimes "prevents," that he may not have to pursue and destroy. III. HOW SECURE GOD’S ARE WHEN HE FOR THEM! It is merely said he "hid them," that their concealment was effectual and inviolate being understood without further words. Elijah (1 Kings 17:2) and his successor (2 Kings 6:1-33.) were so hidden. The Lord of the universe knows its every secret. 1. In temporal things. The children of God will not escape misfortune or sorrow. Persecutions are amongst the promises. But the true evil of evil will not reach them. They cannot know it. He hides them in his "secret place" until the storm and fury are overpast. Nay, in distress his tenderness will be the more conspicuous and manifest. "Hide me under the shadow of thy wings" (Psalms 17:8); "I flee unto thee to hide me" (Psalms 143:9). There is an inward, inaccessible peace, which is the gift of every true disciple (John 14:27). 2. In things spiritual. Isaiah spoke of the day when "a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind," etc. (Isaiah 32:2). And we know that our "life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). When the unpardoned shall call upon the rocks to fall on them, and the hills to cover them from his wrath, they that believe shall be safe in the keeping of their Lord. 3. And this is so because the saints are precious in his sight. He keeps them as the apple of his eye. Not a hair of their head shall fall to the ground without their Father. They are the firstfruits of his Son’s agony and sacrifice, and bear his likeness. All the resources of his kingdom are held in readiness for their salvation.—M. The Word of God: wherein it can and wherein it cannot be destroyed. I. WHEREIN IT CAN BE . 1. In its outward form and medium. The roll; inspired records; religious institutions and means of grace; individual believers and Churches. 2. As a vehicle of blessing to a man’s own soul. Jehoiakim deliberately cut off his own salvation, and, destroying the roll, he caused his name to be blotted out of the book of life. To him it brought no blessing. We can destroy the Word of God in this way for ourselves, by heedlessness, unbelief, disrespect, enmity. II. WHEREIN IT CANNOT BE . Even over the material embodiment and vehicle of the Word shall we not believe that Providence watches? God restores, enlarges, multiplies his Word. But: 1. The spiritual Word cannot be destroyed. It is independent of stone, or parchment, or paper; is continually renewed by the Divine Spirit in its communications with the children of men. Even at the worst there is a "law written upon the heart." It cannot be too strongly impressed upon men’s minds that, were all the Bibles and manuscripts in the world destroyed, God would restore his Word and continue to reveal himself; like that temple which, destroyed, would be raised in three days again. 2. The consequences of God’s Word, whether these be good or evil. What he willeth will be, and his Word stands sure. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away," etc.; i.e. what it foretells and declares will remain certain and will fulfil itself. It secures to the saint an indestructible life and inheritance, and to the sinner the reward of his transgression. The true escape from the thrcatenings of the Divine Word is not to destroy it, but to obey its teachings and yield ourselves to the discipline and grace of Christ.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 36:1-32 Hearers of God’s Word. This chapter brings before us an instructive variety of these hearers. I. SUCH AS THE PROPHET. To him and such as he the Word of God came, and was received with reverent submission and diligently obeyed at all costs. They could say, "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth." II. SUCH AS THE PEOPLE . (Jeremiah 36:10.) The mass seemed unaffected. We do not read of their being in any wise wrought upon by what they had heard. But there was an exception (Jeremiah 36:11). Michaiah was really aroused, impressed, and alarmed. Often it is thus; the general congregation unmoved, but one here, one there, touched and led to God. III. SUCH AS . We have seen how it affected him. He could not keep it to himself, but went to tell the princes of it (Jeremiah 36:12). He unfeignedly believed. Now, he came of a godly house. It was his grandfather who, in King Josiah’s day, had first received the book of the Law which had been found in the temple. Hilkiah the high priest gave it to him, knowing, no doubt, that it would be reverently dealt with. And so it was; for first he read it himself, and then read it aloud to the young king, and that led to the reformation which the king carried out. And the father of this Michaiah was a man of a like spirit. From the balcony of his house Baruch had read his book to the people; Michaiah’s father had lent him a pulpit. And it was this same man who, with two others, tried, but in vain, to stay the king’s hand when about to burn the book (verse 25). Hence Michaiah came of a godly stock. It is the training of such homes that more than aught else prepares and predisposes the heart to receive the Word of God. IV. SUCH AS THE PRINCES. These are a very instructive group, (verses 11-26). They listened patiently to the Word, and gave it much attention. They were much moved, and desired to hear it over again exactly as it had been given, and so they sent for Baruch, and listened in like manner to him. They seriously deliberate, and resolve to go and warn the king; for that in all probability was their motive. They show affection to God’s servants, and desire to protect both them and the written Word. They go in to the king, notwithstanding they must have known the peril of so doing. And some of them endeavour to stay the king from his evil intent to destroy the book. But there they stop. The king’s rage overpower them, and they keep silence when they ought to utter strong protest. They are an illustration of "the fear of man which bringeth a snare." How often the like cause leads to like unfaithfulness still! V. SUCH AS THE KING. The words fix his attention, but they excite his rage and then they ensure his doom. He comes to hate both the Word and the writers of the Word, and he disregards the feeble remonstrances of its timid friends. Thus he seals his own destruction, as such ever do. We are hearers of the Word. To which class do we belong?—C. Jeremiah 36:2 The written Word. "Take thee a roll of a book, and write therein all the words that I have spoken unto thee" "This is the first recorded instance of the formation of a canonical book, and of the special purpose of its formation." No doubt other prophets had committed to writing more or less of their teachings—the quotations of one prophet from another, the later from the earlier, prove this; but here is the first record of any such act, and hence it has especial interest. It is the forerunner of all those several Scriptures which together form now the depository of our religion, and justify the well known saying of Chillingworth, "The Bible and the Bible only is the religion of Protestants." For note— I. OUR DEPENDS ON THE WRITTEN WORD. Great contempt has been poured on the idea of a "book revelation." As if there were something even ridiculous in the idea of God revealing himself by means of a book. A recent missionary traveller (Gilmour) among the Mongols states that they feel the force of this objection very strongly, and that when the missionary holds up his little Bible as the revelation of God, it seems to them very absurd. But these people can claim distinguished companionship amongst our own countrymen. And in addition to the rejection of a book revelation at all, this particular book, the Bible, is objected to exceedingly. All manner of ridicule is poured on it, and there is scarce a single ground on which fault could be found with it which some one has not occupied. But in reply note— II. THE WRITTEN WORD IS, HOWEVER, NOT THE BUT ONLY THE RECORD OF IT. It is not claimed for it to be more than this. God did not give to mankind a book, but he revealed himself to "holy men of old," and especially through the Lord Jesus Christ. And this book is the record of that revelation. Hence the only question that concerns us is—Is it a faithful record? III. BUT SUCH A RECORD WAS . For if the existence of God be allowed, and that it is his desire to reclaim men from their sin and to bring them back to himself, it may be asked: 1. How could this be done except by his revealing himself to men? They must be enabled to know him, and to know him in such manner as would be likely to move them in the direction desired. 2. But if it be granted that a revelation was a necessity, how could that revelation be of use to mankind at large unless it were put on record? For all events are related to time and space; they must have happened—God’s revelation of himself amongst others—somewhen and somewhere. But how, except by a record, could those who dwelt in other generations and in other parts of the world know of this revelation? But for that it may as well not have been. 3. And so long as the Divine ideas are conveyed to our mind, what does it matter about the means employed? All the magnificence of nature—the Alpine heights, the starry universe, etc.—serve us only as they convey true and worthy ideas, as they wake up in us fit and appropriate thoughts. If they fail in this, they might as well not be so far as we are concerned. But there are many who never have opportunities of beholding the magnificence of nature—their lives are one long round of sordid toil in scenes dark and squalid; and others who have such opportunities are too little educated to learn from them what they assuredly have to tell. The road that leads from nature up to nature’s God is a thinly travelled one; few go that way. But now, if by the written Word, which can be carried everywhere, perpetuated, multiplied, and is everywhere and at all times accessible—if by this there can be conveyed to the mind fit, true, and heart moving ideas about God, what an advantage this is! Instead of being a cause of scorn, it should awaken our gratitude. 4. And those features in this record which seem to some unworthy of its great mission, these really are of great service. No doubt there is much of homeliness and of trivial and seemingly insignificant detail in this record. It is a very plain, prosaic book in many parts. But is not this a great boon? Had God’s revelation of himself to us been accompanied by a blaze of splendour, with such manifestations of Divine power to the senses or to the intellect as some seem to desire, the revelation would have been lost in the record; no one would look at the picture, their attention being so much occupied with the setting. Hence it is good for us that we live so long after the times of the Bible. It is expedient for us that Christ has gone away. For in proportion to men’s nearness to those times "events having God in them took a more forcible hold upon their mind than God in the events." The atmosphere of time is needed in order to our right viewing of the marvellous facts of the Bible. IV. OUR ONE IS—IS THE RECORD ?. 1. As to the facts themselves—in their main substance and meaning. This question is quite apart from inspiration. Nothing but honesty and intelligence are asked for here. Of course, if any start with the assumption that the supernatural is not, and hence miracles are by their very nature impossible, and the belief of them absurd, such a one will refuse all credence to this record. But first let his assumption be proved ere doubt be thrown on either the honesty or the intelligence of the writers of the Bible. 2. As to the interpretation and meaning of the facts they record. "Just as on gazing at a picture of Raphael’s we should rejoice to have at hand a companion who had familiarized himself with the spirit of the great artist and acquired an insight into his genius, to furnish us with such brief notices as might assist us to a comprehension of the profounder ideas expressed by the painting, for want of which it would lose very much of its intellectual meaning; so with the memoirs of Christ before us, as the spiritual revelation of God to our religious sense, we require, in order to adequate instruction and profit, the comments of … those who shall be qualified to point it out to our duller vision. What poets are to the natural exhibition of God in his works, these men will be to the moral exhibition of God in his Son." Now, that the sacred writers answer to this need is shown by the fact that they "commend the truth to every man’s conscience in the sight of God." In this commendation to our conscience is the evidence that they have read aright the facts they record. And to this we may fearlessly appeal. We do not assert this of men’s theologies and divinity schemes—too many of them outrage the conscience and trouble the moral sense; but we do assert it of the great verities of the faith, as taught in the Scriptures, and of the doctrines which the Bible as a whole plainly teaches. "Within this ample volume lies The mystery of mysteries. Happiest they of human race To whom their God has given grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch and force the way; And better had they ne’er been born Than read to doubt or read to scorn." Cf. on this whole subject Miall’s ’Bases of Belief.’—C. Jeremiah 36:3 It may be. We can understand the prophet thus speaking, but how can there be anything uncertain or contingent with God? And yet it is he who here speaks and says, "It may be." We are accustomed to say, "God knows all the past, and all the present, and all the future (cf. Isaiah 46:9-11). Reason and Scripture alike seem to say that there can be nothing probable with God. But yet this is his word. Why does he thus speak? Perhaps— I. BECAUSE THERE WAS NO LAW, NO DECREE, AGAINST THE PEOPLE’S . He had made no such law, and man had not. There is no decree of reprobation. II. IT MAY BE , AFTER ALL, WITH THE TRUTH OF THINGS FOR GOD THUS TO SPEAK, THOUGH WE CANNOT SEE HOW. We infer certain conclusions from what we read and learn about God, and these conclusions seem to deny the possibility of there being any "it may be" with him. But we may be wrong after all, and the fact that he does thus speak lends to the suspicion that we are. III. BECAUSE IT WOULD BE ILL FOR US WERE HE TO REVEAL THE OF THINGS. If they were to be such as we would desire, we should cease to labour for them. If otherwise, we should sit down in despair. But God desires us to labour and pray, and therefore hides the future from our eyes. Presumption and despair are both great evils; therefore to prevent them, God speaks after the manner of men, if not after the manner of God. IV. BECAUSE HE INTENDS HIS "MAY BE" TO BECOME "SHALL BE." He would have us fellow workers with him, and therefore he encourages our efforts, but hides from us be that which would lead us to think them unnecessary. And probably the "may be" will become "shall be," though not at the time nor in the manner we expect. Let us, therefore, be ever cheered forward when God says, "It may be."—C. The indestructible Word. The king’s knife and fire did what they could to destroy the prophet’s word, but with what result this chapter shows. The king was Jehoiakim; the prophet, Jeremiah; the word, his written prophecies. It was necessary that these should be written down. The army of Babylon was already in the land, and drawing near to the doomed city of Jerusalem, if they had not already captured it for the first time. There was no hope of successful resistance. Therefore, for a testimony when all that had been foretold came to pass, and for a solace and warning to that and to all coming generations, it was necessary that the twenty-three years’ witness which the prophet had borne against that guilty nation should be put on record. Jeremiah was "shut up," whether by his own will, or the word of the Lord, or for fear of his enemies, we cannot certainly say; but Baruch, who seems to have been to Jeremiah as Timothy to Paul, was commanded to write these prophecies, and then, on the "fasting day," to read them in the hearing of all the people. He did so. One of his hearers, alarmed and troubled, hastened away to the council of the princes, and told them what he had heard. Baruch was sent for, and declared again what he had before read to the people. The book was too terrible to show to the king; they therefore commanded that it and its author should be concealed, whilst they went in to the king to announce its fearful contents. A third time these prophecies were recited, hut the king demanded that the book itself should be read to him. But when brought and the reading had begun, the angry king had no patience to listen beyond the first three or four leaves, but snatching it from the hand of the reader, he vented his rage upon it by cutting and hacking it with his knife, and then, to make short work of it, cast it, in spite of the horror-stricken entreaties of his princes, into the burning coals before him, where it was utterly consumed. Then he commands, but in vain, for "the Lord hid them," that Baruch and Jeremiah be arrested; but the Lord commands that these prophecies be written again, which was done, with the doom of the king added, and "beside them many like words." But this King Jehoiakim, in his dealing with the Word of God, and in its dealing with him, has had many successors. He is the type of— I. THOSE WHO ARE WITH THE WORD OF GOD. Jehoiakim only heard three or four leaves read, when he put a stop to the reading altogether in the foolish way we have seen. He would not hear the whole. Did any man ever destroy the Bible who knew it wholly? Many have thrown it into the fire who have heard or read a part only. The difficulty is in the "three or four leaves." How many stumble because they won’t read on! II. THOSE WHO BECOME VERY ANGRY WITH THE BIBLE. To men of this king’s stamp the Bible has not one word of comfort, commendation, or hope. It is all full of thunder and storm. It is a dreadful book to the impenitent, No wonder that he snatches it from the reader’s hand, and hacks at it with his knife, and then flings it into the blazing fire. Yes; be like this king, and you will do as he did, and be done unto as he. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Nothing worthy of relation appears to have happened to Jeremiah till the latter period of the reign of Zedekiah. The first two verses of this chapter form the transition. The embassy to Jeremiah mentioned in verse 3 took place after the temporary withdrawal of the Chaldeans from Jerusalem. Jeremiah 37:1 Coniah; i.e. Jehoiachin (see on Jeremiah 22:24). Whom Nebuchadrezzar … made king. Zedekiah, not Jehoiachin, is referred to (see 2 Kings 24:17). Jeremiah 37:3 And Zedekiah the king sent. This was Zedekiah’s second embassy to Jeremiah. His request on the former occasion bad been for a prophecy; on the present it was for an "effectual fervent prayer," such as Hezekiah’s embassy asked of Isaiah (Isaiah 37:6). But the issue was to be very different from that in the case of Sennacherib’s invasion! Jehucal. The same man appears in Jeremiah 38:1, among those who brought about the imprisonment of Jeremiah. Zephaniah. The high priest’s deputy, mentioned again in Jeremiah 21:1; Jeremiah 29:25; Jeremiah 52:24. Jeremiah 37:4 Now Jeremiah came in and went out, etc. Had he been a prisoner, an embassy of high officials could not, with propriety, have been sent to him (comp. verse 17; Jeremiah 38:14). Jeremiah 37:5 Then Pharaoh’s army, etc.; rather, And Pharaoh’s army had, etc.; as a further description of the circumstances under which the embassy was sent. The withdrawal of the Chaldeans seemed to offer a gleam of hope. The Pharaoh referred to was the Hophra of the Jews, the Apries of Herodotus, the Uah-ab-ra of the monuments. His interference was useless; indeed, Hophra was one of the most unfortunate of the Egyptian kings (see Jeremiah 44:30). Jeremiah 37:10 Even if the Jews had defeated the whole Chaldean army, and there remained but a group of sorely wounded men, these in their weakness would be enabled to carry out God’s sure purpose. But wounded men hardly brings out the force of the Hebrew; the word rendered "men" is emphatic, and expresses paucity of numbers, and that rendered "wounded" is, literally, pierced through. Jeremiah 37:11 For fear of, etc.; rather, because of. Jeremiah 37:12 As soon as communication with the outside world was possible, Jeremiah took the opportunity of going to his native country, to obtain something or other which he could only obtain "thence." The Authorized Version says that his object was to separate himself thence. But (1) the rendering is linguistically untenable; and (2) the assumed object is incongruous with the circumstances and Character of Jeremiah, who was neither inclined to seek safety in isolation nor had any motive at present for doing so. The only safe rendering is, to claim his share thence. Whether there was just then a reallotment of communal lands must be left undecided; this would, however, be the most plausible hypothesis, if we could be sure that the present was a sabbatical year. The additional words, in the midst of the people, would then acquire a special significance. The "people" would be the representatives of families who had an equal right to allotments with Jeremiah. Jeremiah 37:13 The gate of Benjamin; i.e. the gate looking northwards towards Benjamin (comp. Jeremiah 20:2; Jeremiah 38:7; Zechariah 14:10). It appears to be the same as the gate of Ephraim (2 Kings 14:13; Nehemiah 8:16). Thou fallest away, etc. Perhaps an allusion to Jeremiah’s declaration (Jeremiah 21:9) that "he that falleth away to the Chaldeans … he shall live," Jeremiah 37:15 The princes were wroth with Jeremiah. As Graf has pointed out, the princes, who had evinced their respect for Jeremiah on former occasions (Jeremiah 26:1-24; Jeremiah 36:1-32) had probably shared the captivity of Jehoiachin; Zedekiah’s "princes" would be of a lower origin and type, and ready (like the judges in the French "terror") to accept any charge against an unpopular person without proper examination. The house of Jonathan the scribe. "Scribe," i.e. one of the secretaries of state. The house of Jonathan seems to have been specially adapted for a prison, as the next verse shows. Chardin, the old traveller, remarks, "The Eastern prisons are not public buildings erected for that purpose, but a part of the house in which the criminal judges dwell. As the governor and provost of a town, or the captain of the watch, imprison such as are accused in their own houses, they set apart a canton of them for that purpose when they are put into these offices, and choose for the jailor the most proper person they can find of their domestics" (Chardin). Jeremiah 37:16 Into the dungeon, and into the cabins. The former word undoubtedly implies an underground excavation. The latter is of more uncertain signification. It most probably means "vaults;" but it may mean "curved posts"—something analogous to stocks (see on Jeremiah 20:2). Jeremiah 37:17 Meantime the Chaldean army has returned, and reinvested the city. Zedekiah, in his anxiety, sends for Jeremiah privately to his palace. Thou shalt be delivered, etc. (comp. Jeremiah 32:3, Jeremiah 32:4; Jeremiah 34:2, Jeremiah 34:3). Jeremiah 37:21 Court of the prison; rather, court of the watch (as Jeremiah 32:2). A piece of bread; literally, a circle (i.e. round cake) of bread. This is mentioned elsewhere in descriptions of poverty (1 Samuel 2:36; Proverbs 6:26); but as the ancient Oriental bread was not our delicate white bread, it was a real "staff of life." The Syrian peasants still eat cakes of coarse meal, of about the thickness of parchment, and equal in size to a large plate (Orelli’s ’Travels’). The bakers’ street. Probably the several trades were confined to special quarters and streets. In Cairo each trade has still its own bazaar (saddlers, carpets, hardware, goldsmiths, sweetmeats, etc.). Jeremiah 37:1-3 Prayer without obedience. Though Zedekiah will give no heed to the message from God to him through Jeremiah, he is not the less anxious to secure the prophet’s intercession with God for deliverance from approaching calamity. The king illustrates the too common case of those people who will fly to the protection of religion in trouble, though they neglect all its obligations of holiness and of service. I. GOD’S WILL. It is not all on one side, God speaks to us, and speaks words of command as well as words of consolation. It is, therefore, our duty to hear and obey. 1. Ignorance is no excuse, if we wilfully refuse to hear the truth. Zedekiah and his servants did not obey because they did not" hearken," i.e. would not hearken. We are not responsible for failing through not knowing our duty if we could not know it. But if we could, it was our duty to ascertain it. The soldier who puts aside the despatch of his commander unopened, and then acts contrary to the orders contained in it is, of course, as guilty as if he did so knowingly; for it was his duty to read the orders he received before going into action. 2. The example of those who have done wrong before is no excuse. Zedekiah followed the example of Jehoiakim. But he knew it was wrong. He had seen the miserable end of his predecessor’s reign. He should have taken warning from this. But men are more inclined to imitate the crimes of the wicked than to learn the lesson of their fate. 3. High position does not mitigate guilt, but, on the contrary, it aggravates it. Zedekiah led the people with him in his rejection of God’s message through Jeremiah. He knew what influence he exerted, and he ought to have been the more careful that it was not wrongly used. II. PRAYER WITHOUT IS VAIN. Zedekiah seeks Jeremiah’s prayers, but in vain. It is not necessary, indeed, that our obedience should be faultless before God will hearken to a single prayer. If this were the ease, no prayer of man’s could be heard. But it is requisite that we should repent of our past disobedience, and should be unfeignedly desirous of obeying God in the future. For otherwise our purely self-seeking religion is an insult to God. Besides, we cannot hope to change the essential principles of God’s action by our prayer. If it is his will to chastise us for our sin, he cannot change his will so long as we remain unchanged in conduct. But when we turn from the sin which deserves the penalty, it may be possible for God to modify his treatment of us in answer to our prayer of submission. Therefore it is so necessary that we should pray through the intercession of Christ. Then, though our obedience is still most imperfect, if we desire to do better, Christ is our Representative and the promise of our future obedience, and therefore his good merits go to plead with God to answer our prayer offered in his Name. Jeremiah 37:9 Self-deception. "Deceive not yourselves." I. THE OF SELF-. As fallible beings, surrounded with mystery, and often beset by illusions we are likely to fall into unavoidable mistakes for which we cannot be held responsible. There are other errors which we might avoid if we took the right means for ascertaining the facts; but from indifference, or from indolence, or from unwillingness to see an unpleasant truth that is already half suspected, we neglect these means, and thus land ourselves in a delusion. This is self-deception. 1. It may be conscious and deliberate. The very notion is paradoxical. But we are not logical machines; our belief is often most inconsistent. Our will and feelings have great influence over our convictions. We rarely contemplate things in the white light of truth. And in so far as we permit our vision to be blinded by passion or distorted by prejudice, we may deceive ourselves. 2. This self-deception may be unconscious. Yet it is culpable if we voluntarily neglect the means of seeing things as they are. We may not know that we are deceiving ourselves. But we must know that we are not doing all we can to avoid delusions. II. THE OF SELF-. 1. These may be found in the superficial appearance of events. The outward seeming does not correspond with the inward verity. The temptation is to rest satisfied with the mere appearance and assume that it is an index of the underlying fact. Thus when the Chaldean army retreated from before Jerusalem at the advance of Pharaoh-Hopbra, Zedekiah was ready to believe that his revolt was successful. 2. Occasions may be found in our own inclinations. Zedekiah wished to see no more of the Chaldean army, and "the wish was father to the thought." 3. They may be found in preconceived notions. We expect the facts to verify our opinions, and we contrive to make them do so by ignoring what will not agree with them, and selecting for consideration only what is favourable. All this may be traced in the history of religious delusions. People blind themselves to the thought of future judgment because, on the surface of life and for the present, all goes well. They are toe ready to form their creed according in their inclination, dropping out unpleasant ideas as though there were no dark truths in existence. They go to the Bible for confirmation of their own "views" rather than for instruction, and, if need be, correction of them, and of course they have eyes only to see those texts which make for this confirmation. Note: Jeremiah tried to deliver the Jews from self-deception. A Divine revelation is necessary to save us from religious self-deception. The Bible aims at this result as well as at enlightening our ignorance. III. THE EVIL OF SELF-. 1. It is disloyal to truth. It is our duty not to rest in a delusion. The obligation of truthfulness reaches to our thinking as well as to our speaking. 2. It is dangerous to our own souls. Facts remain unchanged whatever fanciful notions we may weave about them till they are quite unrecognizable, and when the time for action comes, they will act as they are, not as we think them. The careless, who decline to consider a future judgment, are not the less amenable to it. Those people who have sought refuge in the Roman Catholic Church from the torment of doubt have not done anything to settle the facts about which they were troubled; like the ostrich, who hides his head in a bush, they have quieted their doubt by turning from it; but if it was well grounded originally, it must be ultimately confirmed to their undoing. The irresistible will of God. I. THE FACT. The Jews were ready to believe that Egypt was a match for Babylon, and to hope that through the conflict of these two powers they might regain their liberty. Even if they were justified in thinking so from a calculation of the material resources of these great empires, Jeremiah reminded them that there were other considerations to be taken into account before the result could be predicted. It was the will of God that Babylon should conquer Jerusalem. Therefore, if the Chaldean army were reduced to a disorganized group of wounded men, Jerusalem would still succumb. The Jews had found that, while they were faithful to God, they were strong against hordes of enemies. They were to learn that when they had put themselves against God, the position was reversed, and the weakest foe could overthrow them. So it was true against them, as it had been on their side, that "a little one should chase a thousand." It has been the mistake of kings and of peoples to leave out of their calculations the chief factor of their history—to forget that God is ever working out his will through their cross purposes. Do we not make the same mistake in our private lives? If God is almighty, it follows beyond question that he must accomplish what he purposes, though to us there seems no means of doing so, and though he neither reveals the means nor in most cases the end, working them out "deep in unfathomable mines." Still, we know some things concerning God’s will and the way he works it out; e.g. he always wills what is just and good; material events are largely beyond our control and under the influence of providence; moral influences count for much in history, and these are directly affected by the spiritual relations of God with the minds of men. II. THE OF THIS FACT TO AND TO . 1. The relation of it to fatalism. It must be distinguished from materialistic fatalism, which denies all will in nature; from pagan fatalism, which sets the decrees of the fates above the power of the gods; from Mohammedan fatalism, which ascribes every event to the will of God, but regards that will as the unfettered choice of an irresponsible despot. The irresistible power in providence as revealed in the Bible is a will, a Divine will, a holy will, that always works out purposes of justice, purity, and love. 2. The relation of this fact to necessarianism. If God’s will is irresistible what room is there for our will? Must not that be necessarily bound by his will? This question arises from confusing two phases of the will of God. The phrase, "will of God," represents two things— (1) what God purposes to do himself, and (2) what he desires us to do. The first governs his actions, the second inspires his Law. Now, it is the first that is irresistible; the second is plainly resistible. All sin is nothing but man’s rebellion against God’s will, i.e. God’s will in the second sense—what he wishes us to do. This is really no contradiction to what we know of the first will of God—what he purposes to do himself—because in his almighty will of action he chooses to give us free will containing the power of resisting his Law. Still, God’s will to act must harmonize with his wilt in his Law for our conduct. If we resist the second will, we shall find ourselves in conflict with the first, against which all resistance is futile. Therefore true wisdom will lead us to do God’s will where we are free in relation to it, that we may find ourselves in agreement with God’s will where opposition means only failure and ruin. Jeremiah 37:11-21 Jeremiah imprisoned as a traitor. I. THE LEADING TO THE . Whatever interpretation we are to set on the ambiguous passage which gives the reason for Jeremiah’s attempt to leave Jerusalem (verse 12)—whether it were to escape from the city, or to abandon a work that appeared to be fruitless for work in the country districts, or to take a possession at a redistribution of land in the sabbatical year, or to claim his share as a priest,—it is difficult to acquit him of all blame for allowing personal considerations to move him from what he ought to have known was his post. At the best, his conduct was open to misinterpretation. Even when we mean no wrong it is our duty to avoid the appearance of evil. Still, we must not be harsh in condemning the prophet. A servant of God has his natural human rights and the civil rights which he shares with his fellow citizens. People are very unjust in charging good men with worldliness for exercising those rights, and in assuming that religious people are to be blamed for self-interested conduct which in itself is irreproachable and is acknowledged to be so amongst men under ordinary circumstances. We are not surprised, however, to find the prophet accused of treason. He had frequently advised submission to Babylon. It was now hastily assumed that he and his friends were about to secure their own escape from the horrors of a siege by basely deserting their fellow citizens. The best men are liable to the vilest accusations. The world holds no man above suspicion. Christ was accused of a great crime. Therefore we should learn patience Under similar inflictions, remembering that God knows all, and that it is far better to suffer unjustly than to be unpunished but guilty. We should also learn to avoid the mistake of the Jews. People are too much inclined to put the worst construction on a doubtful action. "Charity thinketh no evil." II. THE THE . Jeremiah had been harshly treated—struck by the courtiers of Zedekiah and thrust into a dungeon. There God met him (verse 17), as God repeatedly visited him, in prison. His life’s work was not stayed by outward restraints. That must have been some consolation to the prophet. A devoted servant of God is more concerned about his mission than about his personal comfort. Apprehending a return of danger from the Chaldean army, the weak Zedekiah sent and consulted Jeremiah secretly. The prophet’s reply was bold and clear (verse 17). Never had he been more definite or more concise. What courage and fidelity to truth for a prisoner thus to address a king! Having delivered his message, Jeremiah proceeded to plead his own cause. How many of us reverse the order, putting self-interest first and crowding other interests into the background! Jeremiah was favourably heard by the king, and his condition considerably ameliorated. He did not suffer this time for his fidelity. It is fair to note that faithfulness does not always lead to martyrdom. In the end it is always safer to be brave and true than to play the coward’s part. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 37:2, Jeremiah 37:3 (Vide Jeremiah 21:1, Jeremiah 21:2.)—M. Jeremiah 37:5-10 Hopes that betray. The king, continuing in his rebellion against God as well as against Nebuchadnezzar, invoked the aid of Pharaoh-Necho. At the tidings of his advance the Chaldeans raised the siege, but only that they might defeat the Egyptians, and return again in greater force and fury. I. THE NATURE OF THESE HOPES. 1. They are based upon human means alone. 2. They arise from following the dictates of our own will and wisdom. II. HOW THEY BETRAY. 1. They are full of promise, and gain confidence. 2. They must fail, (1) because they are inadequate to the real need, and (2) they are opposed to the will of God. 3. They spiritually ruin. They lead us first to ignore and then to resist the will of God. In this alone is our welfare secured. For although the first expression and demand of that will be gloomy and severe, the end of it to the obedient is peace and salvation (1 Peter 1:3-9).—M. God’s purpose independent of means. The declaration of the certainty of the judgments upon Judah is absolute. They are not to be avoided by any human effort or apparent success. The soldiers of Chaldea, although they were to be wounded ("thrust through" equivalent to "dead"?), would still avail for the work they had to do, and would be raised again to do it. I. THE LESSON. A twofold one, viz.: 1. The inevitableness of the Divine will, whether it be to destroy or to save. 2. God’s independence of human means. He can save by "many or by few." He is declared able "of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." It pleased him by "the foolishness of preaching" to save many, etc. (1) The sinner in rebellion against God, however great his outward success and however feeble the opposition to him, has reason to fear. It is an easy thing for his Maker to crush him. It will not require a great instrumentality. Herod was eaten of worms. (2) The Christian worker should rejoice and be encouraged. Every true word or work will have its effect. He must succeed, however insignificant his company or his means. II. THE TYPE. The ghostly army that was to "burn the city with fire" represents the mighty power of God to create his agents, and symbolizes the death and resurrection of Christ. It is the dead Christ who is raised again to fulfil the will of God in judgment and salvation.—M. Jeremiah 37:11-16 The servant of God accused of treason. This attempt of Jeremiah’s to go out of Jerusalem, whatever its special purpose may have been (as to this there is great diversity of view), was at once suspected of being treasonable, or, at any rate, it was made an occasion of accusing and punishing him. His asseverations were not listened to, but quickly and with much anger he was consigned to a loathsome prison, where he languished for many days. This teaches that— I. THOSE WHO ARE TO GOD WILL BE OF THE WORST MOTIVES. The immediate purpose to be served by going out from Jerusalem was innocent enough, viz. mere resort to the country as safer than the city, or to take possession of his inheritance in Benjamin. No effort was made at concealment, it was done "in the midst of the people." Yet he was accused of being about to "fall away [desert] to the Chaldeans." It would appear as if the prophet’s persistent declarations of the success of the Chaldean arms and the downfall of Judah were attributed to his sympathy with the enemy. Many of the greatest servants of God have had similar experiences. Christ himself was accused of the worst intentions against the Jewish nation. II. HOW IS THIS? 1. Because the natural mind fails to understand the things of God. The motive power or central principle is so diverse, or the means employed are so peculiar, that the real benevolence of intention is not perceived. When Christians remember how hard it is for even themselves to justify God’s ways, they ought to expect that others not expressly taught of him will fail thoroughly to apprehend their drift. The policy of the Divine life and service, even in its plainest duties and appointments, is surrounded with mystery; its wisdom is not of this world. It is often hard for those who are condemned by Christ’s ministers to realize that the denunciations to which they are subjected do not spring from personal enmity. The greatest efforts ought, therefore, to be made to prove how good and loving the spirit is in which words of Christian rebuke are uttered. And the whole conduct of believers should be careful and blameless. "Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves" (Matthew 10:16). 2. The natural mind is predisposed against truth and goodness.—M BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 37:2-4 Give us of your oil. Here we have King Zedekiah, his servants, and his people, asking the prayers of the prophet of God, whose word of counsel and warning they had all along despised. The verses remind us of the parable of the ten virgins; for, as there, the foolish say unto the wise, "Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out," so here the foolish king and people entreat the aid of the wise servant of God when, as the midnight cry came to those virgins, so the dread judgment of God came to them. "Pray now unto the Lord our God for us," say they who had refused to listen when he spoke to them from the Lord their God. Note— I. HOW WICKED THE PEOPLE HAD BEEN. (Cf. Jeremiah 37:2.) It was with them as with the family of the rich man told of in Luke 16:1-31. He, being in torments, thought of his five brethren who were all of them living in sin. There, as here, there were none righteous. And so with Sodom and Gomorrah. II. YET HOW VERY ANXIOUS THEY WERE FOR THE PROPHET’S PRAYERS. Luke 16:3, "Pray now," etc. Reasons of this were: 1. They had waked up to the conviction that the prophet’s message was true. 2. They were in sore peril, and knew not how to help themselves. 3. They knew that the prophet had power with God. 4. They felt they could not go to God in prayer themselves. How much of the asking for the prayers of God’s ministers on the part of those who are on their death bed is owing to like causes! III. HOW USELESS SUCH PRAYERS ARE. Did the prayer of Dives do any good? or of the five foolish virgins? or those of the prophet, for we may suppose that he did pray? Now, the reasons of their uselessness are such as these: 1. To have granted them would have defeated God’s purpose in regard to his people. That purpose was to purify them, to separate them from their sins. But they did not wish when they asked these prayers to be severed from sin, only to be relieved of trouble. But such desire could not be granted; therefore God held them down to the consequences of their sin. 2. Their request was an insult to God. Such men are well described in Mrs. H.W.B. Stowe’s book, ’Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ where one of them, Haley, is thus spoken to by a comrade: "After all, what’s the odds between me and you? ’Tain’t that you care one bit more or have a bit more feelin’; it’s clean, sheer, dog meanness, wanting to cheat the devil and save your own skin, Don’t I see through it? And your ’gettin’ religion,’ as you call it, arter all, is too p’isin mean for any crittur; run up a bill with the devil all your life, and then sneak out when pay time comes! Boh!" Is there not a vast amount of this meanness? Its despicableness is only equalled by its uselessness. 3. It would make God the minister of sin. . Learn, unless there be true repentance, neither our own prayers nor those of other people, though they be the greatest saints of God, will avail us anything. Even coming to Christ apart from repentance will fail us. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit," etc.—C. Building on the sand. Such was the conduct of the people who encouraged themselves to hope from the withdrawal of the armies of Babylon from around Jerusalem that now they were delivered for good and all, and had no further cause for fear. They misread facts, interpreting them according to their desires rather than according to the truth. It was true that the army of Egypt was advancing and that of Babylon retreating. But, as the onflux of the wave does not prove that the tide is coming in nor its reflux that the tide is going out, so this temporary advance and retreat told of no permanent results or of what the real issue should be. But yet they thought it did. It was a case of building on the sands of unwarranted hope rather than on the rock of the Word of God. Hope ever tells a flattering tale, but never so much so as when she promises peace to those to whom God has said there shall be no peace. Now, concerning such building on the sand, note— I. THE . There are many such; e.g.: 1. Reasonings from the observed prosperity of the wicked. 2. The assertions or suggestions of the sin loving heart: that there is no God; if there be, he is too merciful to punish sin; repentance at last will do; the efficacy of sacraments, etc. These are all of them instances of 1. 3. The slow footedness of God’s judgments. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of the sons of men are steadfastly set in them to do evil." And God is long suffering, not willing that any should perish. II. THE RAISED . They are often characterized by much material comfort. Worldly prosperity is not too weighty for them. Great freedom from anxiety, "Not in trouble as other men are." They are very attractive, and seem to be the abodes of true happiness. Mirth, festivity, and song abound in them often far more than in those which are built upon the rock. III. THE . This always comes, it came in the instance given here. The armies of Babylon did come back. It may come in this life. There are warnings of it every day. But if not now, then in the great day of judgment. And this overthrow will make us full of sorrow according to the days wherein we have never been afflicted, and the years wherein, as we have thought, we have seen no evil. . Read the events of God’s providence, not by the light of thy sin-loving heart, but by the light of God’s sure Word, of God’s Spirit within thee, and of God’s not partial but complete dealing with men, taking in the whole of life, and, if needs be, eternity also. "Be not deceived."—C. Be not deceived. There was ground for this exhortation, and there is still. Then as now— I. VERY MANY WERE . II. WERE . III. NONE COULD CLAIM FROM THE OF BEING . IV. THERE WAS A TRAITOR WITHIN THE CAMP. Their hearts wished that to be true which they therefore thought to be true. V. TO BE IS TO BE PLUNGED IN THE OF SORROW. VI. WE NEED NOT BE. There is One who says, "I will guide thee with my counsel."—C. Falsely accused. Our Lord Jesus said, "It is sufficient for the servant that he be as his Master." Now, as he was falsely accused, so here we find his servant likewise. Note— I. TO BE FALSELY ACCUSED IS THE COMMON LOT OF GOD’S PEOPLE. How many instances we have!—Abel, Joseph, Moses, David, etc. Because of such slanders the psalmist said, "All men are liars." And here the Prophet Jeremiah, having no thought of deserting his countrymen, is nevertheless accused of so doing. And today the world is ever ready with its slander. It avows that all the godly are but hypocrites, knaves, or fools. With what eagerness does it fasten upon the faults of a good man! How ready to take up an accusation against him! II. HOW IS IT TO BE FOR? We reply: 1. Men of the world do not understand the principles on which the godly act. Hence what they do not understand they misrepresent. 2. They know their own motives, and attribute the like to the godly. They act from purely worldly motives, and hence they conclude godly men do the same. 3. They hate religion, and therefore are always ready to revile it. 4. It is "a comfort to Sodom" to think that the godly are no better than themselves after all. But— III. HOW IS IT TO BE DEALT WITH? 1. Sometimes by silence. Silence leaves opportunity for and suggests reflection. How often of our Lord is it said, "He answered not a word" (cf. John 13:1-38.)] 2. Sometimes by indignant denial. Thus the prophet acted here; verse 14, "It is false," etc. They might have known, and probably did know, bow false their accusation was. Where there is great and true indignation felt at being thought capable of a given crime, that feeling, may often be shown; often, indeed, it ought to be, as when (1) the honour of God is concerned; (2) the good of his Church; (3) what is shameful as well as sinful is charged against us. 3. Sometimes by showing the necessary untruthfulness of the accusation. This also our Lord did, as when they charged him with being in league with Beelzebub. 4. Sometimes by committing it all to God. Of our Lord it is said, "When he was reviled, he reviled not again, … but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously." 5. Sometimes by showing the motive of the false accusation. As when our Lord likened those who found fault with him to petulant children playing in the market place, who would be pleased with nothing. 6. Always by remembering that we are in the fellowship of Christ herein, and seeking his Spirit’s aid to rightly bear this trial.—C. Jeremiah 37:14, Jeremiah 37:15 Characteristics of injustice. They may be traced in the incident recorded in these verses. Unjust judges as were these— I. WILL NOT HEARKEN TO THE ACCUSED. II. ARE BIASED BY PASSION. III. ARE CRUEL. IV. SEEK NOT EIGHT, BUT REVENGE. LEARN. To be careful what manner of spirit we are of whenever we are called upon to judge one another. Let us be thankful that the Judge before whom we stand, and who surveys all our ways, is that gracious Lord to whom the Father has committed all judgment, and who judges not righteously only, but in all mercy as well.—C. Jeremiah 37:20 "Out of weakness made strong." This verse an utterance, not of a sturdy invincible soul, but one of a gentle, shrinking, and often timid nature. Note— I. THE PROPHET belonged to the company of those who, out of weakness, God has made strong. 1. By nature and temperament he was the reverse of strong. Proof in this verse. Suffering was ever terrible to him. Hence he piteously pleads for the king’s help. And passim we have indications of the gentleness of his nature. But: 2. Notwithstanding this, see how strong he became. When it came to the test, how he endured (cf. Jeremiah 1:10, Jeremiah 1:17, Jeremiah 1:18)! Nothing would induce him to alter his word towards the king, the prophets, and the people generally. He softened not one line of his message, although it would have been so much to his advantage to have done so. Now— II. THIS IS THE GLORY OF GOD’S GRACE ALWAYS. There will be glory by and by, an outward glory on every child of God. "Eye hath not seen," etc. But the present glory of God’s grace is this, that out of weakness it makes its recipients strong. See what it did for the apostles, and especially for St. Peter—they the recreants and the denier of the Lord, but afterwards his valiant and undaunted witnesses. And grace has done the same for not a few in prospect of suffering and trial from which beforehand they would have utterly shrunk away. Women and children were amongst the number of the martyrs; and in the moral martyrdoms of this softer age they are so still. God strengthens his servants "with might by his Spirit in the inner man? And this is the glory of his grace. Not the numbers of the Church, nor her wealth, rank, gifts, or aught of such sort, but the spiritual strength that characterizes her. "I can do all things," said St. Paul, "through Christ which strengtheneth me." And it will be so yonder in the better world hereafter. The glory of that day will not be the golden streets, the gates of pearl, the foundations of precious stones; not the vast throng of the redeemed, nor aught that belongs only to their circumstances, happy as they will be; but it will be the character of them all. And this will be their security also. The defences of that condition of the redeemed will not be outward, but inward. They, having been strengthened with might by the Spirit of God in the inner man, will have come to be rooted—like the giant oak, which no tempest can uproot from the ground—and grounded—like the deep-laid foundation of the temple, which naught can overthrow—in love, and so Christ will dwell in their hearts. Yes, their glory will be their defence also. . Seek, therefore, this grace of Divine strength. Bow your "knees to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," that, "according to the riches of his glory," he would grant you this. Then, though weak and wavering by nature, steadiness and strength shall be given to your will, your heart, and so God will make you as he did his prophet—as "a defenced city, an iron pillar, a brazen wall" (Jeremiah 1:18).—C. The rough wind stayed in the day of the east wind. Very terrible to the prophet were the sufferings he had to bear. Hence he seeks for relief by petitioning the king for help, which the king is led to bestow (Jeremiah 37:21). It is an illustration of how God stays his rough wind, etc. Note— I. GOD OFTEN LETS SORE TROUBLE COME TO HIS . II. BUT HE IT TO THEIR POWER OF . He is not a hard master, gathering where he has not strawed, nor reaping where he has not sown. He fits the back for the burden it has to bear. If staying in the dread dungeon was too great a trial for his prophet, he will have him taken out. The wave that would have sunk the boat in which our Lord was with his disciples was never permitted to beat into it. A great many others came, but not that one. And so it ever is. "As thy day, so thy strength." God will be our "arm every morning." III. "TAKE NO THOUGHT FOR THE MORROW," etc.—C. BY D. YOUNG A request for intercession. A request of this kind has always to be looked at through the character of the man who prefers it. It makes all the difference whether it be the utterance of grovelling superstition or of enlightened piety. It is a long way from this request of Zedekiah to the request of Paul: "Brethren, pray for us." Let us try to estimate— I. THE NOTION HAD OF GOD. A notion evidently altogether detached from any considerations of character; we are told in Jeremiah 37:2 that Zedediah did not hearken to the words of the Lord through his prophet Jeremiah, and we could infer as much from the request here addressed to the prophet. Zedekiah looked upon Jehovah pretty much as he did upon the deities of surrounding nations. The notion was that the immense power of these deities could be turned in any direction desired, if only they were sufficiently propitiated. Now, if Zedekiah had cared to attend to the volume of prophecy, he would have seen very clearly that he who comes to God must believe that he is a God who will not pass over the misgovernment, the cruelty, the injustice, of human kings. And so when we come to God our prayers will have reality just in proportion as they show a distinct understanding of the character of God. II. THE NOTION HAD OF PRAYER. Had he indeed any notion at all? Did he mean anything more than that Jeremiah should go and do whatever he thought necessary and effectual? Intercessory prayer can be of little use to those who do not pray for themselves. Zedekiah wanted a certain end, namely, that by help of Egypt he should repel the Chaldeans. And he looked upon Jehovah as being a sort of heavenly Pharaoh. And just as he had sent, doubtless, one ambassador to ask for Pharaoh’s help, so now he wants to make Jeremiah an ambassador to Jehovah. This was all very foolish, ignorant, and presumptuous on Zedekiah’s part; but what better are we when we make up our prayers of petitions for things that we desire without stopping to consider that no petition is worth anything unless it not merely accords with the will of God, but even springs from that will? The use of prayer is that God may serve us according to his estimate of our needs, not according to our estimate. III. THE NOTION HAD OF THE PROPHET. He had a superstitious feeling that Jeremiah could do something for him he could not do for himself. We see here the secret of the power of priestcraft. We see how it was that false prophets got such a hold. We see how it is that priestcraft and spiritual dictation still prevail. The great bulk of men will not do the right thing towards God, they will not repent and crucify self, but a deep necessity impels them to do something, and so they seek to other men. Zedekiah was making an altogether wrong use of the prophet. His duty was to obey the prophet’s messages, then he would not have needed to ask Jeremiah to pray for him. And let all people understand with respect to ministers of religion, that they exist to teach and help in a brotherly way; hut that also they are frail and fallible, and possess no mystic virtue to make their prayers more efficacious than the prayers of other people. Intercessory prayer is the duty, the privilege, the power, of every Christian.—Y. Jeremiah 37:9, Jeremiah 37:10 Israel’s delusion as to its enemy. I. THE . That a great army is before Jerusalem is, of course, no delusion, and that it may effect a great deal of damage of a certain sort is no delusion. The delusion lies here, in supposing that the removal of the army would be the removal of the danger. And this delusion being strong in the minds of the people led them to seek the help of Egypt. A carnal foe was to be overcome by the help of a carnal friend. And similarly we are all led into most mistaken policies of life by seeing only our visible enemies. In our solicitude to guard against the seen enemy, and keep in safety our own visible possessions, we make too much of visible things altogether. It is very hard, of course, to admit this; it is very hard for the natural mind to see its delusions; but then it is the very mark of delusions that they put on the semblance of fundamental and important truths. Again and again appeal is made to what is called common sense to testify to the validity of delusions. The common belief of the multitude is cited to stop the mouth of any one who ventures to proclaim what he is sure is true. Those who have got to the heights and advanced places of spiritual experience know full well that the maxims and rules of the natural man are little but a mass of pernicious delusions. Thus men carefully preserve the shell of life, while the interior treasure for which the shell exists is utterly neglected. II. THE EXPOSED. God makes plain who the real enemy of Jerusalem is, an enemy whom a thousand Pharaohs and a thousand Egypts would vainly contend against. In one sense Jehovah himself is enemy, but what he says amounts to this, that Jerusalem itself is its own worst enemy. While it is rebellious against him, and full of all unrighteousness, he must work against it by all available instruments. To destroy the Chaldean army is only as it were to break the warriors sword; he can seize another and continue the conflict. It is of the greatest possible consequence that we should know in any conflict whether we are fighting simply against man, or whether behind the man who is in front of us there be the purpose and the strength of God. How much of human energy has been wasted, how many have had failure stamped on all their efforts, simply because it has not been known that God has been behind human conflicts! God would have us make sure—and he gives us ample means for the attainment—that we are not fighting against him. III. THE . This is made plain to us as we read on in the narrative. An example is given to us of how people often do not wake to the delusions of life till too late. They walk contentedly in a vain show, and the realities flowing out of the ministry of Christ they reckon to be dreams. We may depend upon it that delusions will be maintained, most ingeniously, most tenaciously, until by the power of God our eyes are opened to distinguish reality from appearance, and truth from falsehood.—Y. Jeremiah 37:17-19 The secret question of a king and the bold answer of a prophet. I. THE SECRET OF A KING. 1. The secrecy. Why should a king with all his authority do a thing in secrecy? Was it policy or fear that dictated this secret consultation with Jeremiah? Fear, probably, was the largest element. He was afraid of what the princes and courtiers around him would say. Note other secret interviews sought by men of rank and authority. Herod, a king, privily calls the wise men from the East. Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, comes to Jesus by night. What men of position do cannot be concealed easily. The very effort to conceal is often only a more effective publication. The lesson is that, however quietly and unobtrusively we may do a thing, we must do it so as not in the least fearing publicity. The very difficulty of keeping secrets is a divinely ordained difficulty to help in keeping men in the paths of righteousness. 2. The evident faith of the king in Jeremiah’s office. The faith was superstitious and unpractical, but still, such as it was, it exerted a power over the king’s conduct. This increases the king’s responsibility, for it shows that he was not able to get Jeremiah and his message out of his mind. 3. The indication as to what sort of answer was expected. Not in words, of course, but we can guess what the tone of the inquiry was. Jeremiah came from a prison to prophesy, and doubtless the king thought that the privations of the past and the hopes of liberty might draw some flattering word from the prophet. Altogether, what a pitiable position this king was in—waiting eagerly, half in terror, half in threatening, upon the word of one of his humble subjects, and the same a prisoner! II. THE BOLD ANSWER OF A PROPHET. What great things are required from a prophet! He must always be in close and living relation to truth. He must always be ready to meet the manifold temptations which beset a man who is specially sent forth to speak the truth. His first question must ever be, not—What is the safe path, or the easy path? but—What is God’s path? Here he was in close and private dealing with a king. Perhaps, as he looked upon Zedekiah thus sending for him secretly, he compassionated him rather than feared him. It was such a revelation of the hollowness of human grandeur. Jeremiah here before Zedekiah is even somewhat of a type of Jesus before Pilate. Jesus will go on testifying to the truth. He will not make Pilate’s task one whir easier by accommodating himself to Pilate’s desires. Truth, eternal realities, fundamental duties, fidelity to the clear voice of God within the heart,—these must prevail in every one who would follow in the path of Jesus or of prophets and apostles. There is neither real prudence nor real charity without these things.—Y. . The object of the princes being frustrated (for in the "court of the guard" Jeremiah had perfect freedom and opportunity of speech), the princes resolve upon a more effectual means of stopping the prophet’s mouth. He is thrown into a miry pit, with the object that he may die of starvation. Jeremiah 38:1 Two Pashurs appear to be mentioned here: one probably the same who put Jeremiah in the stocks (Jeremiah 20:1, Jeremiah 20:2); the other a member of the first of Zedekiah’s two embassies to the prophet (Jeremiah 21:1). On Jucal, see Jeremiah 37:3. Had spoken; rather, kept speaking. Jeremiah 38:2, Jeremiah 38:3 He that remaineth, etc. Jeremiah repeats what he had said to Zedekiah’s embassy in Jeremiah 21:9, Jeremiah 21:10. Jeremiah 38:4 For thus; literally, for therefore; i.e. because he is left in impunity (camp. the use of the phrase in Jeremiah 29:28). He weakeneth the hands of the men of war; i.e. he dispirits them. It is important to get this "outside view" of the preaching of Jeremiah. There is evidently some excuse for the opponents of Jeremiah. It was a matter of life and death to resist the Chaldeans, and Jeremiah was, according to the politicians, playing into the hands of the enemy (see further in general Introduction). The addition of the words, that remain, shows that the bitter end of the resistance was fast approaching. Jeremiah 38:5 He is in your hand. The growing power of the "princes" (see on Jeremiah 22:4) seems to have confined the king to a merely secondary role. Jeremiah 38:6 The dungeon; more literally, the cistern. "Every house in Jerusalem was supplied with a subterranean cistern, so well constructed that we never read of the city suffering in a siege from want of water" (Dr. Payne Smith). A grotto bearing the name of Jeremiah has been shown at Jerusalem since the fifteenth century. Under its floor are vast cisterns, the deepest of which professes to be the prison into which the prophet was thrown. The objection is that the sacred narrative proves that the prison was in the city, whereas "the present grotto was not included within the walls until the time of Herod Agrippa". The son of Hammelech; rather, a royal prince (as Jeremiah 36:26). Jeremiah 38:7 Ebed-melech the Ethiopian. The name means "the king’s slave." Ebers remarks that the eunuchs employed in the modern East are nearly all negroes, on whom the shameful operation has been performed by Copts in Upper Egypt. Zedekiah’s harem is referred to in Jeremiah 38:22, Jeremiah 38:23. Jeremiah 38:9 For there is no more bread in the city. It would almost seem as if the little remaining bread had been brought together by command of the magistrates, and that it was given out in rations by them (comp. Jeremiah 37:21). Jeremiah 38:10 Thirty men. Why so many were sent is not clear. Are we to suppose that the princes would resist Jeremiah’s release? But "the king is not he," etc. (verse 5). Is it not a scribe’s error for "three" (so Ewald, Hitzig, and Graf)? Jeremiah 38:11 Under the treasury; rather, to (a room) under the treasury. Old cast clouts, etc.; literally, rags of torn garments and rags of worn-out garments. Jeremiah 38:14 The third entry. What this means exactly is not clear; probably the "entry" led from the palace to the temple. It must have been a private place, else it would not have been chosen for this interview. I will ask thee a thing; rather, I will ask of thee a word; i.e. a revelation from Jehovah (comp. Jeremiah 37:17). Jeremiah 38:15 Wilt thou not hearken; rather, thou wilt not hearken. Jeremiah 38:16 That made us this soul. A very unusual formula (comp. Isaiah 57:16). Jeremiah 38:17 The king of Babylon’s princes. Nebuchadnezzar himself was in Riblah (Jeremiah 39:5). Jeremiah 38:22 All the women that are left; i.e. probably the wives of Zedekiah’s royal predecessors, who had passed into his own harem as concubines. Even Hezekiah, as Payne Smith well points out, had a numerous harem (’Records of the Past,’ 1:39, where "daughters" is equivalent to "girls"). Zedekiah’s own wives are spoken of in the next verse. Thy friends have set thee on, etc. The first half of this taunting song (mashal) reminds of Oba 1:7 (for other points of contact with Obadiah, see on Jeremiah 49:7-22). The meaning is that, after urging the weak-minded Zedekiah on to a conflict with the Chaldeans, they have left him involved in hopeless difficulties. Jeremiah 38:23 So they, etc.; rather, and they, etc. The women spoken of are different from those in Jeremiah 38:22. Thou shalt cause this city to be burned. The literal rendering is, Thou shalt burn this city; but the Septuagint, Peshito, and Targum have "As for this city it shall be burned," which suits the parallelism better. Jeremiah 38:27 He told them according to all these words. A controversy has arisen as to whether Jeremiah was justified in concealing the truth. But is a man bound to confess the truth to a murderer? Jeremiah 38:28 And he was there when, etc. The words, of which this is an incorrect version, ought to begin the first verse of the next chapter. Render (with Coverdale), And it came to pass when Jerusalem was taken (in the ninth year of Zedekiah came Nebuchadrezzar, etc.; in the eleventh year …the city was cleft open) that all the princes, etc. The correctness of the reading is, however, open to some doubt (see introduction to next chapter) Jeremiah 38:1-13 Jeremiah in the pit. I. . (Verses 2, 5.) His conduct is wise, brave, and noble. On the surface it savours of pusillanimity. But so much the greater the wisdom and courage that inspire it. Personally Jeremiah is in greater danger from his fellow citizens than from the invaders. To rouse the anger of the people amongst whom he is living by apparently favouring the plans of their enemies requires no little firmness of character. Moreover, strong moral courage is requisite for such a course as that of Jeremiah’s. His patriotism is certain to be taken for treachery, his wisdom for cowardice. He stands alone with his unpopular advice, sure that it will not be followed, sure that his motives will be misunderstood and his character maligned. To a sensitive man the situation would be exquisitely painful. Fidelity under it reveals a noble courage. Thus we see how the bravest man may be he who appears to be most weak, while the rash and boastful daring that rushes heedlessly with the multitude but shrinks from a course of unpopularity, is really feeble and cowardly. II. THE PRINCES ARE ALARMED. (Verse 4.) They have some reason to dread the effect of Jeremiah’s preaching upon the defence of Jerusalem. If they are certain of the wisdom of the course they are pursuing, it is difficult to see how they can regard the prophet with anything less than dismay. Every time his Cassandra notes are heard in the streets it seems as though disaffection were being urged upon the people. The mistake of the princes is in being so wedded to their policy as never to consider the advice of Jeremiah as of any weight and wisdom. Thus we judge and condemn men with absolute certainty to our own mind, but often only because we assume, without reason, the infallibility of our own position. III. THE KING WEAKLY YIELDS. (Verse 5.) Zedekiah is helpless in the hands of his courtiers. Like Pilate, he thinks to throw off all responsibility on the accusers whom he dare not oppose (John 18:31). But he cannot do this. His weakness is culpable. He is not like a constitutional monarch, legally fettered by a responsible ministry. He is by position a responsible ruler. If he cannot discharge the functions of his position, he should abdicate. In no case is he justified in lending the weight of his name to a deed of which he does not approve. We cannot free ourselves from responsibility by declining to act when it is our duty to interfere and prevent a wrong from being done. IV. IS CAST INTO THE PIT. (Verse 6.) 1. The action of the courtiers is cruel They treat the prophet with needless indignity and evidently design for him the slow torture of a death by starvation. 2. It is also cowardly. They dare not execute him openly. The horrible fate is assigned to him because it is less dangerous to themselves. 3. The prophet is now in the lowest condition of wretchedness, down in the pit, sunk in the mire, left in that cold, dark solitude to the horrors of approaching starvation. Those of us who are ready to murmur at slighter trouble should remember how much better men than we have had to endure far greater suffering and humiliation than ours. What shame and agony were heaped upon Christ the Son of God! V. THE . (Verses 7-9.) 1. This man was a heathen by nation, but a good man. Character, not profession, is the one thing of significance with all of us. 2. He was a man of an apparently inferior race. It is better to have a black skin and a humane heart than a white skin and a black heart. 3. He was regarded as an effeminate creature. True manliness belongs to our conduct, not to our appearance and manners. God raises up friends in the most unlikely quarters. One of the advantages of trouble is that it reveals unknown friends. VI. IS . The weak king only wants the encouragement of his chamberlain to do an act of justice which his own conscience must have urged him to all along. When the distress and danger of Jeremiah are vividly brought before him, he rouses himself. Many people are too weak to do their duty till their imagination and feelings are wrought upon. They live in comfortable indifference to the wretchedness of others simply because they have not been made to feel it. They are not to be excused on this account. But knowing the fact, we should do more to make the needs of the poor, the sick, and the heathen felt by the indifferent who ought to help them. A higher providence leads to the deliverance of Jeremiah. God watches over him in the dungeon, and God sees that he is saved from it. So God will save his people from all their troubles, though in some cases the minister of deliverance is that dark angel of death whose advent the miserable in Andrea Orcagna’s picture at Pisa welcome with joy. The apparent misanthropy of revelation. The political aspect of these words is evident; let us now consider their moral bearings: The inspired prophet of God is taken for an enemy of his neighbours. The experience of Jeremiah is not without parallel, nor is it wanting in certain reasonable grounds of justification. I. THERE ARE THINGS IN WHICH APPEAR TO . When God utters his voice he does not always speak in dulcet notes. We may hear harsh, grating thunders of Sinai. The message is not always pleasant. It makes us feel uncomfortable, exposes our worst characteristics, and has no pity on our little contrivances for putting the best face on our conduct. It stays our hand in many a favourite occupation. It cries "vanity of vanities" to our pet schemes. It puts a veto on our proud ambition. It frowns at much of our pleasure. For the future it threatens judgment and hitter penalties. When we fancy we have found some neat plan of escape, it exposes the rottenness of our hope and plunges us for the moment into blank despair. Such is the work of certain parts of revelation, and being so, it is not unnaturally regarded by some as misanthropic. Bearing this fact in mind, we must not be surprised at the aversion that the irreligious feel to religion. Judging from this standpoint, they may regard their best friend as their enemy, and imagine that the angry voice of God indicates nothing but his settled wrath against them. II. THIS IS ONLY . Jeremiah was the best friend of Jerusalem, and the fanatical leaders of resistance her most fatal foes. His advice was really wise and patriotic. The Bible, which to some is a gloomy Book, darkening the aspect of human life, contains the secret of its true blessedness. The religion of the Bible may be sombre in the eyes of some when compared with the sunny religion of Greece. But the Hellenic faith could not save its followers from utter moral corruption and ruin. Through the sterner faith of the Jew and the Christian we are led to that one satisfying brightness of life which comes from the rising upon us of the Sun of righteousness. We must judge of words by their aim, not by their sound. The Bible contains threats of terrible doom, hut as we discover the purpose of them we see that they are not curses but warnings. God often opposes us, stays our course, puts up the red signal, only to save us from rushing to some fatal calamity. Elijah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Savonarola, and John Knox were regarded by their contemporaries as misanthropic. Now we see that they were the salt of the earth, true saviours of society. Even Christ uttered words which might seem to indicate misanthropy, but all with the intention of leading men to escape from the evils he deplored and find salvation in his grace. Old cast clouts and old rotten rags. I. THERE IS A USE FOR . These rags were possibly thrown aside as useless. Yet they were found to serve a distinct purpose. Amongst the wonderful combinations of invention and economy in the present day, none are more remarkable than those which turn waste materials to serviceable ends. There is a mission forevery life. No man is so low, so worn, so worthless, but that he may find some way in which to serve God and his fellows. If a rag has a mission, shall a soul find none? II. IF WE CANNOT ATTAIN THE HIGHEST OBJECT AIMED AT, WE SHOULD NOT NEGLECT THAT WHICH IS WITHIN OUR REACH. The rags may once have been prince’s robes. Now they are only fit for the lowest uses. Then let them be so used. There is an impractical idealism which paralyzes all effort. Because a thing cannot be turned to the highest account we will not use it at all. So there are those who refuse to do anything because they can do nothing very great, or who, being compelled to give up a work of honour, are too proud to undertake a more lowly task. We should remember Goethe’s maxim, "Do the thing that lieth nearest thee." Thus a useful rag may be a rebuke to a useless man. III. THE MAN MAY HAVE NEED OF THE MOST . A prophet finds comfort from a rag. We are none of us emancipated from relation to the lowest things. This should humble those who make the dignity of their nature a reason for despising the offices of lowly things and persons. It should encourage those who have but small means. They may be of material comfort to some far above them. Great and small, we are linked together for our mutual helpfulness. IV. DEEDS OF SHOULD BE IN A KIND MANNER. Carelessness and roughness of demeanour may spoil half the effect of the most well meant offices of charity. There are philanthropists who would lift the prisoner from the pit, but with hard, coarse ropes, without any consideration for his sore and, weary body. The purpose is gracious, but the manner is brutal. Christians should not be mere part ons, wounding the feelings of those whom they help in other respects, but the brethren of the distressed, aiding them carefully, gently, courteously. This is the manner of God’s great deliverance of mankind; it is by a Saviour who "shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench" (Isaiah 42:2, Isaiah 42:3). Jeremiah 38:19-23 The fear of ridicule. I. THE FEAR OF IS A COMMON FAILING OF WEAK MEN. Zedekiah is a weak man. His first thought when he contemplates the possible effects of obedience to the Divine command is that it may result in his being delivered into the hands of the captives at Babylon to be mocked by them (Jeremiah 38:17). This he dreads above all things. Many men who would stand up without flinching to be shot at cower before a laugh. Let them understand that their conduct is weak and foolish and wrong. II. THE FEAR OF IS A CAUSE OF NEGLECT OF DUTY. This is one of the chief weapons of persecution and temptation exercised in our own day. The rack and the stake are out of fashion; the sneer and the gibe have taken their place. Milton’s Satan has been superseded by Goethe’s Mephistopheles. The young are specially sensitive to ridicule. They especially should seek grace from God to stand firm against it. III. THE FEAR OF . Jeremiah showed the king that disobedience coming out of his dread of being mocked would result in worse mockery. Fearing the laughter of captive soldiers, he would be mocked by women; dreading the contempt of strangers, he should meet with that of his own house (verse 22). Face a laugh, and you foil its spiteful intention; quail before it, and you give it the victory and furnish occasion for fresh contempt. The young man who sneaks away from his religious principles because his companions in business laugh at him for them is only despised for his contemptible weakness, while that young man who quietly holds his ground unmoved by senseless ridicule wins the secret respect of observers, and makes them inwardly ashamed of their folly. IV. THE FEAR OF MAY END IN FATAL RESULTS. Jeremiah pointed this out to the king (verse 23). The horrible charge of having brought about the burning of the city would be attached to his name, and the guilt of it to his soul. Here was a far greater cause of alarm than the danger of a laugh. Weak men who are moved by such contemptible motives as those that influenced Zedekiah should be roused by a rude shock, if that is necessary, for them to see the dread and solemn issues of life and the fearful evils they may evoke while trifling with duty in childish timidity. V. IT IS OUR DUTY TO CONQUER THE FEAR OF BY TO THE WILL OF GOD. Here lies the remedy (verse 20). To some this fear is keen and almost irresistible. But it is wholly selfish. It is associated with morbid, self-regarding thoughts. If we realize the idea that God is speaking to us and watching us, all ideas of the thoughts of men about us should sink to the dust. With earnest convictions of duty and true efforts of obedience inspired by the grace of Christ, which is sufficient for us, we may brave this thorn in the flesh—the fear of man that bringeth a snare, Jeremiah 38:20 The blessedness of. obedience. Jeremiah entreats Zedekiah to obey the voice of God urging him with promises of deliverance. Note here— I. THE . Jeremiah says, "I beseech thee." This is characteristic of the kindliness and earnestness of the prophet. It is also indicative of the character of God who inspired him. With St. Paul he might have said, "We are ambassadors therefore on behalf of Christ, as though God were entreating you by us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ,… be ye reconciled to God" (2 Corinthians 5:20). This Divine entreaty signifies (1) earnestness—God truly desires our good; (2) kindliness and sympathy; (3) condescension; and (4) the greatness of the issues at stake. II. THE DUTY. 1. This is obedience, the cardinal duty of the Old Testament. The importance of this duty in the New Testament has been underrated. There, too, it takes a first place in the teaching of Christ (John 15:14) and of his apostles—St. Paul (Romans 2:8), St, Peter (1 Peter 3:1), St. John (1 John 3:24), and St. James (James 1:22). Indeed, all religion consists in submission (passive faith) and obedience (active faith). 2. Such obedience must be implicit. Zedekiah did not understand the reason of the Divine command. To carry it out was unpalatable to him and his people. But once we know God’s will, questions of mystery and of inclination should not affect us. In the gospel dispensation obedience is more intelligent. We have spiritual principles in place of formal precepts, Yet here also there is often mystery and fear as to the results of obedience, and then our duty is the soldier’s duty of unquestioning obedience. "Theirs not to reason why; Theirs but to do and die." III. THE CLAIM. 1. It rests on the will of God. The king is to obey the voice of God. The monkish duty of obedience stayed with the ecclesiastical superior. But the spiritual Christian must feel that he owes his supreme allegiance directly to God. Our King and Father commands. We must obey his will. 2. It is determined by the revelation of the will of God. The obedience is to be given to the voice as it is made known by the prophet. "Which I speak unto thee." We are only responsible for obedience to God’s will as far as he has revealed it to us. But we cannot plead total ignorance of his will. That has been declared by prophets and apostles, manifested in Christ, confirmed by the Spirit of God in our conscience. IV. THE PROMISE. 1. Whatever happens. "It shall be well"—a vague promise, but sufficient. We cannot tell what is well for us. The thing God sends may not seem good as it approaches. But in the result it shall be well. That is enough for faith. 2. Life is secured. "And thy soul shall live." What is the use of the preservation of our possessions if our life is taken? Men toil for earthly gain and forget that the one condition of enjoying it may go at any moment. Life in the highest sense, eternal life, is the full reward for obedience. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 38:4-13 Foreshadowings and analogies of the cross. The pitiable fate of Jeremiah, so uncalled for and unexpected both in its inflictions and deliverances, the light and shade so strongly contrasted, become charged as we proceed with a certain suggestiveness of something unspeakably greater yet to come. In other words, Jeremiah is perceived to be not only a prophet, but a type of Christ. The charge of treason, the defiance of legal safeguards and requirements by the princes, the wavering and helplessness of the king, the living death in the miry dungeon, and the resurrection through the kind aid of Ebed-Melech, are types of the most unmistakable kind of the characteristic redemptive experiences of the Man of sorrows. And this is only one out of many proofs that human history, especially sacred history, betrays a system of correspondence in its events with those which constituted the earthly experience of the Messiah. I. THEY CALL TO THE OF CHRIST AND HELP TO FIX AND IT. All along the line of Old Testament revelation there were these finger posts or indicators of the coming struggle between righteousness and sin. The cross is closely associated with the very first pages of revelation, and gives meaning and connection to the loftiest, deepest, and most anomalous utterances and occurrences of the Old Testament. With its many anticipations, echoes, and secondaries, the cross of Christ asserts itself as the central and most commanding principle of human history. II. THEY REVEAL THE SAME LAW THE WORLD’S HISTORY AND HUMAN . Prehistoric myths and heathen religions, although incapable of attaining to such a Divine conception, yet presuppose and grope after it. And in many an illustrious and obscure human consciousness had the cross made its impress ere the Redeemer of mankind was called upon to suffer. 1. They proved the necessity of Christ’s sufferings. As the true character of the issue between good and evil declared itself more and more plainly, it became evident that some more decisive determination of it must take place. Each previous or subsequent experience of the conflict is indecisive and incomplete apart from the Messianic sufferings. Christ must needs suffer, if only to bring to a head and final settlement the long pending question as to whether good or evil is the true law of human life and of the world. It was no accidental, abnormal series of occurrences that constituted our Saviours experience, but the culmination of ages of mutual development in the forces of righteousness and sin, and the true exponent of their respective characters and tendencies. 2. They helped go deepen and educate the spiritual sense of men, and to prepare them for a true appreciation of the mystery of the cross. It is the cross in us that leads us to the cross without. The deep tribulation of the saints of the early Church led them to more profound conceptions of moral action and spiritual requirement. Jeremiah was here a type of Judah, the feet of whose king were" in the mire" (verse 22). Each occasion like this of Jeremiah’s condemnation and imprisonment was a loud warning of the possibilities of evil that were still in the womb of time, and showed the direction of the tendency of the world spirit. It showed, too, how closely related was the life of men with the unseen and the eternal. A moral order behind the chain of events was continually declaring itself. Its very peculiarities and anomalies demonstrated the existence of a higher law. The awful depths and heights yet to be attained by the moral nature of man were suggested, and the certainty gradually induced that the kingdom of light would yet meet and overcome the force of the kingdom of darkness. The faith, obedience, and meekness of man would yet be vindicated by the invincible power and authority of God.—M. Jeremiah 38:7-13 Ebed-Melech; or, unlooked for sympathy and help. I. ITS . These were such as to impress the mind of the prophet. He was deliberately consigned by the princes of the people to the dungeon, and the king consented, so that there would appear to be no appeal. His heart must have failed him as he felt himself sinking in the mire. In a prison like that he was in imminent danger of being forgotten and starved. Apparently it was intended as an effectual means of "putting out of the way." And all this was due to what? Doing his duty. The very persons whom he sought to benefit either turned against or ignored him. The whole situation was desperate. It appeared as if no human help could save. It is just at such times that faith receives its confirming, ultimate lessons. II. ITS . 1. In itself. It Was: (1) Thoughtful. It has been suggested that, as the dungeon was in the palace, "he came to the knowledge of it by hearing Jeremiah’s moans." This may or may not have been; but when he knew of the situation of the prophet he was concerned and full of sympathy. It is this spirit which true religion, and especially the gospel of Christ, ever fosters, and the world has need of it. (2) Prompt. In a question like that of a few hours at the utmost, no delay had to be made if the prisoner was to be saved. As the king was "then sitting in the gate of Benjamin," he went out immediately and sought an audience. And he urged expedition. One of the finest recommendations of help is that it is given when it is needed. The case is taken up as if it were his own. How many philanthropies miss fire because they are kept too long without being carried into effect? Bis dat qui cito dat. (3) Courageous. He went straight to the king, by whose order he must have known the thing had been done, and spoke with quick, nervous fearlessness and condemnation. There was not only feeling here, but principle. He was evidently careless as to the consequences to himself. (4) Practical. Ebed-Melech meant that the thing should be done, and so he took the requisite steps to carry it out. Everything is thought Of and applied to the purpose. Even in the "old cast clouts" there is evidence of forethought and careful, if novel, application of means to ends. 2. In its origin. Ebed-Melech was: (1) An alien. A negro, and not a Jew, and one from his office disqualified from participating in the benefits of the covenant. It is the more remarkable that none of Jeremiah’s countrymen interposed. (2) A servant of a vicious king. The establishments of such princes are usually stamped with the same character, and their members are but the creatures of their masters. There is something doubly unlooked for, therefore, in such an advocate and friend. It is like a salutation from one of "Caesar’s household." (3) It is also probable that he was one called out by the occasion. No mention of him is made either before or after. III. WHAT IT TEACHES. 1. True religion does not depend upon conventional forms. Not that these are therefore without value, but they are not of the essence of religion. It is Divine faith, with its outflowing charities and works, that alone can save man and glorify God. Rahab the harlot and Naaman the Syrian are but instances of many for really outside of the kingdom of God, but really within it. Let each ask, "Am I, who have received so much privilege, really a child of grace?" 2. The kingdom of God is always stronger than it seems. As to Elijah the assurance," Yet I have left me seven, thousand, in Israel," so to Jeremiah is this experience. We are never justified in despairing of human nature if God be in his world. 3. Implicit trust in God as the only Saviour. The raising up of such a deliverer was so unique and unexpected as to call attention to it as a work of God, It was supernatural and special, and spoke of gracious intervention. He would not abandon his servant, nor will he any who put their trust in him.—M. Jeremiah 38:11, Jeremiah 38:12 Old cast clouts. This incident is very vividly described; and "the touch of human kindliness in the good negro’s direction to Jeremiah to put under his armpits the soft rags thrown down to him, to prevent the chafing of the cords which drew him up, is inimitably natural." The sharp cords would otherwise have cut him so severely as to render his elevation exceedingly painful, if not practically impossible. To how many conflicting thoughts and feelings do these rags, brought from the king’s house under the treasury, not give rise? What vicissitudes must they have passed through! Now, after they have been cast aside as useless, a new, unthought of use is suddenly discovered for them. Rags it may be of royal garments used in stately pageants; was not even this a kingly service to which they were put? I. OF HOW A WERE THEY THE ! The whole situation of the prophet had been thoroughly entered into and grasped by his friend. He is not satisfied with merely drawing him up; he will do this in the gentlest and most considerate way. It is thinking of these little things that shows the depth of our sympathy for others. They are specially remembered and sought out, and are brought forward with as much care as the thirty men. 1. Our good deeds should not be half conceived or badly executed. "What is worth doing is worth doing well." 2. Where there is a real desire to be kind and helpful, the means will be discovered. We scarcely know whether to admire the most the kindliness or the ingenuity of Ebed-Melech. 3. A true sentiment will dispose of false scruples. Rags! Well, they were best fitted of anything at hand to effect the purpose in view. There was no time to settle the question of the niceties. Much loving and useful work is never done because of such scruples. The servants of God cannot often work in kid gloves. 4. The dignity of a thing consists in the use to which it is put. These rags served the best of purposes, and are worthy of all honour, There is nothing God has made but has some gracious use it we but seek for it. II. THROUGH WHAT ARE GOD’S ! As if the mire and helplessness were not enough! To an unspiritual perception it would appear almost an uncalled for indignity to inflict the rags upon the prophet of God. But they were necessary. And so is it with all the God sent humiliations of life. They are intended to subdue pride, exercise faith, and reveal the hidden grace and power of God. III. THERE ARE DIVINE USES FOR MEAN THINGS AND THINGS CAST ASIDE. God, who made all things, can see a thousand adaptations and utilities for that which man supposes has been used up. Are there not weapons in the King’s armoury that have been allowed to rust when they might have done good service? talents that have been hid in a napkin when they should have been at usury? There need be no idle members in the King’s household. He takes out of his treasury things new and old, and calls upon the blind, the halt, the maimed, the aged, the poor, the ignorant, to do him honour and service. "But I have no talents in that direction," etc. Yet God can use you if you will ask him. He will regenerate you by using you; purify you of all the moral dross and filth that adhere to you; and develop higher faculties and a diviner serviceableness, if you will but let him. There were kingly robes in Judah that day that had not a tithe of the honour of these "old rotten rags;" and there are great, wise, and noble who will have to give place in the day of judgment to the weak things, and things which have been despised (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).—M. Jeremiah 38:17-23 God’s terms of salvation hard. I. IN WHAT THEY ARE HARD. 1. They attack our pride. Zedekiah was afraid of the mockery of "the Jews that are fallen to the Chaldeans." He did not like to acknowledge himself in error. There was no glory in surrender. Pride is one of the first hindrances to salvation. We want to be our own saviours. 2. They crush self-will. "Not as I will, but as thou wilt"—the first and last prayer of the true child of God. It was not Zedekiah’s plan, and contradicted all the policy of his rebellion. It should be sufficient to the sinner to know that God has appointed the way of escape. He has no right to choose. 3. They require faith. How was the king to be certain that yielding himself into the hands of the princes of the Chaldeans would secure the ends desired? He hardly realized that it could be so. And similarly it is asked, "How can Jesus save?" He is to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Gentiles foolishness, but to them that believe the Power of God and the Wisdom of God. "Only believe," that is the hardest thing the unregenerate soul can do. Yet it is necessary. II. THEY DO NOT ADMIT OF . 1. See how relentless the alternative. There is no middle way, no royal road to salvation. It was a step simple enough in itself, but it involved everything, and could not, therefore, be qualified. Christ and his salvation are our only hope: "And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other Name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved" (Acts 4:12; cf. Galatians 1:8). 2. Nor is the messenger of God at liberty to alter them. These are the terms for all, and they represent the infinite wisdom and love of God. It is not for man to attempt to improve upon them. To do so would be equivalent to creating a human gospel. Jeremiah, although he had reasons for ingratiating himself with the wicked king, yet presents an example of faithfulness to every minister of the truth. He might not suffer himself to corrupt the Word of God even for such considerations. III. YET IS THEIR MORE THAN REAL. 1. Belief and obedience will remove every difficulty. The troubles of Zedekiah were almost wholly imaginary. Had he not been assured that everything would be made sure by adopting the advice given? One act of faith on the part of the sinner will save him. Henceforth is will be infinitely easier to do the things that remain, and to pass from faith to faith. 2. How mild are they compared with the consequences of disobedience!—M. BY S. CONWAY Counted an enemy for speaking the truth. "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" said Ahab to Elijah. The Israelites were about to stone the two faithful spies. And here the prophet of God was, as in these other and in many more instances, counted an enemy for speaking the truth. And a like alienation of mind and heart often takes place now for the same reason—the telling of unwelcome truth. Now, note— I. DO MEN SO DISLIKE TRUTH? Some of the reasons are: 1. Because truth must often say many things that are unpleasing. No matter by what voice the message comes—Scripture, conscience, or our fellow men,—truth at times will become censure, and that hurts our self-love. 2. We are not really in earnest in our desire to be set right. We profess to be so, but we are not. "I have been a great sinner," said a sick man to his minister, who was sitting by his bedside. "Yes," said the minster, "you have," "Who told you, I should like to know?" angrily exclaimed the sick man indignant that anything more special and personal than vague general confession should be thought to be needed by him. He had no desire for cure, but only for comfort. 3. Pride has much to do with this dislike of truth. Our reprover becomes for the time being our superior, stands above and over us, and we do not like this. 4. There may be real difference of opinion on the point in dispute; hence the censured has the further offence of being condemned on what he deems partial evidence. 5. Because of our suspicion of the motives of him who speaks the unwelcome truth. We are slow to credit such with purity and unselfishness of motive. We think not only of what is said, but of who says it II. HENCE IT IS VERY TO TELL TRUTHS. Most men avoid it, will say nothing, will shirk the duty by every conceivable means. No one likes to act the part of the candid friend. None like to be the bearers of ill tidings. David’s servants feared to tell him that his child was dead. How we admire, because of its rarity and difficulty, the fidelity of Nathan’s "Thou art the man"! III. BUT SUCH TRUTH OUGHT TO BE SPOKEN WHEN . It is not always necessary. Often not wise. "The chapter of accidents is the Bible of the fool." To let hard facts speak is sometimes best. But not always. Hence when unwelcome truth has to be spoken, take care: 1. To be very certain of your ground. Do not go upon mere rumour. Let your proof be full, clear, and strong. 2. Let the purity of your motive in speaking, the unselfishness and the love for your brother which prompt you, be made manifest. 3. Choose fit times, tones, and words. Many reserve their telling of such truths for moments when they are in a passion; then they will blurt it out, and, of course, only do more harm than good. 4. Be strengthened by the remembrance of the duty you owe your brother, and the accusation he will have against you of blood guiltiness, if you fail to tell him the truth, unwelcome though it be. IV. SUCH TRUTH SO SPOKEN, IF , IS BY THE OF GOD ON THEM WHO REJECT IT. It is part of that condemnation that men take friends for foes, as Ahab did, and foes for friends. They love flattery and hate truth; the blind lead the blind, and with the inevitable result. Therefore let our feeling be that of the psalmist, who said, "Let the righteous smite me; it shall be kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head."—C. Put not your trust in princes. What a proof does this incident give of the wisdom of this counsel! Note— I. ALL ARE TEMPTED TO PUT TRUST IN MEN. To very many man is the highest being they know or believe in. Then, our fellow men are near at hand; we can understand them and they us; are of like nature—they can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; and they in whom we trust appear to us to possess that which we need but have not. II. STILL MORE ARE WE PRONE TO PUT OUR TRUST IN PRINCES. We do this because: 1. Of the law of honour which is supposed to bind them. The word of a king, where that is there is power. 2. They have such vast capacity of help. Unlimited resources seem at their command. 3. They are independent of and superior to the influences which govern inferior men. 4. And very often they have rendered great help to men in need thereof. III. But there are many instances which show that THIS TRUST SHOULD BE VERY LIMITED. Here is a case in point. How miserable this king’s conduct! Now, wherefore did Zedekiah, and do such as he, disappoint men’s expectations (cf. Shakespeare, ’Henry VIII.,’ Wolsey’s dying speech)? It is because they are governed, not by principle, but by expediency. A tree standing on the summit of a lofty hill needs to be more firmly rooted than trees in the sheltered valley, for it is exposed to every wind that blows. But if it be not so rooted, it will soon fall. So with exalted personages; they are exposed to influences on all sides; all parties seek to gain them over to their views and to enlist them in their favour. Hence if a prince have not firm principles to guide him, he will sway from side to side and finally fall. So it was with this King Zedekiah. He was influenced now by one party and now by another (cf. homily on The woe of weakness, Jeremiah 34:2). "Like a wave of the sea driven of the wind and tossed." And all this is true in measure and degree of all who fill high stations, and in whom men are apt to put great trust. But,— IV. TRUST SHOULD BE IN GOD ALONE. The prophet of God was doubtless less surprised than grieved, but he had long learned to commit his way unto the Lord. Let us do likewise, and then we may rest assured that, let men above us favour or frown upon us, that which is best for us and for all will assuredly be done. "Ill that thou blessest turns to good, And unblest good is ill, And all is right that seems most wrong, If it be thy sweet will." C. Jeremiah 38:6-13 Cast down, but not forsaken. As we look on the prophet as here portrayed, these words of St. Paul are brought to our mind. We have here, as there— I. A SERVANT OF GOD CAST DOWN. See the prophet’s allusions to his sad condition in Lamentations 3:52-57; and Psalms 69:1-36. can hardly be other than descriptive of Jeremiah at this time. And such seasons of depression and distress seem to be the appointed lot of all God’s servants. Not one, from our Lord downwards, has been exempted. Manifold are the reasons for such appointment. In this particular case of Jeremiah— II. THE CAUSES OF HIS were: 1. The cruelty of his treatment acting on a nature such as his. 2. Its coming upon him after he had been led to hope that now he was secure from all such treatment. 3. His knowledge that he desired to be, and was, his foes’ best friend, and yet they dealt with him thus. 4. The hopelessness of his condition. Such were the immediate causes of his being cast down. III. DOES GOD SUFFER HIS TO BE TO SUCH ? To deepen their hold upon God, as the storms cause the trees to take deeper root in the earth. To make them realize more than ever the help they have in God. To cultivate and foster those fruits of the Spirit, such as patience, humility, trust, etc; which will hardly grow in any other soil or by any other process. To make them mighty witnesses before men of the salvation of God and of the present help he is in trouble. To qualify them to sympathize with and succour others in their distress. How such thoughts are calculated to sustain the soul in distress! And they do, for— IV. GOD’S ARE, THOUGH CAST DOWN, NOT . Here was a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel and from the covenants of promise, one who least of all might have been expected to care for the prophet of God, and this stranger proves to be God’s good angel of mercy. God raised up this helper in the hour of his servant’s need. See what was done in connection with and by this noble-hearted Ethiopian. 1. God caused intelligence of the prophet’s sufferings to reach him (verse 7). 2. He touched his heart with compassion (verses 7, 9, 11). 3. He led him to resolve to attempt the prophet’s deliverance. 4. He gave him clearly to see the wickedness of the prophet’s enemies, and the truth of the prophet himself. 5. He filled his heart with courage. For courage was needed. He was alone. The consequences of his interference might have been fatal to himself. He had to reprove and condemn both the king and the king’s counsellors. 6. He gave him good success. The king at once yielded, went right over to his side (contrast verse 5), took all precaution that the deliverance should not be hindered. And he did all this at once. Further, he took oath that Jeremiah should not be so dealt with in the future. Now, all this proves the blessed truth for God’s servants that, though they may be cast down, yet they shall not be forsaken. V. WHAT ARE WE TO LEARN FROM SUCH S RECORD? Much every way. 1. Concerning God. He is never at a loss for messengers of mercy and help to his servants. 2. Concerning his tried and troubled servants. Patiently wait. Trust at all times. Hope continually, till your eyes see his salvation, as they assuredly shall. 3. Concerning the enemies of the Lord. Their designs and purposes must fail, however certain of success they seem to be; for God is against them.—C. The value of an oath. The prophet of God evidently attributed such value, or he would not have asked of the king to make oath unto him. On the general subject note— I. THE TO GO FROM ONE’S WORD ARE OFTEN VERY AND VERY STRONG. They were so in this case. Jeremiah knew what strong influence there was against him in the court of the king. He had suffered from this already. And he knew how weak and unstable the king was. Hence there was needed that which would steady and strengthen the wavering will. And there is often the like need now. II. BUT THE VALUE OF AN OATH LIES IN THE FACT THAT IT MEETS THIS NEED. It brings in the thought of God and of his displeasure. And does this in most solemn way. And it has around it human sanctions as well as Divine. And all this tends to strengthen conscience and to resist the temptation to untruth. As a fact, it is found that men who are careless about truth in an ordinary way hesitate much before they will disregard an oath. "An oath for confirmation is an end of all strife." III. IT IS BEST, HOWEVER, NOT TO NEED SUCH AID. Our Saviour has said, "Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." The taking of oaths is allowed, as other practices, "for the hardness of men’s hearts." But for the Christian his word ought to be as sacred as his oath. He is no Christian if it be not.—C. Jeremiah 38:17, Jeremiah 38:18 The path of obedience the path of safety. The circumstances here recorded show that— I. IT MAY BE MUCH ELSE. It may be (1) a difficult path; (2) humiliating; (3) repellant to our whole disposition and will; (4) seemingly unlikely, arguing after the manner of men. II. BUT IT WELL BE SAFE. 1. It would have been so in this case. For the king, his misery, exile, and degradation would have been escaped. The city of Jerusalem would not have been destroyed; nor the temple. All that would have been needful was submission to the rule of Babylon, which would have been neither intolerably harsh nor of long duration. For the prophet knew the rapidly approaching doom of both Babylon and her king. Hence he gave the counsel here told of. Whilst, on the other hand, he knew that if the wrath of the King of Babylon was aroused, all that now might be saved would then be utterly lost. Nebuchadnezzar was now like a sated lion, not desiring to destroy or devour. But let him be angered, and then woe to the weakling that had dared his rage! Submission was, therefore, the prophet’s perpetual and earnest counsel. It was a case in which arguments were not merely to be counted, but weighed. 2. And it is so always. The path of obedience to God may have much urged against it, and truly urged, but it will ever be found to be the right and best way after all. III. AND THE REASON IS: the path God commands is the path which pleases him who knows and who controls all events. All other paths are the self-chosen ways of men, who know but little and can control less. IV. THIS TRUE IN REGARD TO THE SINNER’S WITH GOD. That path is protested against by voices not a few from within and without. But it is the right way, cannot but be so. We, therefore, as ambassadors for God, beseech you "in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God."—C. Jeremiah 38:24 Trying to serve two masters. Zedekiah was seeking to do this. He wanted to be on the prophet’s side, and yet not to break with the princes who were the prophet’s foes. We see the shifts to which he was driven, and we know the miserable outcome of his impossible attempt. We learn from it— I. How SUCH MAKE A MAN IN HIS OWN EYES. "To thine own self be true, And it shall follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." But how far from this conscious rectitude he must be who seeks to serve two masters, who acts as Zedekiah did! II. HOW OTHER MEN DESPISE THEM. III. HOW GOD THEM. How do the instances of Balaam, Pilate, Judas, and others shine out as warning beacons! IV. HOW USELESS, AFTER ALL, SUCH ARE. No more miserable fate could have befallen a man than that which came upon King Zedekiah. And in the highest matter of all, what are they who say, "Lord, Lord," but do not the things the Lord commands—what are they but would be servers of two masters? And to them the Lord will say, "I never knew you; depart," etc. V. HOW MUCH FULL FOR GOD IS NEEDED. This alone will keep us from such sad endeavour; but this will. Therefore seek grace from God to make and abide by this choice; and bring yourselves under the blessed attraction of Christ; so shall you be drawn to him more and more, and made to abide in him.—C. A question of casuistry. A deservedly esteemed commentator observes on this conduct of Jeremiah, "Though we must be so harmless as doves as never to tell a wilful lie, yet we must be so wise as serpents as not needlessly to expose ourselves to danger by telling all we know." But many are not satisfied with this defence, and they hesitate not to apply the terms "equivocation," "subterfuge," and other like censures to the prophet’s reply to the princes. Note, therefore— I. WHAT IS URGED AGAINST SUCH CONDUCT. One says, "The plain meaning of such words is that Jeremiah hoodwinked them. He did not lie to them, certainly; but he did not tell the truth, and left them with a false impression. It comes very near to deception; it was evasive, and certainly was not an honest act. It seems an oblique lie." And this view of the case is supported on grounds such as these: 1. Had he not been afraid, he would have told the whole truth; but fear does not justify falsehood, though it often occasions it. 2. What must the king have thought of a prophet of God so complaisant as this? 3. What would the princes say of his vaunted righteousness when they learnt how he had dealt with them? 4. Our Saviour and his apostles never did the like. 5. It had all the effect of a lie, since it left a false impression on the minds of those to whom he spoke. 6. The very fact that it needs laboured argument to justify it against our instinctive condemnation of it shows that it does not belong to the noble family of truth, etc. But audi alteram partem. Therefore note— II. WHAT MAY BE URGED IN DEFENCE. 1. In reference to the foregoing arguments. The first assumes that there was no motive but fear. The second and third are assumptions also. The fourth is, to say the least, doubtful (of. John 7:8, John 7:9; Acts 20:20-26). Concerning the fifth, it is not true that all the effect of a lie, nor its worst effect, is that stated. And as to the sixth, it may be said that instinctive condemnations may be unjust as well as just. 2. Other replies to the charge against the prophet are: (1) He spoke no untruth. (2) Expediency, if not unlawful, is obligatory. (3) It has been ever recognized as lawful, under certain circumstances, to mislead an enemy; of Rahab’s conduct (Joshua 2:1) and its commendation (Hebrews 11:31; James 2:25). The commonly supposed case of a murderer asking you which way your friend has gone, in order that he may overtake and murder him; in such case, not only might you mislead, but would you not be bound to do so? 3. There are sacred principles on which such suppression of the truth as Jeremiah’s is justified. (1) The right to truth may be forfeited, as the right to liberty and life may be forfeited, by wrong doing. In the vast majority of cases men have a right to the truth, but in all the cases cited above they had no such right. (2) Truth is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end, which is the honour of God and the well being of man; and there are occasions, doubtless very rare, when the end can only be secured by the sacrifice of the ordinary means. Therefore let all who presume to condemn great saints of God as guilty of lying, because they had no mere superstitious idolatry of veracity, as some have, hesitate before they bring such charge. Who are we to sit in judgment on such? But, on the other hand, let none pervert these reasonings, as the Jesuits did and many yet do, into a justification for lying and departing from the truth whenever it may be found convenient. It needs a healthy conscience to decide when these reasonings are applicable—a conscience enlightened by God’s Spirit and animated by his love, and then such a one, and only such a one, may be left to do as he wills in cases like those we have considered.—C. BY D. YOUNG Prophecy and patriotism. I. THE ETHICS OF . Here are foul men who go to the king with a complaint against Jeremiah; and in doing so they do not take low ground. Indeed, there are many people interested in affairs of state who would say they took very high ground. What sounds more plausible than to say that a whole country should never be more united than when the common enemy attacks it? Should there not at such a time be mutual encouragement, the bold and brave men of a state striving to animate all the citizens with their own ardour and resolution? Thus the whole question is opened up with respect to a man’s allegiance to his country. How far does the claim extend of a country upon those who live under its laws, having their person and their property protected by these laws? That national history, great national events, patriotic feelings, have their place in the machinery of government, every Christian would allow; but it may not be so easy to settle exactly what that place is. Everything turns on what should have the first place in a man’s affection, duty, and service; and so we have the example of Jeremiah here to guide us. He, a Jewish prophet, teaches us— II. THE FIRST DUTY OF A . From this world’s point of view Jeremiah did an eminently unpatriotic thing. Instead of uniting the people into resistance, he, as it were, divided them into two classes. He made it a time for individual and not for common action. But, after all, in every conflict there comes a time for yielding; the attacking party must retire in failure, or the defending party submit in defeat. To Jeremiah it was given to see the certain result. He knew that not the Chaldeans but Jehovah himself had to be reckoned with. The first duty of a prophet was to Jehovah, and so for that matter was the first duty of every Israelite. Thus in the same way, the first duty of a Christian is to Christ. He who serves Christ most completely serves his country best. In such a service the Christian may be misrepresented, miscalled, stamped even as traitor, but that only means that he is called to pass through Jeremiah’s experience here. Why, even a man of pagan Rome can teach us in this matter; for Cicero, in the fourth book of his ’De Officiis,’ speaking of gradations of duty in the state, says that a citizen’s first duty is to the immortal gods, and his second to his country. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s."—Y. A friend in need. I. THE OF EBED-MELECH. An Ethiopian. Jeremiah had asked in prophecy, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin?" from which question we may assume that Ethiopians were well known in Israel. One cannot but feel that here we have a sort of counterpart to that other Ethiopian eunuch of whom we read in the New Testament. The Ethiopian Ebed-Melech helps Jeremiah in his temporal need; Philip helps the servant of Queen Candace in his spiritual need. What a rebuke there is here to bigoted and frenzied patriotism!—if, indeed, "patriotism" is the proper word to be used and not rather a spirit of blind nationality. Perhaps the very fact that Ebed-Melech was an alien helped him to see needs and duties, cruelty and injustice, which were hidden from the eyes of the natives. Even natives would be obliged to admit that Ebed-Melech could not be expected to look on the position with their traditionary eyes. Even so it was reserved for a Gentile to say at the Crucifixion, "Truly this was the Son of God." II. THE OF EBED-MELECH. That the eunuch should have pitied the prophet sunk in the dungeon mire may not seem at first a matter to be singled out for special notice. Why should a man be praised for humanity more than for honesty? We must, however, recollect the difference of times. Those who put Jeremiah in the dungeon thought it served him quite right. And yet if there is nothing extraordinary in the humanity of Ebed-Melech, there must be something exceptionally fiendish in the conduct of those who put the prophet in the dungeon; whereas, in point of fact, they were only doing a usual thing. What a long time it has taken to work the world up even to its present attainments in humanity and compassionate feeling! And still through all these centuries Ebed-Melech rebukes us for our too often thoughtlessness and forgetfulness with respect to human pain. III. THE COURAGE OF EBED-MELECH. He could not do a thing of this sort without making enemies and running into peril. The humane man has often to be a brave man, going into elements of danger for the sake of humanity, as a lifeboat crew must do, or a hand of explorers in a colliery accident. But there are also exercises of humanity which demand moral courage—courage that will stand alone in protesting against cruelties and brutalities that have been accepted through long custom. If we are resolved to be consistent and thorough in our humanity, we must be prepared for ridicule and scorn. There are only too many who will check us in humane endeavours by calling them mere sentimentality and weakness. IV. THE OF EBED-MELECH. His office tells us that he was a man about the court, and his action here tells us that he was a man who had influence with the king. What we see of his conduct here makes us feel that he had won his influence in a perfectly legitimate way. Thus at last the opportunity comes for making good use of it. Here is an example of how good a thing it is to cultivate influence with those in authority, if it can be done in a right way without flattery and servility. Men like kings need some one near them to speak the truth plainly and effectually. V. THE OF EBED-MELECH. Something more is needed than the king’s permission to get Jeremiah out of the dungeon. Probably his stay in a miry, pestilential hole had made him very feeble. Ebed-Melech was evidently a man who could take in all that needed to be done in any difficulty. Just the sort of man who could fred usefulness in things that were cast away as worn out and useless. "Useless" is only our ignorant way of naming things we cannot use. The humane man must be thoughtful as well as courageous.—Y. Obeying the voice of the Lord. I. GOD HAS A VOICE FOR THOSE IN DOUBT. Poor Zedekiah, king though he be, is in a state of great vacillation. Counsellors speak one thing, and a prophet speaks another. Counsellors proclaim continued and resolute resistance, though it is by no means plain that they believe in what they say, and from Jeremiah 38:19 it is clear that there were very considerable divisions in the city. Jeremiah, on the other hand, speaks like a man who is perfectly sure of his ground. He was oftentimes wretched and depressed in his own heart, but never did he speak the message of Jehovah with a doubt as to whether it was a real message at all. The world abounds in doubters, coming continually to a place where two ways meet, and standing long in uncertainty and fear which way to take. And yet they are uncertain only because they do not see the direction which God has given. For even as at crossroads finger posts are put up to direct strangers, so God has his finger posts forevery doubtful traveller in the ways of terrestrial life. Zedekiah seems to have had a feeling that he was seeking in the right direction when he sent again to Jeremiah. He seems to have made himself ready to listen, without hinting that he expected some particular answer. So to speak, it was Zedekiah’s last chance, and he gave the prophet the opportunity of speaking with corresponding plainness. And as God’s Word is here, so it is everywhere, spoken with the utmost assurance and from the whole nature of the messenger. II. THE VOICE CALLS TO . There is always some duty that lies nearest us. Part of the mischief of doubt is that, while we are doubting, some good thing is left undone, the opportunity for it passing away unused. There was just one thing for Zedekiah to do at this moment—go forth and surrender himself to the generals of the King of Babylon. Repentance and amendment of life—these were no longer available to avert the capture of Jerusalem. That was a thing settled on. But carnage and destruction might be averted by a timely surrender. Every day there is something made plain for us to do that day. It may be difficult, painful, in all ways hard to the flesh; but if it is neglected, then we shall only meet something still more painful tomorrow. "Obey the voice of the Lord, and it shall be well with thee," is a word to us all The voice of self or the voice of others may hint at procrastination or at some qualified obedience. Our only safety is in attending to the clear and urgent voice from heaven. Paradox as it seems, the most difficult way is really the easiest, and the easiest the most difficult. Zedekiah did not attend to the prophet’s imperative utterance, and the next chapter tells the dreadful things which happened. The king really made things worse by going out of his way to seek for direction, and then, when he had got it, paying no attention to it.—Y. The end of Zedekiah’s irresolution. Irresolution it may be called rather than disobedience. There is nothing to show that he had definitely made up his mind not to obey the voice of the Lord. In spite of the clear announcement made to him, he seems to have gone on, hoping against hope that some decisive disaster would overtake the Chaldeans. Yet Jeremiah closes his address by this sentence, so well calculated to bring even an irresolute man to decision: "Thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire." I. A OF . Already in verse 18 there is the declaration that the Chaldeans will burn the city with fire, and Zedekiah is well able to infer, if he likes, that this is a calamity he may prevent. But he is not left to inference. The prophet’s exhortation goes on, maintaining its cogency and directness, and then in the last word he individually is made responsible. The sting of the address is emphatically in the tail. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ This chapter is very confused as it stands. To restore order it is absolutely necessary to suppose that some passages (viz. Jeremiah 39:1, Jeremiah 39:2, and Jeremiah 39:4-13) have been inserted by after thoughts. It is important to notice that the latter of these passages is omitted in the Septuagint. We need not go so far as to excise them altogether, but we must at any rate enclose them in parentheses. The chapter then becomes a narrative of the solemn session held by the Babylonian officers in the "middle gate," and the charge which they gave to Gedaliah to take Jeremiah under his protection. Verses 1, 2 appear to be taken from 2 Kings 25:1-4 ( = Jeremiah 52:4-7); 2 Kings 25:4-10 to be shortened from 2 Kings 25:4-12 ( = Jeremiah 52:7-16). It is difficult to believe that Jeremiah himself made these insertions, not merely because they interrupt the sense, but because they involve several historical difficulties. According to Jeremiah 38:28, Jeremiah "abode in the court of the watch till the day that Jerusalem was taken;" but the prima facie meaning of our verses 13, 14 is that Nebuzar-adan sent to liberate Jeremiah, and yet, according to 2 Kings 25:8 ( = Jeremiah 52:12), this officer did not arrive at Jerusalem till a month after its capture. Another difficulty is that, according to 2 Kings 25:14, Jeremiah was set free by order of Nebuzar-adan, whereas Jeremiah 40:1-5 states distinctly that Jeremiah had been taken in fetters to Ramah, where he was liberated by Nebuzar-adan himself. Even if there should be some reasonable way of harmonizing these various statements (see especially below on verse 14), yet is it likely that Jeremiah himself used such inconsistent language? Still, the notice in verses 11, 12 is in itself not improbable, and the spelling "Nebuchad-rezzar" separates it from the rest of the passage (verses 4-13); it is possible, therefore, that, in spite of its omission in the Septuagint (which wrongly retains verses 1, 2), they are the work of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 39:3 And all the princes, etc.; rather, That all the princes, etc. (see on Jeremiah 38:28). The fact mentioned in this verse is not recorded in 2 Kings 25:1-30.; ch. 52; and its preciseness is a considerable pledge of its accuracy. The princes are four in number, and two of them have official titles attached. Nergal-sharezer is the Hebraized form of Nirgal-sarra-ucur, i.e. "Nirgal (or Nergal), protect (or perhaps, has created) the king"—the name, as often, is a prayer. Samgar-nebo is probably a modification of Sumgir-nabu, "Be gracious, Nebo;" but it has not yet been found in the inscriptions. Sarsechim has the appearance of being corrupt; the first part, however, may, perhaps, be the Babylonian for "king" ("prince" in Hebrew). Rab-saris has a meaning in Hebrew—"chief of the eunuchs;" but the analogies of "Rab-mag" and "Rab-shakeh" suggest that it is merely the Hebraized form of some Assyrian title. In any case, it would be better to render "the Rab-saris," and to attach it closely to the preceding name, Sarsechim being himself the official called Rab-saris (see, however, 2 Kings 25:13). Rab-mag. This was "one of the highest titles in the state" (G. Smith). The etymology of the latter half of the phrase is uncertain; for the connection of "mag" with "Magi" is a mistake which has been exposed by Dr. Schrader, in his work, ’Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament’ (of which a translation is announced). The native form of the name may be rubu emga (Schrader) or rubu makhe (Friedr. Delitzsch), and the whole title will mean "high priest" or "chief of the sorcerers". "The Rab-mag" would be more accurate, and the title ought to be attached to the preceding name, Nergal-sharezer. As a matter of fact, a Nirgal-sarra-ucur, who held the office of rubu emga, is mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions, and we may plausibly conjecture that he is the person here mentioned among the "princes." He was afterwards raised to the throne by the conspirators who murdered Evil-merodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar (he is better known as Neriglissar). It is singular that two Nergal-sharezers should be here mentioned; possibly the first mention is due to a mistake. The names are hardly recognizable in the Septuagint. The "princes" took up their station in the middle gate. The "breach" spoken of in 2 Kings 25:2 enabled the Babylonians to occupy the whole of the lower city to the northeast of Zion. The "middle gate" probably separated these two parts of Jerusalem, and those who were posted there commanded the temple and the citadel. Jeremiah 39:4 Here begins the second parenthesis, to be read apart from the principal, though shorter, narrative (see introduction to chapter). Observe elsewhere in the Book of Jeremiah events known from other sources are only briefly referred to (comp. Jeremiah 29:2; Jeremiah 32:1-5; Jeremiah 34:1, Jeremiah 34:7; Jeremiah 35:11; Jeremiah 37:5); see 2 Kings 25:4-12. Jeremiah 39:9 Nebuzar-adan; i.e. Nabu-zira-iddina, "Nebo gave a seed." Jeremiah 39:13 Nebushasban. The name occurs in a list of proper names, under the form Nabu-sizibanni, "Nebo, rescue me!" It is remarkable that a different name is given to the Rab-saris in Jeremiah 39:3; and the conjecture is not unreasonable that Sarsechim is a corruption of the latter part of the name Nebushasban. In Jeremiah 39:3 the Septuagint has Nabusachar instead of Sarsechim (other copies read Nabusarsechim). Jeremiah 39:14 Gedaliah, whose father had already befriended the prophet on a serious occasion (Jeremiah 26:24), and who, according to Jeremiah 40:5, had been appointed (though himself a Jew) Babylonian "governor over the cities of Judah," is directed to carry him (Jeremiah) home, or rather, into the house; obviously some house close by is meant—either Gedaliah’s temporary dwelling or the royal palace. This statement conflicts (see introduction) with that in Jeremiah 40:1-5, but only as to the time when Jeremiah was liberated. The latter narrative being more explicit, deserves the preference. Thus Jeremiah dwelt among the people; i.e. could go in and out at his pleasure. Jeremiah 39:15-18 A prophecy to Ebed-melech is here introduced, which, though uttered previously (see Jeremiah 38:1-28.), could not have been mentioned before without breaking the sequence of events. For came, we might render had come. Jeremiah 39:16 Go and speak. Ebed-melech must be supposed to come into the court of the watch, so that Jeremiah might communicate with him. Jeremiah 39:18 For a prey unto thee. The same remarkable phrase in Jeremiah 21:9 Jeremiah 38:2. Jeremiah 39:1, Jeremiah 39:2 (See homily on Jeremiah 52:4 -70 Jeremiah 39:4-7 (See homily on Jeremiah 52:8-11.) Jeremiah 39:8-10 (See homily on Jeremiah 52:8-16.) Jeremiah 39:11, Jeremiah 39:12 A prophet befriended by a heathen king. Rumours of Jeremiah’s efforts to induce the Jews to submit to the Babylonian power must have reached the ears of Nebuchadnezzar, and have led him to regard the prophet with favour. If his fellow; countrymen considered Jeremiah to be a traitor, it was natural that the Chaldeans should think he was on their side. Both parties were ignorant of the motives and aims of the prophet, which were as patriotic as they were prudent. But, though perhaps from an undue opinion of his friendliness to them, the invaders did a real service to Jeremiah, and that was good on its own account. I. GOD BEINGS TO HIS IN THEIR DANGER. Jeremiah was a prisoner. Jerusalem was given over to the rapine of a lawless soldiery. Then came the prophet’s escape. II. GOD CAN USE THE MOST MEANS AS OF HIS GRACE. He does use means, delivering through the action of men overruled by his providence. Such is his wise and mighty control that fierce despots may be his angels and ministers of grace. III. THE SCOURGE OF FOR THE WICKED MAY BE THE ARM OF TO GOD’S PEOPLE. Nebuchadnezzar was the fearful foe whose approach had been foreshadowed as the advent of doom and ruin to the guilty city of Jerusalem. This man was the friend and deliverer of Jeremiah. So the awful judgment at the end of the world will be, to the Christian, the occasion of the "salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." The greatest evils in the world are overruled to work the good of God’s children. IV. A HEATHEN MAY BE AN EXAMPLE OF TO MEN WHO PROFESS THE HIGHEST . There is no cruelty so bitter as that of persons who call themselves enlightened and religious. This is the most refined and heartless cruelty. Corruptio optimi pessima. On the other hand, with all that is brutal and lawless, there maybe a genuine unsophisticated kindliness among men who are in great moral and religious darkness. Let us thank God that he has not left himself without a witness in the conscience even of a Nebuchadnezzar. V. IF A HEATHEN KING’S FAVOUR IS , HOW SHALL WE THE OF THE FAVOUR OF THE DIVINE KING? If Jeremiah profited by the patronage of Nebuchadnezzar, what shall the grace of Christ be to us? If the prophet found release and comfort at the approach of the Babylonian monarch, what greater good is in store for those who shall "behold the King in his beauty"? Jeremiah was protected by Nebuchadnezzar, but he did not put his trust in the human monarch. The one safe trust is in the one true Prince and Saviour. Spared on the ground of faith. I. THE MAN. 1. He is an Ethiopian. "God is no respecter of persons." This man, with his heathen nationality, his negro countenance, and his humiliated state, is selected for deliverance in the general destruction, because in him is found the right spiritual condition, whilst men with the pure blood of Abraham in their veins perish. We have not to wait for St. Paul to teach us the breadth of God’s grace and the spirituality of its requirements. 2. He is a court servant. There were Christians in Caesar’s household. A king’s favour is no substitute for the grace of God. Ebed-Melech felt that he needed more than the protection of the royal guard, even when all was fair in the outside world. 3. He stands alone. He is alone in his faith. So much the more real and vital must his faith be. He is alone in his reward. A special message and a special promise are accorded to this man. God does not overlook any solitary servant of his. All religion is individual—individual faith, individual grace. II. THE FAITH. Ebed-Melech had befriended Jeremiah. Yet it is remarkable that this fact is not mentioned here. His act of kindliness by itself would not have been enough to have secured him a Divine promise of special safety. But the act evinced faith. It is implied that Ebed-Melech befriended Jeremiah because he had faith in God, and therefore acknowledged the Divine message of the prophet and accepted the truth of it. We are saved on account of our faith. Faith must show itself in deeds or it is dead and worthless. But the personal trust in God and in Christ is the sole and universal condition through which God’s mercy is bestowed. III. THE REWARD. Ebed-Melech is to be spared in the general wreck of the Jewish state. His presence in the scene of destruction will enhance his sense of the providential character of his escape. We must all revolt from the heartless doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, that one of the elements of the joy of the redeemed in heaven will be the contemplation of the agonies of the lost. Nevertheless, to have escaped from a terrible fate that has been brought very near to us is a source of greater joy than never to have known danger. This is the Christian’s condition. He can have only pare in witness no the suffering of others. But he has large ground for thankfulness when he sees how near he was to ruin, and how God has plucked him as a brand from the burning. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 39:9, Jeremiah 39:10 The poor better off than the rich. I. IN WHAT SENSE THEY WERE SO. 1. They were spared because of their insignificance. 2. Pitied because of their helplessness and privations. 3. Their condition could hardly be altered otherwise than for the better. II. OF WHAT THESE WERE THE TYPE. 1. They represent the meek who inherit the earth, and the poor in spirit whose is the kingdom of heaven. Christ the Conqueror will enrich them. 2. Their fortune represented the law of reversal in the kingdom of God. The first shall be last, and the last first; but not universally. "Many that are first," etc. Christ’s servants will be most numerous amongst the poor and the despised. They will be recognized and honoured by him, when others are put to shame. But it will not be their poverty, but the virtues of their poverty, which shall be rewarded. They who know themselves poor will receive all things at his hands (cf. Revelation 3:17, Revelation 3:18).—M. Jeremiah 39:11-14 (of. Jeremiah 40:1-6). God’s servant delivered from the judgment of transgressors. The whole proceedings in connection with Jeremiah’s deliverance are striking and noteworthy. It is a heathen prince to whose care and respect he owes his liberation, when his own people have treated him so cruelly. Very evident is the hand of God "disposing the hearts of princes," and making "all things work together for good to them that love him." I. ’S CASE SHOWED THAT, IN THE MIDST OF THE MOST , GOD IS FREE TO WORK OUT THE ENDS AND REWARDS OF HIS KINGDOM. He was but one out of the entire nation, and might easily have been overlooked. Indeed, his sympathetic brotherliness had all but destroyed the advantage so specially designed for him. An interposition like this, so marked and resolute, had an evidently supernatural origin, and bore a moral or spiritual character. If his welfare could be so thorough]y and carefully attended to in the midst of such heart rending and widely disastrous circumstances, the whole of the political changes then taking place must have been a portion of the moral order of the world, and under the direct superintendence of God. In the midst of judgment he remembers and pursues his merciful schemes. The darkest hour of a nation’s or an individual’s history is charged with ministries of light, and the most awful judgments do not interfere with the persistent will of God to save and to bless mankind. And how nicely adjusted and delicately balanced are the deserts of saints and transgressors! II. SOME OF THE TO BE SERVED BY THIS . 1. It showed that the calamity did not arise from a mere necessity or accident of circumstances. Even the heathen Nebuchadnezzar learnt that. 2. Spiritual guidance and comfort were secured for those left behind. 3. Jeremiah learnt to perceive and obey the Divine will as respected his future. His sallies from Jerusalem proved how needful the lesson. 4. God commended his love to his servant in making good accrue to him in the general evil of the time. 5. The reverence to God and consideration towards his prophet shown by heathen princes put to shame the unbelief and disobedience of the chosen people.—M. So he dwelt among the people. In how many respects was Jeremiah a type of Christ! And just in these points was he an example to the spiritual worker and the Christian preacher. I. THE OF THE TRUE PASTOR. 1. How miserably anomalous—a pastor without a flock, or living at a distance from them! There is something wrong with one or other when they remain apart. Only now and then, and for brief periods, can solitude be the place of duty. 2. The cure of souls can only be followed successfully by constant intercourse with them. The experience, sympathy, and moral influence acquired by the minister in the midst of his flock will stand him in good stead in directing him as to what to teach, and preparing for it a favourable reception. II. THE SPIRIT OF THE TRUE PASTOR. 1. Absence of ambition. The promises of the Chaldeans were much more brilliant than the future that was likely to lie before him in Palestine. It was not comfort, worldly emolument, or personal advancement that he sought. Like Moses, he chose "rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, that, to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season" (Hebrews 11:25). 2. Sympathy with the miseries and spiritual needs of men. The interests of the Divine kingdom would be better served by his remaining at home. Here was work ready to his hand, and he dare not leave it. The servant of God has "to preach as a dying man to dying men." 3. True patriotism. What intense affection he had for the land of his fathers! This was at the very core of the religion of the ancient Jew. All the promises of God and realizations of his kingdom on earth seemed to be associated with the Holy Land. This sentiment has been universalized and made more personal by the Spirit of Jesus. "Our kind" must have our constant care and prayers. "The enthusiasm for humanity" must support and inspire the spiritual worker.—M. Faith’s reward. I. IN BEING . 1. The character of its work recognized. Jeremiah is to speak in the Name of "the God of Israel," as if to say that henceforth Ebed-Melech is to be regarded as a true Israelite, having his destiny bound up with God’s people. That which he did is attributed to no merely passing compassion, but to faith: "Thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord." So God perceives the secret motives of actions. 2. In being further and specially exercised. Definite direction is given to the attention of Ebed-Melech, and he is encouraged to look forward to the fulfilment of the words spoken by Jeremiah. As a further confirmation of his share in the Divine events about to take place, he is assured of personal safety—an assurance as yet only a matter of faith and not of sight. One of the surest proofs of true faith being acknowledged by God, is its being thus tested and exercised. Men without faith may be let alone; but the believer, oven if his faith be as a grain of mustard seed, will be taken hold of by the providence and grace of God, and led "from faith to faith." Those who trust in him he will reward with his confidence and the custody of his mysteries. "Lord, increase our faith." II. IN BEING . 1. The believer will see the fulfilment of what he has believed. He will be honoured by being made a witness of the truth of God. The moral tendencies and spiritual consummations that make up the kingdom of God in the world, will be revealed. Experience will illustrate and confirm faith, and faith will interpret experience and render it spiritually profitable. 2. He himself’ will be saved from the destiny of the wicked. This is "the physical and palpable reward of faith;" but it is also one which may open up the way to future spiritual blessedness. Ebed-Melech is obviously spared, not only from the suffering of the exile, but from the degrading influences of it, and the rejection from covenant blessings it, in so many instances, involved. Those who "receive a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward."—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 39:1-8 The retribution of God. What an accumulation of woe do the eight verses with which this chapter opens present! Let thought dwell on the several statements made here, and let imagination seek to realize what they must have meant to those upon whom the calamities they speak of came; and it will be seen, in vivid lurid light, that the retribution of God upon sin and sinners has been in the past no mere empty threat, and it will lead to the salutary suggestion, so questioned now, that his like threatened retribution in the future is no empty threat either. How unreasonable, in the face of historic facts such as those told of here, and in the face of actual facts of today in which dread suffering and awful calamity are seen overtaking wicked doers, to doubt that God will do the like again should necessity arise! But yet many do doubt and deny the teachings of God’s Word on this matter. Note, therefore— I. THE GROUNDS ON WHICH THIS TRUTH IS . They are such as these: 1. Death ends all. But who can prove this? Why is it less possible that we should live in another condition than that we should have been born into the one in which we now are? Resurrection is not antecedently more incredible than creation. 2. God too merciful. But is he? Does he not do or suffer to be done fearful things now? 3. Retribution comes in this world. In part it does to some, but to others sin seems one long success. 4. Christ’s death atones for all. Yes, but in what sense? Certainly not in the sense of saving from suffering now. Why, then, if the conditions of salvation be not fulfilled, should the atonement avail hereafter more than now? II. THE MOTIVES OF THIS DENIAL. Not irresistible conviction or any satisfactory knowledge of the falsity of what is denied, but such as these: 1. The desire that the doctrine denied should not be true. How often in questions like these the wish is father to the thought! Our opinions follow the line of our interest. 2. The belief that the doctrine renders impossible men’s love and trust in God. Without question there are and have been settings forth of this doctrine which to all thoughtful minds must have this effect. The conception that God has created—of course, knowingly—myriads of human souls to sin and suffer forever is one that must darken the face of God to the thoughtful soul. Why, it will almost passionately be asked—"Why, if it were so much better that they should never have been born, were they born?" It is "he, the Lord, that hath made us, and not we ourselves." But we are not shut up to such conception. God "will have all men to be saved;" still through what fiery disciplines may he not have to compel the perverse and unruly wills of sinful men to pass ere they shall come to themselves and say, "I will arise," etc.? 3. Atheistic, agnostic, or materialistic. They who come under such names alike will dislike such doctrine as this. They will not simply disbelieve, but protest against them. III. THE SUCCESS, SUCH AS IT IS, THAT THESE DENIALS HAVE HAD. 1. They have dulled and sometimes deadened the fear of the Lord in many souls. But: 2. They have never been able to convince any that there is no judgment to come. The dread of it haunts them still, the evidence for it being too strong and clear. Hamlet’s soliloquy, "To be or not to be, that is the question," etc; still expresses men’s fear of death. "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come!" 3. It is difficult to see aught of good that has been done—nothing but more or less ill. Therefore note— IV. THE WARNING THAT COMES TO US FROM THESE DENIALS. Cherish a deep and holy fear of God. Judge each one ourselves, that we be not judged of the Lord.—C. Too late. These verses tell of the flight of Zedekiah and his miserable capture by the Chaldean army. Picture the scene. The breach made in the wall. The dead hour of night. The rush upon the temple. The slaughter there. The alarm spreading to the palace. The attempted escape, before dawn, of the king, his wives, and his children. See them muffled, disguised, laden with such precious things as they could snatch up in the hurry of that awful moment, stealthily making their way along the narrow alley between the walls, speeding down the ravine, up over the slopes of Olivet, then down again to the plains of Jericho, where they were overtaken and made prisoners. Many an opportunity of escape had been given to Zedekiah during these last months and previously, but he had neglected them all. For a while his present attempt seemed successful, but he was soon in the cruel grasp of the Chaldeans, and then worse than all he had feared came upon him. He tried to escape, but too late. This history, unutterably sad as it is, has many parallels and much instruction. Consider— I. IN WHICH THIS VERDICT OF "TOO LATE" IS . There are many. 1. Scriptural. No doubt that not a few, when the Lord had shut Noah in the ark, and they saw the lowering clouds, the overwhelming rain, and the rising waters repented and sought safety in the ark. But then, because they had been "sometime disobedient" (cf. 1 Peter 3:19), they were now too late. "Remember Lot’s wife." The Israelites after their repulse at Ai; after their disbelief of the faithful spies (Numbers 14:44). Our Lord’s words to Jerusalem, "But now they are hid from thine eyes." The foolish virgins (Matthew 25:1-46.). Cf. also "When once the master of the house has risen up and shut to the door," etc. 2. Historic. Archias, magistrate of Greece, revelling and feasting. Plot formed to assassinate. A friend sends intelligence. Arrives as feast is going on. "Serious things tomorrow," said the senseless man. That night he was slain. The massacre of Glencoe would never have occurred but for the tardiness of the chief of the clan ingiving in his submission to the government. A snowstorm hindered him when at last he did set out for this purpose, and the last day of grace came and ended, and the chief’s submission had not been made. The massacre followed (cf. Macaulay). 3. And in less notable events in common everyday life, how perpetually are we seeing like instances! School life wasted, no making it up again. Opportunities in business, in the home, in the Church, missed; above all, in regard to the life eternal,—and not recoverable. The tide in the affairs of men not taken at the flood; instead of fortune, the few ships which men have launched lie wrecked or stranded on the shore. "Too late!" With what disappointment and despair is this often said, and will it be said hereafter, and with what truth as well! Therefore note— II. THE MISERY OF HIM WHO IS TOO LATE. This arises from: 1. Shame before men. They will not pity, but despise and blame. 2. Sting of conscience. We know it might have been otherwise; we might have secured what we have let go. 3. Sight of the consequences brought on ourselves and others through our neglect. 4. The irrecoverability of what is lost. It can never be all the same to any soul, no matter what theory of the future we may hold, if he has thrown away opportunities of grace and squandered the days of salvation with which he was blessed. This thought, that he was "too late," was the "torment" of the rich man in the hell into which God sent his soul after death. III. HOW COME MEN TO BE TOO LATE? Sometimes it is: 1. The opportunity passes away. The tide which should have been taken at the flood has begun to ebb. 2. Yet more often, the power of the law of habit. Opportunities may be plentiful, but the habit of resisting the call to use them has become fixed, and therefore it it really "too late" for the man, even when he might if he would seize upon them for his good. We sing— "And while the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return." Yes, no doubt; but will he? If he has got so into the habit of saying "No" to God will he—is it likely?—at the last turn and say, "Yes"? Death bed repentances!—are there any such things? That which determines a soul’s destiny is not death, but this law of habit. Long before death it may have been settled whether that soul shall be saved or lost. And death may come, as it does to the young, and the matter be not settled, the law of habit not having had time to declare itself whilst life in the body lasted. The law of habit, not the hour of death, is that from which we have most to hope and most to fear. 3. The gambling spirit that is in all men. The trusting to chance, the hope in good luck, in regard to things secular; the hope for a more convenient season in regard to the things of the soul. There is this spirit in us all. It has its uses, for there are "ventures of faith" as well as all too many ventures of a very different kind. Read this history of King Zedekiah, and see how he gambled away his crown, his kingdom, his life, his all. IV. AGAINST THIS EVIL. Under God, this same law of habit of which we have spoken. Resolve, and strengthen your resolve by prayer, that you will not put off till tomorrow what you should do today. Act on it, and tomorrow you shall act on it again, and the next day, and so the blessed habit shall be formed of practically remembering that "now is the accepted time," and for you or by you the miserable verdict of "too late" shall never have to be pronounced.—C. Jeremiah 39:10 Blessed are ye poor. The Chaldean invasion, which wrought such ruin on princes, nobles, and all the great in Judah and Jerusalem, had far other and happier effect on the poor. The storm which tore down the lofty tree left the lowly flowers that nestled amid the herbage untouched. This verse recalls— I. OUR LORD’S WORDS, "BLESSED ARE YE POOR." The poor do not excite the wrath of the great. They are least affected by outward change. They are dealt kindly by when the rich and great are cast down. "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted," etc. But, chief of all, because they are "rich in faith." So said our Lord; and it can only be that the poor have an undying conviction of the love of God, an unquenchable faith therein, that they so patiently endure the ills of their present lot. Let that faith die out, as it has in some places and generations, and. murderous revolution and anarchy burst forth. Our Lord distinctly encouraged this belief in the love of God towards the poor. He said his mission was "to preach the gospel to the poor." In the parable of the rich man, Lazarus, for no other reason than that he was poor, receiving here, as is the lot of the poor so often, only "evil things," was "carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom." And we may well believe that they who here have been unable by reason of the misery of their condition to see that God is love—as Israel in Egypt could not believe in it by reason of the bitterness of spirit which their bondage caused them—shall in some blessed Abraham’s bosom hereafter see it clearly, and then shall their hearts go out towards God in that faith and love which are the conditions of the kingdom of heaven, but which have been scarce possible to them here. Therefore are the poor blessed. But this verse teaches also the sure truth— II. "HE THAT IS DOWN NEED FEAR NO FALL." Here it was lowliness of position which saved the poor of the land. But the proverb is yet more true where the lowliness is of the heart and mind—that yoke of Christ which, if we take, then rest, the undisturbed peace of the soul, is our reward. III. THE COMMON PROVERB, "IT IS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO ONE ANY GOOD." The prince’s ruin was the poor man’s riches; the noble’s downfall his uprising. Therefore in our own troubles let us remember that we are never as a target at which the arrows of God’s judgments are aimed, and in the hitting of which their purpose is fulfilled; but rather are we the channels of blessing, which by and through us shall flow on to do good to others, perhaps many others. Of. Paul’s allegory, the casting out of the natural branch, the Jew, and the ingrafting of the wild branch, the Gentile. And illustrations are innumerable. IV. GOD’S LAW OF . If he takes away on the one side, he gives on the other. These poor people were favoured. V. THE FIRST , "BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT: FOR," etc. These poor had lands in Judea; the poor Christ speaks of shall receive "the kingdom of heaven." It is not always true that the literal poor are dealt with in the way told of here, but the recompense of the poor in spirit never fails. They have an earnest of it in the rest and peace of soul it is theirs to enjoy now amid all the cares and distractions of this life. But no man makes himself poor; he must be made so. God’s providence sends the literal poverty, God’s Spirit that spiritual condition to which is promised the kingdom of heaven. But if we place ourselves in the hands of Christ, surrendering ourselves to be dealt with as he sees fit, he will, by his Spirit, bring us to that blessed mind without which none enter the kingdom, but with which we assuredly shall.—C. Churchwardens. 1. These are generally chosen from the friends of the Church, as they who are to defend and guard the Church’s interests should be. Who should care for the Church if not her friends? 2. But sometimes men who are no friends of the Church have charge of her interests. 3. And not seldom they are amongst her best servants, and do their work diligently and well. 4. In these verses we have a signal instance of this. Here is the fierce, heathen, Israel-destroying Nebuchadnezzar, busying himself seriously about the safety of God’s prophet Jeremiah. It is not simply a case of God shutting the lions’ mouths, but constituting the lions his servant’s sure though strange defence (aft verse 12). "Is Saul also among the prophets?"—that was thought to be a marvel. But that the Chaldean monarch should be the faith’s defender and the prophet’s guard is no less strange. 5. And there have been other such instances before and since this. See what Egypt was to Joseph and Moses, the Philistines to David, the Persians to Daniel, Greece to Jews in Alexandria, Rome to Paul; see also history of the Lollards, Reformers, etc. And how often in the straits of God’s people have they had to confess that he has raised up for them from most unlikely sources the helpers they have needed! "The barbarous people showed us no little kindness" (Acts 28:2),—as we have seen sometimes a weak, defenceless creature dwelling in the same cage with strong, cruel beasts, and not only unharmed, but protected by them. 6. How is all this to be explained? In this instance of Jeremiah the motives of Nebuchadnezzar are clear and comprehensible. Jeremiah had done his best to persuade his countrymen to submit to Babylon. His influence would be strong with the captives in Babylon and serviceable to her monarch. The king would show that, whilst he punished his foes, he did not forget his friends. The reverence and awe which Jeremiah, so evidently God’s prophet, aroused in the monarch’s mind. But: 7. He was guarded of God. Jeremiah was no partisan of Babylon. The most terrible prophecies against her are his (cf. Jeremiah 1:1-19.). No other explanation than that the care of God was over him can account for their favour to one who spoke so plainly and so evil concerning them. And their forbearance is the more remarkable when we remember the proud, cruel, and arrogant character of the monarch whom Jeremiah thus, as it were, defied. 8. Many and most helpful are the lessons of such facts as these. Enemies God can make our friends, perils our protectors; and because "the Lord’s portion is his people," his will is ever to do them good. Such deliverances as these are designed to foreshadow our final and perfect deliverance, and to deepen our confidence in regard thereto.—C. In that ye ministered to the saints. "God," says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "is not unrighteous to forget" such ministry. It is a strong expression, and seems to imply that God would be unrighteous if he did forget. Here in the story of Ebed-Melech, we have an instance of God’s rewarding ministry to his saints. For what Ebed-Melech did, cf. Jeremiah 38:7, etc. For his recompense, see these verses (15-18). Consider— I. THESE . They are: 1. A fact. How many instances there are!—the widow of Sarepta; the Shunammite woman; Dorcas; Paul’s friends, Onesiphorns, etc.; Jonathan; Mary of Bethany; Cyrus and the Persian nation, for their goodness to Israel; the people of Malta (Acts 28:1-31.); our own country, for offering asylum to persecuted Hollanders and Huguenots. And, besides such instances, there are repeated declarations to the same effect: "I will bless them that bless thee;" "They shall prosper that love thee." The cup of cold water given in the name of a disciple "shall in no wise lose its reward." "Whoso shall receive one such little child in my Name receiveth me." 2. Very great. (Cf. illustrations given.) How comparatively slight was the ministry! how cup of cold water like! yet how great the reward! How much this country owes, in her commerce, her character, her fame, to her ministry to God’s saints! Many people denounce Cromwell for most things he did, but all applaud his interference with the bloody papists on behalf of the persecuted Waldenses. Milton’s grand lines, "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints," etc; have immortalized that deed as it deserved. No, indeed; "God is not unrighteous to forget," rather is he most gracious to remember, all such ministries. 3. Varied. Sometimes the recompense is given at the time, in tangible, material blessing. Sometimes such recompense is delayed, but comes afterwards in full measure. Sometimes it comes not here at all in outward recompense, but in spiritual joy and peace—sunshine in the soul, approval of conscience, gladness of heart, confirmation in good. But for all, and most of all, in eternity. "That is the great harvest-season of holy and benignant deeds." "They shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." But: 4. Ever sure. They shall be recompensed. None of that good seed shall fall on other than good ground, or yield other than bountiful and beneficent fruit. The little gift "shall by no means," saith our Saviour, "lose its reward." And his many present recompenses all confirm our faith in the truth of that blessed Word. II. THEIR REASONS. Some of them are probably such as these: 1. For the Lord’s own sake. Such ministries demonstrate the presence in the heart of that which he most of all prizes—love. They show "some good thing toward the Lord God." They delight the Father’s heart, and his smile cannot be concealed nor his hand held back from blessing. 2. For the sake of those who thus minister, as Ebed-Melech did. God recompenses them because they have thus committed themselves on the side of righteousness, and he would encourage them. 3. For the sake of those ministered to. God blessing their friends tends to raise up friends for them, as they often need. "We will go with you, for we see that the Lord is with you." 4. For the sake of truth and righteousness generally. God, by such recompenses, makes it evident on which side he is. Thus he cheers his people, dismays his adversaries, decides the waverer, and so advances the good cause in the world. III. THEIR . Follow the Lord’s example; do not you forget those who have stood up for truth and right. Sympathize with, applaud, defend such. Be such yourselves. Would you have done as Ebed-Melech did? Do you when the Christian lad or girl is jeered at by godless comrades, in the school, the counting house, the shop, the kitchen? "Stand up, stand up, for Jesus!"—C. BY D. YOUNG Siege and savagery. I. THE MANNER IN WHICH THE CAPTURE OF IS RELATED. Just enough is told to certify to us the complete and exact fulfilment of prophecy. There is a long siege, a great destruction, and great humiliation and suffering for the captured king. It is no part of the province of Scripture writers to dwell on war, battle, siege, and pillage for the sake of making striking narratives. But behind this very brevity what room there is for imagination! What suffering, gradually mounting to the climax of famine and thirst, during those eighteen months of siege! The very natural advantages of Jerusalem, enabling the people to resist longer, added to their calamities. Indeed, we may say that when a man employs his natural strength wrongly, his suffering in the end is not unlikely to be proportioned somewhat to his strength. A weaker man would not suffer so much or suffer so long. II. THE WITH THE CAPTURE. This savagery is a point to be studied as throwing a light on the ancient civilizations. Nobody thought, we may safely say, not even prophets themselves, that there was anything out of the way in all this destruction. Savagery was the accepted consequence of a successful siege. Jehovah used these Chaldean soldiers as instruments, but they had to act according to their individuality. A Roman army would have behaved no better. Indeed, humanity in war is a Christian idea. Paradox as it seems, God was working through the very savagery of this war to destroy all war. Men will fight; they will foment discord and accumulate large armies; but it is the glory of God to bring good out of all the conflicts. When the reign of the Prince of peace is fully come, then we shall see, as we cannot see now, the good that men have worked, unconsciously, by war. We are deceived now because we cannot get away from our thoughts physical destruction and suffering. III. THE FATE OF . Brought on him by his own indecision as much as by the savage hands of Chaldeans. If these verses stood by themselves, we should not know this; but we do know it from the record going before, of Jeremiah’s dealings with him.—Y. The poor of the people. I. HOW THEY HAD COME INTO THIS . Poverty is, of course, a mischief, having many causes, and no fallacy is greater than that of singling out one cause for some particular reason, and then treating it as if it were the only cause. Still, there is need that in this place the injustice of the rich towards the poor should be remembered. The fact that there are proverbs bearing on this point shows that such oppression was not at all unfrequent. "He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want" (Proverbs 22:16; Proverbs 28:15). And now these oppressors had attracted to themselves the desiring eye of Babylon. Why were the rich men carried away and the poor left? The chief reason was that they heightened the triumph, for when despoiled they were just as poor as the poorest, and the contrast between their former and present state spoke for itself. Then, too, there is something in considering the rich men as themselves part of their riches. Thus the rich and poor are brought together in one great judicial act, and the rich are made to feel that in the end the poor are really better off than they are. II. THE OF POVERTY. Poverty usually presents such disadvantages on the surface, and so demands sympathy and help, that it almost seems like irony ever to talk of its advantages. And yet, if there be such advantages, it is very necessary to consider them, in order to do something for the prevention of envy, repining, and perplexity. As with the advantages of external wealth, so with the disadvantages of external poverty; neither goes very deep. In the time of spoliation the poor man can look on with a light heart, so far as personal loss is concerned. Probably the poor people of Israel were now better off than they had been for years. Amid all the burning and pillage here is one good effect already perceptible in the benefit that is being worked for the poor. Without contradiction, it may be affirmed that the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the Father of Jesus Christ in the New are alike on the side of the poor. All oppression of the poor, all unfair treatment of them, all selfish employment of them, will show in the end that the poor need lose nothing of what is best. III. THE OF THE POOR. They were employed in that which was of greatest moment to them. Vineyards and fields were given to them—things they could all make use of; things which would repay their toil, and give them the chance of building up a really honourable wealth. If Nebuzar-Adan had given them something of the plunder, it would not have been near so useful as what he actually did give. Man is nearest to the pure, untainted fulness of nature when he is cultivating the soil.—Y. The safety of God’s prophet. I. THE MANNER IN WHICH IT IS ASSURED. There is no working of miracle, though miracle was available if it had been needed. But natural forces were carrying out Divine intentions in working the safety of the man who had been faithful to his duty. We have no exact information as to why Nebuchadnezzar was so interested in the prophet’s safety, but we may well suppose that he had a sort of respect for a man who served his God so faithfully. The news of fidelity, courage, and endurance goes far, when only one here and there shows the qualities. Moreover, the King of Babylon was very likely to have heard of Jeremiah’s predictions; the very knowledge that such predictions existed would nerve him in his attack; and when the attack succeeded, the very fulfilment of the predictions would produce in him a superstitious fear lest the utterer of them should come to any harm. Thus we see how the course of human affairs, without any special intervention, works out good for the brave maintainers of right. II. SAFETY IN SUCH . This is of great importance to notice. Jehovah was not concerned to preserve the life of every prophet from a violent end. His prophets, at times, had to trust him even to death, and prophesy even when the prophecy was sure to be followed by a mortal blow. Jeremiah was preserved in safety at this time, not so much for his own sake, as for the effect his preservation would have on the minds of others. His safety was specially provided for at the time when unrestrained destruction was going on. Thus his very preservation was itself a prophecy. And it is all the more noticeable Because Jeremiah himself had, in due course, to make predictions against Babylon. Why some of God’s servants live long lives and some short ones is not a fortuitous matter; there is always a reason, could we but see it, and sometimes, as in this instance, there is a glimmer of light upon the reason. III. THE PROPHET’S . Nebuchadnezzar’s order was that he should be treated as he desired. We read that in the end "he dwelt among the people." Hence we may conclude that this was his desire. And where could a prophet better be? Especially if he went among the poor of the people, toiling away in their vineyards and fields, and tried to inspire them with the promises of better times. "Dwelling among the people" is a very suggestive expression when applied to a man like Jeremiah, his office, his character, his experience, being such as they were. The people knew that he lived among them by his own free choice, preferring to share their hardship and poverty. As far as we can see, he might have enjoyed the luxuries of Babylon; but what were these to a man like him?—Y. Ebed-Melech’s safety, and the secret of it. I. EBED-MELECH’S DANGER. He was a court official, and like all others connected with the court, in more danger than if he had been merely one of the multitude. He appears to have been in favour with the king, and all such would be put down by enemies as exciting the king to continued resistance. That is, it would seem to Ebed-Melech so; for why should he suppose that any one should be so specially interested in him as to describe his deeds exactly to the Chaldeans? II. EBED-MELECH’S SAFETY. 1. The usefulness of Jeremiah even as a prisoner. Jeremiah cannot get out among the people, but there is sufficient mitigation of his imprisonment to make him useful to one man. Even in prisons God’s servants find opportunities of doing good work for him—so Bunyan writes his ’Pilgrim’s Progress.’ With peculiar joy Jeremiah must have delivered such a message to one who had been so kind to him. In this, too, we can trace a Divine arrangement. Surely God’s delight is to give peculiar joys to such as are diligent in doing his will. 2. Words of hope are always possible to individuals. There is no longer any chance for the nation; as a nation it must be scattered and spoiled; but every individual is treated according to his deserts. There is no reason to suppose that Jeremiah and Ebed-Melech were the only individuals to whom God was specially gracious,—it was necessary to mention them; but in all ages there have been many special providences not mentioned. III. THE SECRET OF EBED-MELECH’S SAFETY. He had put his trust in Jehovah. What does this mean, seeing he is also described as being afraid? We take it that the reference is to his deliverance of the prophet from the dungeon. He really was exercising a faith in God more than he was aware of at the time. In stretching out his hand to rescue the prophet he had got upon the rock of his own safety. In other words, he had shown his faith by his works. A voice from the unseen had spoken and told him to get Jeremiah out of the dungeon, and his consequent action had in it the essence of faith; for he obeyed this voice from the unseen. God sees faith where we, with our prepossessions, would only too often be unable to discern it.—Y. The first of a series of chapters (40-45.) describing Jeremiah’s fortunes and ministry after the fall of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 40:1-6 The liberation of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 40:1 The word that came to Jeremiah. The formula seems to announce a prophecy; but no prophecy follows. It is not allowable to suppose, with Keil and others, that "the word" describes the entire body of prophetic utterance in ch. 40-45 (in spite of the fact that Jeremiah 44:1-30. and 45. have special headings). The use would be unexampled; and a prologue of forty verses (see Jeremiah 42:7) is equally contrary to prophetic analogy. Apparently the "word," or prophecy, which originally followed the heading has been lost or removed to some other place. Had let him go from Ramah. Here is an apparent discrepancy with the account in Jeremiah 39:14. The brevity of the latter seems to account for it. No doubt the more precise statement in our passage is to be followed. After the capture of the city, a number of captives, including Jeremiah, were probably conducted to Ramah (see on Jeremiah 31:15), where they had to wait for the royal decision as to their fate. Jeremiah, however, had already been in custody in the "court of the watch," and the writer of Jer 29:14 simply omits the second stage of his captivity (Keil). In chains. See Jeremiah 29:4, "The chains which were upon thine hand." Jeremiah 40:3 The Lord hath brought it, etc. The colouring of the speech is that of a Jewish prophet (comp. Isaiah 36:10). Jeremiah 40:5 Now while he was not yet, etc. This rendering, however, seems against the Hebrew usage. Two renderings are open to us. 1. "But since one returneth not from Babylon, then go back to Gedaliah," etc.; so Hitzig. 2. Taking Jeremiah 40:5 as a continuation of "but if it seemeth ill to thee," etc; "forbear" (in Jeremiah 40:4), and, supplying, "I have spoken the word," continue, "and it shall not be reversed; yea, go back;" so Graf, regarding the passage as an explanation of the permission to "forbear." A reward; rather, a present. Jeremiah 40:6 To Mizpah. A place in the tribe of Benjamin, where Samuel judged, and where Saul was elected king (1 Samuel 7:15, 1 Samuel 7:16; 1 Samuel 10:17). Jeremiah 40:7-12 The Jewish fugitives resort to Gedaliah, who promises them protection as long as they are loyal to Babylon. Jeremiah 40:7 In the fields; rather, in the field; i.e. in the open country, as opposed to the towns. Men, and women, and children. Old and worn out men, helpless widows, and fatherless children. Royal princesses were among them (Jeremiah 41:10). Jeremiah 40:8 Jonathan. This name is omitted in the parallel passage (2 Kings 25:23), and by the Septuagint here. It may, of course, be a corruption of Johanan, as Ewald supposes. If so, we must read "son" for "sons," with Septuagint. The Netophathite. Netophah was in the neighbourhood of Benjamin. The son of a Maachathite; rather, the Maachathite. Maachah was a Syrian district in the neighbourhood of Hermon (Deuteronomy 3:14; Joshua 12:5). Jezaniah was, therefore, a naturalized foreigner, like Doeg the Edomite (Hitzig). Jeremiah 40:10 To serve the Chaldeans; rather, to stand before the Chaldeans (so literally); i.e. to mediate between you and them (comp. Jeremiah 15:1). Gather ye wine, etc. It was the fifth or sixth month (comp. Jeremiah 41:1; 2 Kings 25:8), the end of July or the beginning of August, when grapes, figs, and olives become ripe. Observe, "wine" is here the wine in the grape; the Hebrew yayin seems originally to have meant a cluster of grapes, like the corresponding word (wain) in Arabic (comp. on Jeremiah 48:33). That ye have taken; rather, that ye shall have taken. (The "captains" had up to this time been in the open country, Jeremiah 40:7.) Jeremiah 40:13-16 Gedaliah receives a warning of a plot against his life. Jeremiah 40:14 Baalis the king of the Ammonites. Perhaps the same king referred to in Jeremiah 27:3 as seeking alliance with Zedekiah. He was naturally opposed to the Babylonian official, Gedaliah. Hath sent Ishmael. Ishmael was connected with the royal family (Jeremiah 41:1), and was probably jealous of Gedaliah. Jeremiah 40:1-5 Jeremiah’s release. I. THE OFTEN SUFFER WITH THE GUILTY. It would seem that orders had been given in Jerusalem for the liberation of the prophet (Jeremiah 39:11-14), but that, in the confusion of the sack of the city, inferior officers had led off Jeremiah in chains with the rest of the captives. Thus he shared the indignities and hardships of companions who deserved a fate from which his innocence should have saved him. It is part of the discipline of life that we should suffer one with another. Amongst men justice is irregular; ignorance and mistakes often result in unintentional cruelty. Men are dealt with in masses, and the individual must suffer with the multitude. II. JUSTICE WILL BE . Jeremiah is discovered at Ramah, and the mistake rectified. This does not always happen so soon. It is sad to think that, even with our enlightened system of justice, there may be innocent men suffering long years of penal servitude in convict establishments, without a chance of clearing their character this side the grave. How much more often must such mistakes occur in more barbarous countries! But it is a consolation for all who are unjustly treated to know that this is but one of the trials of life, overruled to work wholesome discipline, and is but transitory. Ultimately God will visit each man individually with strict fairness and no possibility of error. There were mistakes made in the sack of Jerusalem; there will be none in the judgment of all men at the end of the world. All will be judged, but in the vast crowd of cases there can then be no error, for "shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" III. A OF THE JUSTICE OF GOD TENDS TO MAKE MEN MORE JUST. The captain of the guard had given sufficient attention to the teaching of Jeremiah to see that the destruction of Jerusalem was predicted by him as a punishment for the sins of the Jews. It may appear hypocritical for one of the soldiers, who had been engaged in the cruel carnage, to reflect piously on the Divine justice of the fate of his victims. But is it not quite possible that the impressive words of an inspired prophet—of which his own are evidently a literal repetition—may have led to his sincere adoption of this view? Alaric seemed to have honestly believed in his mission as a scourge of God. Might not some such idea have taken possesssion of Nebuchadnezzar and his soldiers, if only as an after thought? Then it would raise their minds to the sense of the obligations of justice. IV. LIBERTY IS ONE OF THE FIRST OF EARTHLY . This is now accorded to Jeremiah. Like health and wealth, it is not appreciated till it is lost. We who enjoy it, however, should remember to be more grateful, and to fulfil our noble mission of carrying it to others who are yet languishing under tyranny or in slavery. One of the first promises of the gospel is the gift of liberty to captives (Isaiah 61:1). Physical freedom is but the smaller half of the liberty we need. We may have this and yet be slaves. Jeremiah could enjoy it to the full, because he was also possessed of that higher, glorious liberty of the sons of God. The choice of a residence. The captain of the guard gave to Jeremiah the choice between an honourable asylum in Babylon and a return to his own land. The prophet selected the latter course. Why did he do so? Although the circumstances of the case were peculiar, the answer to this question may throw light on some of the considerations which should guide men generally in the selection of their places of abode. Several characteristics may be noted in Jeremiah’s decision, viz.:— I. . Jeremiah had been accused of a treasonable friendship for Babylon. His conduct in deciding to remain in his native land, wrecked and deserted as it was after the war, in preference to enjoying the position of a privileged guest at Babylon, is an ample refutation of all such charges. Patriotism is more than a sense of duty, it is an affection. It does not speak much for the depth of a man’s nature that he can leave his native country without a sigh of regret. If we find it necessary to emigrate, genuine patriotism will certainly incline us to settle in one of the colonies of the British Empire rather than in a foreign country. This point should be insisted on as a duty, not merely treated as a question of sentiment. II. FOR . Babylon was a heathen city. Jeremiah preferred to remain in the Holy Land. Surely the religious advantages of a neighbourhood should he taken into account as of first importance. Yet many people seem to be strangely blind to all such considerations. The soil, the scenery, the society, the convenience of the house, are duly considered; but the Church accommodation is scarcely thought of. A gravel soil is most essential; healthy religious influences are regarded as of very secondary interest. A beautiful view must be got, though the enjoyment of it means banishment from all healthy Church life. How strange that heads of families professing to be Christian should act like pagans in this matter, and care so little for the spiritual atmosphere in which their children are to be brought up! III. THE OF TO THE GOOD OF OTHERS. Ezekiel could minister to the captives in Babylon. Jeremiah had his work in comforting the remnant in the land of Israel. If he had consulted his own convenience, he might have accepted the offer of a safe and probably honourable position in the land of exile. But he had his work to do at home, and he stayed to do it. Such conduct is a fine example to those of us who, in choosing a place of residence, think of our own pleasure and profit rather than of the good we may do. More especially does this apply to Christian ministers. If the choice lay between easy work in a beautiful place in Devonshire, and the toil of service amid all the squalor and ugliness and wretchedness of a densely populated district in the east end of London, should we be willing to choose the harder but more useful life? IV. AND . These are minor characteristics of the choice of Jeremiah, but they are not without their significance. Jeremiah was satisfied to stay in the old land with the poor, after the wealthy and great had been banished. To the luxuries of court life at Babylon he preferred the homely ways of the peasants of Israel. In abandoning simplicity for display and excitement, the fashion of our age drives men and women to a life that is neither healthy nor happy. Even if the outward surroundings of a quieter life are not so attractive, its true experience will give a restfulness and a satisfaction that cannot be found in the race of worldly pleasures. The duties of adversity and their reward. I. THE DUTIES. 1. Submission. We are not required to yield before avoidable troubles; but finding some to be irresistible, we are to learn the wisdom and obligation of bending to them without further demur. The captains were no cowards; they had fought and had lost. Their resistance against the inevitable was a mistake; continued resistance after defeat would have been nothing but folly. Submission is much easier when we remember that the trouble is in accordance with the will of a God who is always wise, fair, and merciful, 2. Industry. Gedaliah advised the people to set to work at their regular avocations. "But ye, gather ye wine, and summer fruits, and oil, and put them in your vessels," etc. (Jeremiah 40:10). It is difficult for a dispirited, humiliated, poverty striken people to settle down to quiet, earnest work. Nevertheless, their duty and their happiness lie in their doing so: (1) their duty, for adversity is no excuse for indolence; and (2) their happiness, because (a) the fruits of their labour would be a beginning of a return to prosperity and wealth, and (b) in the very exercise of work they would find a solace and a refreshment. There is nothing so weak or so injurious as an idle brooding over trouble. Be up. and doing! And though the work is irksome at first, it will prove itself a great healer of distress. II. THE REWARD. 1. A healthy influence over others. The example of the quiet condition of the remnant of Jews in their native country attracted fugitives to return from the neighbouring countries (Jeremiah 40:11). Their action was a confirmation of the wisdom of their brethren. A man’s behaviour under great trial is keenly observed. If he do well then, he may be the means of influencing others as he can never influence them under ordinary circumstances. Thus he may find consolation for his sorrow in the enlargement of his service to his fellow men. 2. The successful issue of industry. The Jews reaped an unusually abundant grape and fruit harvest (Jeremiah 40:12). "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." If we complain and despair under distress, we have no right to expect a happy issue out of it. But patient endurance and diligent attention to duty may make us reasonably expect brighter days in the future. Borne with these accompaniments, trouble often reveals itself as less terrible than our fears. When distress comes, we imagine that it has blighted every tree in the orchard and every grape in the vineyard, and so we neglect what consolation we might have in those fruits of patient industry which might still be given to us. Let us remember that during the sad seventy years, and even just after the horrors of the Chaldean invasion, the Jews could gather "wine and summer fruits very much." BY A.F. MUIR Verse 18 Jeremiah 41:4 The murder of Gedaliah; or, noble credulity. No sooner was the new government in a fair way of being settled and prosperous, than untoward circumstances occurred. Ishmael, son of Nethaniah, son of Elishama, a connection of the royal house, inspired, perhaps, with a jealous feeling towards Gedaliah, began to plot with the King of Ammon against him. Under cover of paying his respects to the new governor, he visited him at Mizpah, and partook of his hospitality. Although warned by Johanan the son of Kareah that Ishmael entertained hostile designs against him, Gedaliah refused to credit the information, and indignantly forbade his informant carrying out his proposal to assassinate Ishmael. The latter, finding thus a clear way for his schemes, took advantage of the trustfulness of Gedaliah to accomplish his murderous purpose and to deceive his leading supporters. This done, crime followed upon crime with startling rapidity, until Jehanan overtook the miscreant at the "great waters that are in Gibeon," and delivered the prisoners whom he was carrying off. In this tragic incident we see— I. HOW THE VIRTUE OF ONE MAY BE THE VICE OF ANOTHER. A trusting, ingenuous man like Gedaliah was out of place in more senses than one as governor of such a people. In any circumstances it is necessary that the utmost precaution should be taken with respect to the person of a ruler, as there are always evil disposed persons who may take advantage of an opportunity, and accidents and misfortunes are continually possible. The off hand openness, therefore, which is so admirable in the private citizen, upon whose life so little depends, is highly reprehensible in one occupying so responsible a position. When it is remembered that the people over whom Gedaliah ruled were wholly undisciplined, and had but recently been exposed to the most demoralizing influences, his rashness will be even more apparent. It is well when a ruler can combine the trustful ingenuousness of the private citizen with the sagacity and watchfulness his responsibilities impose upon him. Life is full of such misplaced virtues. The poor man open-handed and lavish as when he was wealthy; the rich man meanly careful as when he had everything to acquire, etc. II. HOW MUCH IS TO JUSTIFY A WRONG ACTION It was a case, apparently, on Johanan’s showing, of self-protection. Ishmael contemplated murder and treachery; what more natural than that he should be killed? Yet this consideration had no weight with Gedaliah. His informant might be mistaken, and was, perhaps, interested. It was foreign to his disposition to be suspicious; and he could not brook the idea of assassination. If the governor was wrong in neglecting the most ordinary precautions, he was certainly right in this. The instinct of the true man is ever averse to underhand actions, even although their object be to avert contingent or certain evils. It is never right to do evil that good may come or evil may be averted. The weapons which God’s children have to wield are ever those of truth and honour; and these are sufficient if they be sagaciously handled. III. HOW GREAT A CRIME AND MAY BE DivinELY . 1. Jeremiah, for the most part, resided with Gedaliah, and yet no warning appears to have been given him of the catastrophe. How was this? Had it not as profound a bearing on the future of God’s people as the march of Nebuchadnezzar’s armies? It is a great mystery, and there are many like it. How appalling the wickedness of our Saviour’s crucifixion.! Yet are the fruits of it a world’s salvation. 2. The dictates of common sense and worldly experience, had they been attended to, might have proved sufficient. God’s interpositions are not always to wait upon human folly. It is our duty to make the best of the means and information at our disposal This is especially incumbent with regard to the warnings and instructions of the gospel. The rich man, eager for an evangel from Hades to his careless, sinful brethren, is assured, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead" (Luke 16:31). We may wait long if we expect to be converted by a miracle. The commandment is binding now: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 40:2, Jeremiah 40:3 The blind seeing, the seeing blind. This heathen captain, who could not be expected to know the truth, who was, as it were, born blind as to the truth of God, sees clearly that truth, and declares it; whilst the people of Judah and Jerusalem, their kings, their priests, their nobles, all of whom regarded themselves as knowing the truth, who, as in John 9:41, said, "We see," are found to be completely blind as to that truth. Note herein - I. HOW CLEAR WAS THE OF GOD. He ascribes all to "the Lord thy God." He recognizes the prophet as sent of God (John 9:3), "According as he hath said" He traces their calamities to their true cause—sin against God. He recognizes that Babylon and her troops are but ministers of God to do his will. II. THE SOURCES OF HIS . Perhaps: 1. The general belief that each nation had its own deity. 2. Yet more, the prophecies of Jeremiah. 3. Also the strength of Jerusalem. Never, apart from the people’s sin, has such a fortress been overthrown. 4. The madness of the people. Quem deus vult perdere prius dementat. Only a God forsaken people could have thrown away their well being as these had done. 5. The judgments that came upon them. III. WHAT SUCH FACTS AS THESE—the blind seeing, etc.—REVEAL. 1. How clear the light of truth which God has given! Were it not so clear, such as this heathen would not see it. 2. How dense the darkness which persistent sin spreads over the soul! Hence the "seeing blind." 3. How awful the doom of those who seeing, see not! Cf. Matthew 11:1-30; "Woe unto thee, Chorazin," etc.!—C. Jeremiah 40:4, Jeremiah 40:5 A strait betwixt two. St. Paul tells how he was in such strait. He was willing to stay, but ready to depart home to his eternal rest, which would be far better. And oftentimes we are in perplexities as to choice in the common events and circumstances of our lives. It is so difficult to see what we ought to do, what it would be best to do. Here we have an instance. The patriotic prophet had a perplexing choice put before him. Consider— I. THE . 1. He might go to Babylon, where, no doubt, the same favour that had shown him such consideration thus far would bring him to honour there. 2. He might stay amongst his own people. Amid their poverty, their displeasure, their disgrace. 3. Or he might go anywhere he pleased—to Tarshish, as Jonah tried, if so he pleased. II. THE FOR AND AGAINST EACH. 1. For Babylon. Safety, wealth, honour, help to his countrymen there. 2. For staying in Israel. There he had been called; there he was yet needed; Ezekiel and Daniel were in Babylon. Against this, he had no command of God; the peril in which he would be placed. III. THE . He resolved to stay. This come to, not because the captain (verse 5), who saw him lingering, bade him go back, but because the hardness of the duty seemed to declare it was his duty. In such cases choose what you like least.—C. That we may be godly and quietly governed. These verses are an illustration of men’s desire for such government. In the disorder and confusion of the times, men were looking out for some settled rule. Companies of armed men were camping about, only waiting for some sign to indicate to whose standard they should repair. That which they wanted seemed to be found in Gedaliah. Hence they go to him (Jeremiah 40:8). The incident here recorded suggests, in regard to government generally— I. THE COMMON CONSENT OF MEN AS TO ITS . It was not merely one company of the scattered Jews that were on the look out for a leader, but all the companies, and not the men only, but their officers also. And in every collection of human beings, however they group themselves, however casually they may have been thrown together, if they have to dwell and to work together the choosing of a leader, one who shall rule them, is a never disregarded need. II. THE ON WHICH THIS CONSENT RESTS. They are such as these: 1. There can be no well being—strength, peace, happiness—without order. 2. No order without law. 3. No law without a lawgiver, and a law upholder, i.e. a government. It may be monarchical, an oligarchy, a republic, a democracy, only in some way law must be expressed and upheld. Because men feel that this last is necessary to the first, men will ever seek after government, good, if possible, but any is felt to be better than none. Anarchy is so much misery. Thus do men reason in regard to their temporal affairs. III. THE WHICH MEN MAKE TO THIS CONSENT. It is strange that there should be exception, but there is. We find it when we look at men’s spiritual affairs. Government there is as necessary as in that which is temporal—indeed, far more so, considering the far greater value of the interests at stake. And yet men will not have it. Each seeks to do that which is right in his own eyes. What would be ruin in regard to their secular affairs they deem to be no great harm in things that are spiritual. We see this anarchy at times in the things of the Church. If the Church of Christ is to do her work and glorify her Lord, there must be unity, cohesion, subordination, obedience. But these words, and yet more the things they represent, are hateful to not a few. And so the paralysis that has come over large sections of the Church. The prince of this world knows the force and value of the maxim, Divide et impera, and he has sought all too successfully to do the one that he may attain to the other. And so in the individual sphere of the soul. The one rightful ruler is God, speaking by his vicegerent conscience. All our sin and misery is owing to our disregard of this rule. The world is so mournful a world because it is so sinful a world. Loyal obedience is our life and health and peace. And because we refuse this, we are weak and sad, as well as sinful. IV. THE DIVINE METHODS OF THIS TO AN END. For he will bring it to an end, glory be to his Name. He must reign till he hath put all things under his feet. And he thus works to this end: 1. By powerful instructors. Conscience. His providence, shown now in blessing, now in stern judgment. His Word, in which his law is laid down. 2. By bringing to bear the most mighty of motives. Love, which rises at the cross of Christ. Hope of his acceptance and reward. Fear of his awful displeasure and doom. 3. By his Spirit striving ever with men. - C. Jeremiah 40:13 Jeremiah 41:11 Misplaced charity. "Charity" says St. Paul," thinketh no evil." But without question, there are times when it ought to think evil, and not to think so is evil. For else charity will be misplaced, thrown away, productive of hurt and harm and not of good. Now— I. THERE HAVE BEEN AND ARE MANY OF SUCH CHARITY. 1. The miserable way by which Gedallah came by his death, as told in the above section, is an illustration. He ought to have been on his guard. He was warned. He would not believe, but blamed severely the friend who warned him. And all because of his overconfidence in Ishmael, who murdered him. 2. And there have been many other such instances. Perhaps the king who said, concerning the wicked husbandmen, "They will reverence my son." And Paul, who, though warned again and again, would go to Jerusalem. He thought that the loving gifts he bore from the Gentile Churches to the mother Church in Jerusalem would soften their hard hearts. But it was not so. The elder son—though he was quite wrong—thought that his father’s treatment of his prodigal younger brother was as unwise as it was kind. We have known those who would never let themselves speak anything but good of others, and the result was that they often misled those who trusted to their over lenient judgments. How often, after the most atrocious crimes, there will be found some who would try to prevent the criminal receiving the due reward of his deeds! What is it but charity in the wrong place? 3. But most of all are we guilty of this toward ourselves. We so little like to think harshly of ourselves, and hence we make all manner of excuse for our faults. We tamper with temptation; we spare ourselves when we ought to be most stern. II. AND MUCH SORROW AND TROUBLE ARISE . Cf. above history; the massacres that followed; the ruin of the nation. Never did a seeming virtue work such ill. Charity to the evil is cruelty to the good. Choosing Barabbas means crucifying Christ. It discourages all virtue. Wherefore should I strive after excellence it the worthless are to be dealt with even as I? This was the elder son’s complaint (Luke 15:1-32.). And there seemed to be a good deal in it; hence the father took care to point out to him how much preferable was his own lot: "Son, thou art ever with me," etc. Thy lot is ever so much the best, as the lot of him who never leaves the father’s house is far better than that of him who comes back after a wretched leaving of it for the far country. But most of all the evil results are seen in our misplaced charity to ourselves. Temptation tampered with triumphs, and we who would not be stern with ourselves perish. Hiding from ourselves the truth as to our real condition, we never g¢ to him who alone can make us what we need to be, and so souls are lost. III. HOW THE EXAMPLE AND OF OUR LORD ON THIS SUBJECT. Full of charity as he was, tender and gentle as a mother to the weak and sinful, to the poor outcasts who came to him, yet he was never guilty of any spurious charity. He did not, nor does he, warm vipers in his bosom who should sting him at the last. Cf. John 2:1-25. at end, "Jesus did not commit himself unto them." "But"—so the Gospel goes on; the word is unfortunately rendered "and" in our Authorized Version "there was a man of the Pharisees," etc. (John 3:1). 1. It means that our Lord did commit himself to this man—as we see he did—since he was very different from those whom our Lord could not and would not trust. His treatment of Judas was no exception to his rule. He knew him from the beginning. Nor is his treatment of ourselves, poor, sad recompense as we make him. He has taken us in hand, and he will not put us out of his hand until he has wrought in us all that he designs, he exemplified his own word about being, whilst harmless as doves, wise as serpents also. He says (Matthew 7:1), "Judge not." But almost the next verse bids us not cast pearls before swine! The intent is that, whilst we should not be censorious, we are not to be blind fools, who will imagine in their false charity that pearls will be appreciated by pigs. Charity is to think evil when evil is palpably there. IV. WHAT LEADS TO THIS ERROR. Cf. the history. 1. Perhaps Gedaliah’s conscious integrity; his freedom from all intent of evil. 2. Or over elation at the loyalty and trust that were being displayed on all sides. 3. The accused man had himself (John 2:8) come to Gedaliah. 4. Or dislike to Johanan and his proposals. 5. Or reliance on his own capacity of taking all due care. And when we are wrongly charitable to what is evil, our motives are akin to these. We intend no evil; that which is said to be evil has wrought no harm in others. We intend to be on our guard and deem ourselves to be quite able to take care of ourselves. We dislike the safeguards proposed. We do not believe in the peril against which we are warned. We are disposed to think well of and to like the evil. V. OUR . 1. Seek the knowledge of man. 2. Seek the Spirit of Christ.—C. BY D. YOUNG Jeremiah 40:2-6 Jeremiah a free agent. We have here an expansion of verses 13 and 14 of the previous chapter. I. ONE OF THE BEST THINGS A MAN CAN HAVE IS FULL LIBERTY. The royal master of the captain of the guard was anxious to do the best he could for the prophet; and he seems to have understood fully that only the prophet could decide on this best. The captain of the guard, in all he says, is but the mouthpiece of the king. Very likely the captain, if he had been left to decide, would have said, "What better thing can happen to this man than go to Babylon with me?" and so, meaning well enough, he might have done ill. Good intentions are not enough in providing for others. We go rather by our notion of what they want than by what they really want; and thus we are disappointed in our efforts. There never can be anything wrong in giving a man the largest scope to settle his path for himself. We may easily become cramped as a result of the ignorant kindness of others. II. THERE WAS AN FOR . For a long time he had been in prison, and all he had to do was to endure captivity in a patient, trustful way. But now comes liberty, and in his case a peculiar responsibility. Few men, perhaps not even a single one, had the liberty enjoyed by him at this moment. Others had not been asked whether they would go to Babylon or stay. The conquerors settled all that. But Jeremiah has free choice, and he has to decide in very altered conditions of the land. Freedom brings human judgment into full strength and exercise. III. WAS SURE TO DECIDE RIGHTLY. Why? Because the first thing he would look to was the will of Jehovah. What lesson had he been learning all through his prophetic life but this, that negligence of the will of Jehovah brought incalculable mischief? Here is the necessity for us to keep in a state of discernment with respect to the will of God. As a general rule, we do not need special intimations of the Divine will; right is seen to be right and wrong to be wrong. But there are also times when, as we need such special intimations, they are sure to be given.—Y. The difficulties of a governor. To govern a country is never an easy task; but how difficult it must be when the work is that of reconstruction! Gedaliah has to begin, as it were, at the beginning. One of his first difficulties is to know exactly what he has to deal with. There are turbulent as well as peaceful dements, bands of free-lances, who, now that the Chaldean has gone, make their appearance before the governor to see what the prospect may be. Another difficulty is that of inspiring confidence. Those who have just been plundered may be excused for apprehensions lest they should soon be plundered again. On the other hand, Gedaliah was better off than the king who had just been dethroned. The latter vainly held on to a tottering building, whose very foundations were going, while the former was free from the pernicious elements which so long had made all government in the land an abomination. With all his difficulties, Gedaliah had some encouragements. There appears to have been a general gathering to him as a centre. Most men generally tend to the point where there are the greatest prospects of social order, security, and stability.—Y. Jeremiah 40:16 Trusting a traitor. I. IN SPITE OF . Gedaliah was told that Ishmael meditated his death. Told, not by one man, but by all who had opportunity of knowing the traitor’s designs. Was it, then, blameworthy in him to neglect the information? We cannot tell. It may have been that he knew of jealousies which made him think that the rest of the captains were slandering Ishmael. Slanderers, be it remembered, are quite as numerous as traitors. The fault of Gedaliah, if fault it was, was that of a generous heart. It is one of the weapons of a traitor to put on the semblance of a true man. Then probably Gedaliah was further influenced by the proposition to kill Ishmael. If the informers had merely urged him to guard himself, they might have been better attended to. But those were days when, if people wanted to get rid of a troublesome man, they had little scruple in taking the most effectual way. II. AN OF RASH . Gedaliah in one breath judged the traitor to be a true man and the speaker of truth to be a slanderer. In this world of uncertainties there is no need to refuse any accusation. Only let the accusation be accompanied with evidence. Trumped up evidence soon shows its faults and contradictions. If Gedaliah had bid Ishmael meet the accusation, he might have prevented the serious migration spoken of at the end of the next chapter, he had to take care of himself not only for his own sake, but as the representative of Babylon.—Y. Jeremiah 41:1-10 Assassination of Gedaliah and other Jews. Jeremiah 41:1 In the seventh month; i.e. two months after the destruction of Jerusalem and the appointment of Gedaliah. It seems strange, however, that the occurrences related in Jeremiah 40:1-16; Jeremiah 41:1-18. should have taken so short a time. Gratz calls in question the accuracy of the chronological statement. He quotes Ezekiel 33:24-29, which shows that at least six months (according to his calculation) after the fall of Jerusalem Jewish fugitives still lingered on, and hoped to obtain possession of their fatherland, and points out that time was necessary for Gedaliah to erect a temple at Mizpah (see on Ezekiel 33:5), for cities to arise out of their ruins, and for cultivation of the soil to be resumed (Jeremiah 40:10). ‹je-3› Besides, according to Jeremiah 52:30, a third deportation of Jews is mentioned. How can this be accounted for, if, only two months after the fall of Jerusalem, the remnant of the Jewish population emigrated under Johanan ben Kareah to Egypt? Gratz shows reason for thinking that this last deportation stands in close connection with Gedaliah’s death, and that consequently the interval between this latter event and the fall of Jerusalem lasted, not two months, but five years. The son of Elishama. Perhaps the Elishama men. tioned in Jeremiah 36:12 as a secretary of state; or perhaps a son of David of that name (see 2 Samuel 5:18; 1 Chronicles 3:8; 1 Chronicles 14:7; "son" being taken here in a wider sense). And the princes of the king; rather, and (one of) the princes of the king. Even ten men; rather, and ten men. Elevon determined bravoes overpower a crowd of unprepared men. Did eat bread together. Gedaliah, then, had invited them to a friendly banquet. Jeremiah 41:2 Smote Gedaliah. The day of the murder of Gedaliah (the third day of the seventh month) was kept as a fast day by the post-Captivity Jews (see Zechariah 7:5; Zechariah 8:19). It was the day on which the hope of living a separate life in the promised land, for a time at least, vanished; and the murder was avenged by a new captivity (see above). Jeremiah 41:3 The Chaldeans. Gedaliah’s Chaldean bodyguard. And the men of war; rather, even the men of war. Jewish as well as Chaldean warriors are meant; the non-military Jews, including the prophet, were carried away captive (see Jeremiah 41:10,Jeremiah 41:16). Jeremiah 41:4-7 The news of the deed of violence had not yet been spread, and Ishmael seized the opportunity of imbruing his hands in fresh blood. He could have had no personal motive; but his employer, Baalis, desired that "the remnant in Judah might perish" (Jeremiah 40:15). Jeremiah 41:5 There came certain from Shechem, etc. A number of pious pilgrims, descend. ants of the old ten tribes, passed by on their way to the holy site of the temple at Jerusalem (?). From Shiloh. The Vatican Codex of the Septuagint has a plausible reading, "from Salem," which is apparently supported by Genesis 33:18, "And Jacob cares to Shalem, a city of Shechem," and by its improvement thus introduced into the geographical order (Shiloh is, in fact, nearer to Mizpah than Shechem, and ought to be mentioned first). But though there is now a village called Salim, to the east of Nablus (Shechem), we have no sufficient ground for assuming a city of that name in the Old Testament, The rendering of Genesis, i.e. needs correction ("came in peace to the city," etc.) Their beards shaven, etc. They had, then, all the outward signs of mourning (for the public calamities); comp, Jeremiah 16:6; Jeremiah 48:37. To bring them to the house of the Lord. Yet the temple at Jerusalem was destroyed. Hence Thenius and Gratz have conjectured that Gedaliah had erected a provisional temple at Mizpah, which was already hallowed by its association with the Prophet Samuel. This is confirmed by 1 Macc. 3:46, where it is said of the pious Jews in the Maccabean rising, that they "assembled themselves … and came to Maspha, over against Jerusalem; for in Maspha was the place where they prayed aforetime in Israel." Jeremiah 41:6 Weeping all along as he went. To testify his sympathy with their grief. But the reading of the Septuagint is more natural, "As they were going along and weeping." Jeremiah 41:7 The pit (see on Jeremiah 41:9). Jeremiah 41:8 Slay us not, etc. Bishop Callaway refers to this passage in his ’Zulu Nursery Tales’ (1.242), in illustration of a Zulu form of deprecating death on the ground of having some important work in hand which absolutely requires the life of the person in danger. But the "ten men" do not, as the bishop supposes, beg their lives on the ground that they had not yet harvested, but rather offer a bribe. We have treasures (literally, hidden things) in the field. The allusion is to the "wells or cisterns for grain," in which "the farmers store their crops of all kinds after the grain is threshed and winnowed. These cisterns are cool, perfectly dry, and tight. The top is hermetically sealed with plaster, and covered with a deep bed of earth; and thus they keep out rats, mice, and even ants, the latter by no means a contemptible enemy ….These ten men had doubtless thus hid their treasures to avoid being plundered in that time of utter lawlessness". Honey. Probably that obtained from wild bees. Jeremiah 41:9 Now the pit … which Arm the king had made, etc. Nothing is said of this "pit" in the historical books, but only (1 Kings 15:22 = 2 Chronicles 16:6) that Asa used the material with which Baasha had fortified Ramah to build Geba and Mizpah. It would seem that this "pit" formed part of Asa’s defensive works; probably it was a cistern to supply the town with water during the siege. Because of Gedaliah; was it. The rendering "because of" must be abandoned. The Septuagint has, in this part of the verse, the very natural words, "was a great pit," and this reading is adopted by Movers, Hitzig, and Graft. Jeremiah 41:10 The king’s daughters; rather, the royal princesses (see on Jeremiah 36:26). Jeremiah 41:11-18 Rescue of the captives from Ishmael, and plan for taking flight to Egypt. Jeremiah 41:12 The great waters.; in Gibeon; i.e. the pool mentioned in 2 Samuel 2:13. Dr. Thomson speaks of a "pond or small lake" near El-Jib. Ishmael seems to be lingering over his journey to Ammon, in order to find the subterranean stores spoken of in 2 Samuel 2:8. Jeremiah 41:14 Cast about; i.e. turned about (an archaism). Jeremiah 41:17 And dwelt in the habitation of Chimham. Chimham was the son of the rich Gileadite Barzillai (2 Samuel 19:37-40), who probably founded this "habitation" or rather "hospice" ("khan," "caravanserai"), for the accommodation of travellers—a characteristic mark of public-spirited liberality. Josephus and Aquila, however, appear to have read "by the hurdles of Chimham"—a very possible name for a locality in such a pastoral country. Jeremiah 41:18 Because of the Chaldeans. They were afraid of being held responsible for the crime of Ishmael. And they had good reason for their alarm, as the Chaldeans would naturally look upon Ishmael as the representative of the Davidic dynasty, and the heir of that dynasty’s claims to the loyalty of the Jews. Jeremiah 41:1-3 The assassination of Gedaliah. I. HIGH BRINGS GREAT DANGER. Kings are little to be envied. The world sees their state and majesty. It does not see the apprehensions which would make some of them willingly exchange places with the humblest peasant. Nevertheless, it is as cowardly and selfish to refuse to occupy a high position when duty calls to it as it is to fail in fulfilling one’s mission in any of the lower walks of life. II. A GOOD MAN WILL PREFER TO SUFFER DEATH RATHER THAN TO DEFEND HIMSELF BY MEANS. Gedaliah had been warned of his danger, but he had refused to accept the warning (Jeremiah 40:13-16). It is better for one’s character, if not for one’s earthly fate, to be over generous than to be over suspicious. Though we may think Gedaliah wanting in discernment, we must commend his justice in refusing to consent to the assassination of Ishmael. When we are in doubt about the guilt of any one, it is our plain duty to give him the benefit of that doubt. In no case have we a right to defend ourselves against a future wrong by anticipating the blow with an act of unlawful violence. III. CRIMES ARE THE CRIMES. Much vagueness exists as to the character of these crimes. If the assassin is successful, the world condones his offence, while, if he fails, his memory is execrated and he is condemned as a murderer. Many political acts are viewed as crimes by one party and as heroic deeds by another. But the moral character of a deed is not determined by such accidents as these. If it be really a crime, an offence against the eternal laws of right, its relation to public and national affairs aggravates its wickedness, inasmuch as it immensely enlarges the arena of its mischievous results (Jeremiah 41:3). IV. PUBLIC IS NO EXCUSE FOR CRIMES. Ishmael might have contended that he was a patriot helping his people to throw off the yoke of Babylon. If he were acting that noble part, his method of carrying it out would still have been odious and unpardonable. Patriotism is no excuse for private treachery. Moreover, public interest is never truly advanced by crime. Ishmael’s crime resulted in serious trouble to the Jews. It destroyed the hope of a quiet life in the land of Israel for the returned fugitives and the poor remnant of the nation. It probably led to a third deportation of exiles to Babylon. Jeremiah 41:4-8 The slaughter of the pilgrims. I. A CRIME. Of course no crime is necessary, but some crimes have their plausible excuses. This had none. Ishmael had tasted blood, and murderous passions urge him to wanton violence. His only object in slaughtering quiet, inoffensive pilgrims must have been to please his master by the further depopulation of the land. So great a crime with so poor a motive evidences bloodthirsty tyranny. The worst crime is crime held cheap till it is pursued for no reason. All wickedness makes future wickedness more tempting. Done at first for some ulterior object, it becomes at length a passion and a delight in itself. This is the very devilry of crime. II. A CRIME. Ishmael led the pilgrims to trust themselves in his hands, and then abused the sacred relations of hospitality. Such an act shows as much meanness as villainy. But all wickedness is essentially false, degrading, treacherous. III. A CRIME. These men were pilgrims of religion, bearing incense in their hands. To us it may seem no more wicked to murder a pilgrim than to murder an innocent man. In itself the acts are equally wicked. But guilt depends on the criminal’s idea of his crime, as well as on the inherent character of the act. Now, wherever sacred places are venerated and visited by pilgrims, the pilgrimage is regarded as a sacred work, a religious service. To slay a pilgrim is, therefore, held as a distinct insult to the service of God. This must have been the way in which Ishmael’s act would have been regarded, and he must have known it, Therefore, judging him by the ideas and manners of the time, as it is only fair to judge him, we must acknowledge that he was guilty of a wilful affront against the religion of his nation. In all sin we sin against Heaven as well as against man. In some offences the offence to Heaven is more palpable than in others. Then the sin is the more horrible in its guilt on the conscience of the criminal. IV. A COLD-BLOODED CRIME. The thing was done deliberately. The richer pilgrims were allowed to buy their lives for a ransom. The ten men who had treasure in the field purchased their escape (Jeremiah 41:8). The rest, poorer men, were slain. Such a transaction reveals the cool calculator as well as the hardened murderer. The passionate man is responsible for the evil done in his rage, because he ought to restrain himself; but the calmer man, who can and does restrain himself in certain respects with regard to his own interest, is far more guilty for the wickedness he commits in clear self-possession. BY S. CONWAY Devils incarnate. 1. If ever there was such a one, this Ishmael was of whom these verses tell. His atrocities remind us of the Indian Mutiny, its leader, and the well at Cawnpore (cf. Jeremiah 41:9). Treachery, ingratitude, murder, massacre, greed, cowardice,—all are gathered in this detestable character (cf. Mr. Grove’s article "Ishmael," Smith’s ’Dictionary of the Bible’). 2. And such men are permitted to be. So clearly seen is this, that every drama has its villain; they are recognized as having definite place and function in this poor life of ours. History is full of them. But for them one might almost say there would be no history. 3. Can we explain this permission? Wherefore are such men created and preserved? It is a part of the great question of moral evil, for the full solution of which we must wait. Like as was said to a lad of one of our public schools, who had heard his master say in a sermon in the school chapel that in mathematics there were lines in the same plane ever converging but which never met. The lad heard this, and as he knew something of mathematics himself, he believed and said to a senior in the school that the master was wrong. The senior defended the master, and told the lad of the lines that mathematicians call asymptotes. "But explain," said the astonished lad. "No, I can’t," said the other. "You must wait till you get there." The lad had not read on so far in the science as that, and hence there was nothing for it but to believe that, though it was at present incomprehensible to him how such lines as those spoken of could be, nevertheless, when he had read on further, he would see it clearly enough. And so we have to hear and see things which, to fully reconcile with the existence and superintendence of an all-loving and all-powerful God, is beyond our power, and there is nothing for it but that we must "wait till we get there"—there where the reading of these problems will be ready and clear. But the existence of such men as this Ishmael is but one out of the many terrible facts in God’s providence, such as plague, famine, earthquake, etc. In regard to such men, we can see some purposes that they subserve. I. They make evident the hideous capacities of evil which are in our nature, and the need, therefore, for God’s restraining grace. II. They are warnings to increased watchfulness on the part of those in whom the tendencies to like evil exist. III. They are God’s scourges for men’s sin (cf. Attila, the Scourge of God). IV. They weld together the people they oppress in one common league against them, and thus out of scattered tribes a nation is formed. V. They clear out much that is evil (cf. French Revolution; Napoleon). But sometimes, as here, we cannot see what good they do; and then we can only wait. Conclusion. But we can get above these and all such affiictors of our lives. The fear of God will lift us up above their power. "Fear him, ye saints, and you will then Have nothing else to fear." On the wings of the fear and love of God let us mount up; and like as the little birds escape the hawk by keeping above it, so shall we escape all fear of fiercest human evils if we are upborne by the fear and love of God.—C. Sin hindered by sin. "So he forbare," etc. This was a case of bloodthirsty cruelty versus greed. Ishmael would have killed these men but for his greed of the wealth they had. It is satisfactory to think he never gained possession of it. Nevertheless, his greed made him guilty of one sin less. This story suggests that— I. GOD HAS MANY WAYS OF SIN. There is: 1. The best way of all. By granting a true repentance and his Holy Spirit, creating the clean heart and renewing the right spirit. 2. But there are other ways. By keeping the opportunity and the will apart. How much of our freedom from sin do we owe to this blessed providential severance! By fear of present evil consequences of our sin. 3. And sometimes, as here, by one sin getting in the way of another. Thus pride holds back not a few; not love of God, gratitude to Christ, love of holiness, but pride. And coveteousness checks the sinner in many sins he would be guilty of but for this. Anger, breaking up the alliances of transgressors; as when, in the days of Jehoshaphat, the Ammonites who were coming against him fell out one with the other (2 Chronicles 20:22). The old saying is, "When thieves fall Out, honest men come by their rights." Sensual self-indulgence. The vilest Romans emperors were those who least persecuted the Church—Tiberius, Commodus, etc. They were too absorbed in their own indulgences to trouble about the Christians. II. BUT THESE OTHER WAYS LEAVE MEN AS GREAT SINNERS AS BEFORE. The question is not as to your freedom from transgression so much, but—What kept you free? Only the first and best way is accepted of God. III. , LET US BE THAT SIN IS SELF- IN ITS VERY NATURE. It is a blessed anarchy, for it protects many who would otherwise suffer. IV. BUT FOR LET US SEEK THAT SIN MAY BE BY CHRIST.—C. Jeremiah 41:11-15 The devil a bad paymaster. These verses record the pursuit and overthrow of Ishmael. He had sold himself to work all manner of wickedness. What had he not been guilty of? And now we hear the last of him. He is seen in flight to Ammon, whence he came out, escaping with his life, but stripped of all his captives and his plunder. He had taken a world of trouble, incurred a load of guilt, filled his soul with evil, dishonoured his name forever. And this was what came of it all. Every one of his purposes, plans, hopes, all his toil and villainy, all his apparent success, utterly lost and gone. He is one out of many more proofs of the miserable wages of sin. Now— I. IT IS EVER SO. Men may go on in sin for a long time, and be undisturbed save by conscience; may find their sin very pleasant and very gainful, and they may seem to escape with utter impunity; but the visitation of God comes upon them, sometimes here in this life, certainly, if not here, hereafter. The Bible history, the world, are full of proofs of this. II. BUT MEN CANNOT BE GOT TO BELIEVE THIS. Else why do they persist in evil ways? III. WHY IS IT THAT THEY WILL NOT BELIEVE? They do not wish to believe. Sentence against evil work is not executed speedily, sometimes not at all here in this world in any visible way. IV. WHY, THEN, DOES NOT GOD DEAL WITH SIN? Because his purpose is to foster trust and love, neither of which could find place in a system of prompt and visible punishments such as some would desire. V. DOES GOD, THEN, DO NOTHING TO CHECK THE SINNER AND TO THE ? Yes; much. 1. He causes the way of transgressors to be hard. Loss of peace, of hope, of Divine favour, of purity, of strength, of sympathy with and from the good, often of present and visible good; conscience is deadened, and the soul perishes. Besides this, there are frequent direct judgments sent. 2. On the other hand, he orders that in keeping of his commandments there is great reward. "His ways are ways of pleasantness, and all his paths are peace." It is related how an aged couple in the vicinity of London, who in the early part of life were poor, but who by the blessing of God upon their industry enjoyed a comfortable independency in their old age, were called upon by a Christian minister, who solicited their contributions to a charity. The old lady was disposed to make out some excuse, and to answer in the negative, both for her husband and for herself, and therefore replied, "Why, sir, we have lost a deal by religion since we began; my husband knows that very well." And being wishful to obtain her husband’s consent to the assertion, she said, "Have we not, Thomas?" Thomas, after a long and solemn pause, replied, "Yes, Mary, we have lost a deal by our religion! I have lost a deal by my religion. Before I got religion, Mary, I had got a water pail in which I carried water; and that, you know, I lost many years ago. And then I had an old slouched hat, a patched old coat, and mended shoes and stockings; but I have lost them also long ago. And, Mary, you know that, poor as I was, I had a habit of getting drunk and quarrelling with you; and that, you know, I have lost. And then I had a burdened conscience and a wicked heart, and then I had ten thousand guilty feelings and fears; but all are lost, completely lost, and like a millstone east into the deep sea. Before we got religion, Mary; you had a washing tray, in which you washed for hire, and God Almighty blessed your industry; but since we got religion you have lost your washing tray. And you had a gown and bonnet much the worse for wear, though they were all you had to wear; but you have lost them long ago. And you had many an aching heart concerning me at times; but those you happily have lost. And I could even wish that you had lost as much as I have lost, and even more; for what we lose by our religion will be our eternal gain." We need not add that the preacher did not go away without substantial proof of the sincerity of what had been said in his hearing. And to all those who like the rich man in the parable (Luke 16:1-31.), who asked that one from the dead might be sent to warn his five brethren, the same answer may be given, "They have Moses and the prophets," and we may add, in our day, far more than these; "if they hear not them, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead."—C. Too near the edge. This is one of the reflections that come to us as we read of the place whither Johanan led his followers, and as we see the events that happened immediately after. This chapter is a record of disappointments. First the hopeful prospects of Gedaliah’s governorship, which seemed starting so fairly and happily for all, these are shattered and overthrown by the villainous conduct of Ishmael. Then it is a grievous disappointment that we do not hear of Ishmael’s death, only of his escape. That such a wretch should escape with his life seems a reflection upon that justice which generally follows on the track of wrong doers such as he was, and metes out to them their due. Escape seems too lenient a dealing with him. And now here is another disappointment that Johanan, instead of seeking to follow in Gedaiiah’s footsteps, should be for leading the people down into Egypt. At the caravanserai of Chimham, in Bethlehem—the natural halting place on the way to Egypt—Johanan held a council of war, and then, against the prophet’s advice, finally determined to abandon their homes, and to make for the refuge, to which the worldly Israelite always had recourse, across the Egyptian border." It was a bad place to halt at; it was too near that beguiling land, the witchery of which not a few of them had long been feeling and would now feel mere than ever. Whenever Israel went thither, it was always a "going down into Egypt." This was more true morally and spiritually than even geographically, to which the word "down," of course, refers. And the present was no exception. Looking at them there at Chimham, we note— I. THE THEY OFFER. Are they not like all those who tamper with temptation? They know, as Israel knew, that they are in a forbidden path, and yet they do not keep clear of it. Like moths fluttering around the flame, so men will dally with sin. They know that to yield would be both most wrong and ruinous, and yet they go close to the border. II. THE REASONS WHICH THEM. The Jews came to Chimham because their will had already consented to go further—on and down into Egypt. For like reasons men come to such places. There has been already the secret yielding of the will. There was no need of the Jews being at Chimham. It was not the way back from Gibeon. It was a deliberate going into temptation. So those who act like them have, as they, already consented in heart. And the causes of that consent are akin. They falsely feared what the Chaldeans might do, though there was no ground for such fear; and they falsely hoped for good—freedom from war and want—which they never realized. And such persons will ever magnify both the difficulties of the right path and. the looked-for pleasures and advantages of the wrong. Thus would they persuade themselves that the right is wrong and the wrong is right. III. THE WHEY SEEMED TO MAKE. The Jews did not yield all at once. They appeal to the prophet. They ask his prayers. They make repeated and loud—much too loud: "Methinks he doth protest too much"—professions. They wait patiently the prophet’s message. And yet all the while (verse 20) they were dissembling in their hearts, "regarding iniquity" there (cf. history of Balsam). They would have God on their side, not themselves on God’s side. All this is most melancholy matter of fact with those who, of their own accord, go too near the edge. IV. THE RESULTS THAT . Of course they went over the edge; such people always do. They showed the insincerity of their prayers by their anger when they were denied (cf. Jeremiah 43:2, etc.). They escaped none of the evil they dreaded; they gained none of the good they expected. "So disastrous did this step appear to the next and to all subsequent generations of Israel, that the day of Gedaliah’s murder, which led to it, has been from that time forth and to this day observed as a national fast. It seemed to be the final revocation of the advantages of the Exodus. By this breach in their local continuity a chasm was made in the history, which for good or evil was never filled up." Yes; they who will go so near temptation will go into it, and be borne down by it to their sore hurt and harm. V. THE REMEDY . Jeremiah urged them to return to their own land and stay there (Jeremiah 42:8, etc.), promising them the blessing of God if they obeyed, and threatening his sore anger if they did not. This counsel ever wise. Get away from the border land back into safety. Think of what will follow on your conduct—the blessing or the curse. "Stay not in all the plain, but escape for thy life." As "the angels hastened Lot," so would we hasten all those who have foolishly and wrongly chosen to go too near temptation’s edge.—C. BY D. YOUNG Jeremiah 41:1-18 A great crime and its consequence. I. A GREAT CRIME. The slaying of Gedaliah was accompanied by circumstances making it peculiarly atrocious. 1. The breach of good fellowship. There had been professions of amity before. Gedaliah shows by deed his confidence in Ishmael, sitting down with him at a common meal. 2. The subsequent slaughter. The slaying of Gedaliah was not enough to serve the purpose. A man, once entered on the ways of crime, cannot say, "So far I will go, and no further." Ishmael had to go on killing to secure his own safety and mastery. II. THE . The chief consequence was the departure to a point nearer to Egypt, to escape if possible the vengeance of the Chaldeans. One man sins and other people suffer. The great lesson is to stop crime in its beginnings. Ishmael gained none of the ends he seems to have had in view, and was this much the worse, that he had deep stains of murder on him.—Y. Jeremiah receives a request to inquire of God concerning the proposed emigration, and a "word of the Lord" follows. Jeremiah 42:1 Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah. For "Jezaniah," the Septuagint has "Azariah," the name given in the Hebrew text of Jer 43:2. Jeremiah 42:2 Said unto Jeromiah the prophet. Jeremiah, we have been already told, was one of the refugees at Mizpah (Jeremiah 40:6), and consequently was forced into the train of Ishmael (Jeremiah 41:16). Pray for us. This petition has been accused of hypocrisy, but the prophecy of Jeremiah assumes throughout that it was made in earnest. The "captains" never supposed it possible that Jeremiah could direct them to stay in Judah; the only question with them was as to the best direction for flight. Jeremiah 42:5 A true and faithful witness between us; rather, against us. If they broke their promise, Jehovah was to "witness against" them by punishing them. Jeremiah 42:7 After ten days. Why this delay? Keil thinks it was for the sake of the people, who needed time to collect themselves and listen calmly to the revelation. Ezekiel once waited seven days (Ezekiel 3:16); but this was owing to his own disturbed state of mind. The answer of the Lord extends to verse 18, the last four verses being an epilogue enforcing the Divine declaration. It consists of the promise (verses 9-12) that, if the people will remain quietly in the land, they will be protected; and of the threat (verses 13-18) that, if they presume to migrate into Egypt, they will perish there by sword, famine, and pestilence. Jeremiah 42:10 Build you, and not pull you down, etc. Some of Jeremiah’s favourite phrases (see on Jeremiah 24:6). I repent me. And yet in 1 Samuel 15:29 we read that "Israel’s Trust … is not a man that he should repent." The key to the discrepancy may be found in Psalms 18:25, Psalms 18:26, "With the pious thou showest thyself pious … and with the froward thou showest thyself froward." There is no change in the nature or purpose of God, but only in his conduct towards man. The term "repent" is, therefore, only used analogically. Jeremiah 42:12 I will show mercies unto you; rather, I will procure you mercy. And cause you to return to. As if the journey to Bethlehem were a virtual Exodus, But it is far more natural to read the consonants of the text in a slightly different manner, rendering, "and cause you to dwell in." So the Syriac, the Vulgate, and Aquila. Jeremiah 42:15 And now therefore. Omit "and;" the vau simply marks the apodosis of the two previous verses. Jeremiah 42:16 The sword, which ye feared; rather, which ye fear. The calamities mentioned were precisely these of which the Jews were apprehensive in their own country. So afterwards, "whereof ye are afraid." Shall overtake you there. For a further explanation, see Jeremiah 43:8-13. Jeremiah 42:20 For ye dissembled in your hearts; rather, for ye have gone astray (from the right path) at the risk of your lives; or, another possible rendering, for ye hate led yourselves astray. Hypocrisy is certainly not the accusation which Jeremiah brings against the people. Jeremiah 42:1-6 Taking counsel with God. I. TROUBLE DRIVES MEN TO PRAYER. In their trouble "all the people, from the least even unto the greatest," sought help from God through the prayers of Jeremiah. In deep distress there are common wants of humanity, which touch alike the prince and the peasant. Then one common cry will burst from all lips to the God of all flesh. The beggar and the king in their agony utter the same moan, "My God!" There was but "a remnant" of the Jews left in the land. All these united to seek counsel of God. United prayer is prevailing prayer. If we are few, the more reason we should be united, and the more reason that each of us should come forward and do his part. If a congregation is small, it can the less afford that any one member should be prayerless or idle. II. IN WE SHOULD SEEK LIGHT FROM GOD. His Spirit is a Spirit of light. We have a right to expect guidance because we have Divine assurances of this (Psalms 32:8). God will guide us, however, through our own thinking, and not by audible voices, nor should we look for the direction in mystic inward impressions, the origin and character of which we cannot test. God has given us eyes, and he expects us to use them. His guidance is the purging of our vision, that we may see the better with our own organs of sight; the rectifying and strengthening of our intelligence and conscience, that we may use these as right instruments for discerning truth. III. MEN SHOULD PRAY FOR OTHERS. Every Christian has now the privilege of being a prophet (Joe 2:28) and a priest (Revelation 1:6). Every Christian, therefore, has the responsibility which accompanies his privilege, and is required to act as the intercessor for others. Are we not too selfish in our prayers? Nevertheless it must be remembered that men gain little good from the prayers of others unless they will also pray for themselves. The worst man is not left dependent on the intercession of good men. Through Christ he may approach the heavenly throne with his own cry for mercy. IV. IT IS THE DUTY OF THOSE WHO ARE TO GIVE PAINFUL AS WELL AS ADVICE. Jeremiah warned the people that he would "keep nothing back." The seeming kindliness that restrains the utterance of unpleasant but important home truths is really only a cloak for selfishness. The preacher must not shun to declare the whole counsel of God—the hard sayings of Scripture, the unpopular doctrines of Christianity, the unflattering truths of human nature. V. IF WE TAKE COUNSEL WITH GOD, WE MUST CONSENT TO OBEY HIM. Otherwise our prayer is a mockery; for God is not an Oracle, but an Authority. What he reveals is not merely hidden mystery, but obligations of duty. He guides us to his will. It is our place to follow the guidance and do what is thus not only declared, but commanded. Jeremiah 42:3 Divine guidance. I. THE NEED OF DIVINE . 1. It arises out of our obligation to do the will of God. We are not left to carve out a career for ourselves, but to fulfil a Divine vocation. With this definite end before us, our life must fail unless we are directly making for it. A harmless life, following its own whims and fancies, is a wasted life. But only God knows his own will. Therefore we need that he shall reveal this to us, to show us, not only the path of safety, but the way he wills us to go. The most clear sighted need this guidance. As servants, we wait for our Master’s orders; as soldiers, we are to follow our Captain’s commands. Without these, how can we do the one thing needful? 2. It arises out of our own ignorance and blindness. We do not know all the circumstances which surround us; we cannot predict the exigencies of the future; the ultimate issue of our actions is beyond our reckoning; the limits of our powers are not known to us; our future requirements and capacities cannot now be gauged. Yet we must decide and act at once in relation to all these unknown quantities. Therefore only a higher wisdom and a larger knowledge can secure us from fatal blunders. II. THE METHOD OF DIVINE . The Jews appealed to a prophet. We have no Jeremiah. Yet we have essentially the same means of guidance, now broken into two parts, for the higher education of our spiritual nature. 1. The revelation of God’s will and truth in Scripture. There we have God’s guidance in the words of the prophets, and in addition to that in the higher thought of the apostles of the New Testament and of Christianity. Above all, we have the great example, the speaking lessons, of the life and character of Christ, who is the "Light of the World." In all this we have larger, clearer views of God’s will and of man’s duty than were given to the Jews under the earlier dispensation. 2. The light of the Spirit of God in our mind and conscience. It may be urged that, while the instructions of the prophets for the guidance of Israel were definite and particular, the lessons which we may gather from revelation are general; and that, though the ideas of conduct thus communicated to us are higher and larger than those of the Jewish economy, they are nevertheless so abstract that we may make great mistakes in the practical application of them. This is true; and therefore, with the less particular revelation, God gives to us more light for the interpretation of it. We live under that dispensation of the Spirit wherein all Christians are, in a measure, prophets, and God’s Spirit is poured out upon all flesh (Acts 2:17). By God’s light in our souls, interpreting God’s revelation in Christ, we may know God’s will concerning our lives; and, no longer slaves to the letter of unintelligible precepts, we may carry out the broad principles of the spiritual life by a thoughtful and conscientious application of them to the details of daily life. III. THE USE OF DIVINE . God reveals the way; we must walk therein. The direction may be so clear that he who reads may run, yet he must run. The sign post is not a carriage to convey the indolent traveller to his journey’s end. God reveals his will; he leaves it to our free choice and effort to obey it. He does not guide us, like the horse or mule, with bit and bridle. We are not forced to follow the revelation, but we are bound in moral obligation to do so. The main object of the revelation of truth is to guide us in practice. God enlightens our darkness that we may gird up our loins and walk in his ways. Jeremiah 42:5, Jeremiah 42:6 Implicit obedience. The people swear to obey the voice of God before they know what injunctions it will lay upon them, They contemplate the possibility of receiving unpleasant commands; but they leave the decision in the hands of God, undertaking to follow it, whatever form it may take. Thus they bind themselves to implicit obedience. Let us consider the obligation and the limitation of implicit obedience. I. THE OF . This requires us to obey the voice of God when it calls us to do anything within the range of right and possibility; i.e. anything which a wise and good God would ever command. It implies a possible conflict with our inclination, our opinion, or our worldly interest. Otherwise the obedience becomes a mere form. If we only obey when we like to do the thing required, we are not really obeying a higher will, but simply following out our own will in accidental coincidence with the will above us. True obedience only begins when it leads us to do what Our own wisdom or desire would not have prompted. It must, therefore, be prepared to run counter to these private tendencies. It must be the submission of our will and opinion to God’s will and wisdom. Now, not only is this implicit obedience obligatory, but it is a certain fact that God will put it to the test. His higher will and larger wisdom must often conflict with our foolishness and self-will. Moreover, amid the trials of life, God will certainly sometimes require us to do what seems evil to us, i.e. what is painful and contrary to our wish. Therefore faith is essential to obedience. In so far as we can trust God, we shall be able to obey his darker counsels. II. THE OF . The highest obligation is to do right. If, therefore, we could be required by a supreme being to do what we knew was wrong, it would be our plain duty to disobey his will. The being who laid such a mandate upon us could not be God. He would be an almighty demon. Were such a monster to exist, it would be the duty of all creatures to resist him, though they became martyrs for their fidelity to righteousness. Our obligation to obey God rests on the fact that he is supremely good, and not merely on his infinite power and greatness. Let us suppose that we received a seemingly Divine mandate requiring what we felt to be wrong—what should we do? Three courses would then be open to us. We might believe that it emanated from a supreme being who was wicked, and should therefore be disobeyed; we might conclude that we were mistaken in supposing it to come from a supreme being—that we were suffering from a hallucination; or we might feel convinced that it was sent by the holy God, and that we were wrong in our impression of its unrighteous character. To Christians who believe in a perfectly good God, only the two latter alternatives could present themselves. But here the choice lies between the inward and the outward voice. If, then, the inward voice is clear and unmistakable, we are bound to give the preference to this. The outward voice claims to come from God; but so does the inward voice. If the two conflict, we must choose between them, and then we should feel that it is more likely we are suffering from a delusion in our external perceptions than that what we firmly believe in our conscience to be wrong is yet right. loyalty to God will lead us to obey God’s voice in the conscience above all things. At all events, so long as we believe—though even erroneously—that a thing is wrong to us, it is wrong, and no prophet’s or angel’s words should lead us to perform it without first convincing us that it is right. The answer to prayer delayed. I. THE FACT. Ten days elapsed before Jeremiah was able to give an answer to the people. When Christ was asked to give his aid at the wedding feast where the wine ran short, he refused to do anything immediately (John 2:4); and when summoned to the sick bed of Lazarus, "he abode at that time two days in the place where he was" (John 11:6). We must, therefore, expect that a similar delay may sometimes attend the answer of our prayers. Perhaps the interval will be much longer. We have cast our bread upon the waters, and it will not appear till after many days. We should learn, therefore, that prayer does not fail because the response is not immediate. Whatever be the delay, we may be sure that to a true prayer in Christ’s Name the right answer will come at the right time. God is not dilatory. He will never wait beyond the very best season for acting. II. THE CAUSE. Much of this is mysterious, and we must learn to accept the mysteries of Providence with faith in the unfailing love of God. But some grounds for the delay of God’s answers to our prayers may be discerned and should be considered to check our impatience. 1. There is a season foreverything. God will watch for the fitting opportunity, and send his blessing when it will be most profitable. 2. The fitness of God’s answer to prayer depends on our condition. There are things which would injure us as we are. God waits to be gracious, waits till we are in a fit state to receive his grace. 3. Some things given as the answer to prayer require time for development. At the beginning of Daniel’s prayer the angel was sent, but some time elapsed before the prophet received his message (Daniel 9:23). God may set in train the actions which are in answer to our prayer immediately the prayer is made, and we may only be waiting for that result which could not come quicker. 4. Meanwhile God tests our faith by delaying the answer to our prayer. The time is not lost. It is profitably spent in the trial and culture of our own souls. So it is with the greatest blessing of the heavenly reward and with many lesser good things; God withholds them for a time that we may learn to walk by faith. Jeremiah 42:9-12 The blessedness of patient endurance. In answer to the appeal of the people for guidance, Jeremiah has to tell them that good will attend them so long as they stay in their land, but curses if they flee to Egypt. Hardships crowd upon them at present, and dangers threaten for the future. But if they will but endure these patiently, God will save and prosper them. I. WHY THE PEOPLE WERE TO REMAIN IN THEIR LAND. 1. It was the will of God. When we know his will, if we know nothing more, that alone should be a final answer to all questions. Because he is our King we are bound to obey, and because he is our Father his will must be for our good. 2. It was the course of faith. Flight to Egypt was always regarded as a sign of distrust in God and reliance upon the arm of flesh. Repeatedly had the people been warned not to trust "upon the staff of this bruised reed, even upon Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh King of Egypt unto all that trust on him" (2 Kings 18:21). When Pharaoh takes the place of Jehovah, when any earthly judge is trusted rather than God, it will surely betray us. 3. It was a safeguard for purity. Egypt was a heathen power. An asylum in Egypt would bring temptations to immorality and unfaithfulness to the God of Israel. It is always unwise and wrong to run into temptation in order to escape from trouble. 4. It was a sign of contentment. It is happiest for a man to do his duty in that state of life into which it has pleased God to call him, though if God calls him out of one state to a more prosperous one, he may enjoy the greater comfort thus gained. II. WHAT WERE GIVEN TO THOSE WHO IN THEIR LAND. 1. Prosperity would be restored. The troubles of God’s people are transitory. Patient endurance will see the end of all of them. Then God will bring, not bare deliverance, but happiness and prosperity. The Jew looked for this in temporal concerns; the Christian expects it in eternal things. 2. The people would be delivered from danger. God would save them from the King of Babylon. And if this salvation was possible, shall we not believe that all other deliverances are possible, and rest calmly assured that to those who patiently and obediently submit to God no real harm can come? Nebuchadnezzar may triumph insolently; but God can cast him down to the level of the brutes. The lions may roar, but they are chained, or God wilt send an angel to shut their mouths. III. WHAT THE PEOPLE HAD THAT IT WOULD BE THUS WELL WITH THEM IF THEY IN THEIR LAND. 1. They were assured of the presence of God. "I am with you" (verse 11). If God is with us, we can dispense with the patronage of a Pharaoh, even though a Nebuchadnezzar is thundering at our gates. 2. They were assured of the active help of God. "I am with you—to save you." The very object of God’s presence is his people’s good. When present he does not only observe; he acts, saves, delivers. 3. They were assured of the continued mercy of God. "I will procure you mercy" (verse 12). 4. They were assured that God would overrule their enemy and convert him into their friend. Nebuchadnezzar should be made to have mercy upon the people. Thus what we most fear is led by God to work our good when we are obedient and submissive. Jeremiah 42:19 Contradictory requirements. The Jews were here required not to flee into Egypt. Joseph was warned by an angel in a dream to "arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt" (Matthew 2:13). The Scriptures represent both commands as coming from God. Yet they are contradictory. This is but one instance of a discrepancy often to be met with. Let us consider the meaning of it. I. DIVINE MAY BE AND YET IN . In general principle what is right once is right eternally; what is right for one man is right for all men; what is right in one place is right everywhere. The moral laws of God are eternal, immutable, universal. They are as true in Sirius as on the earth, to angels and to demons as to men. But the application of these principles necessarily varies. 1. The same act has a different character under different circumstances. Egypt was an imposing heathen power in the days of Jeremiah; it was but a Roman province in the time of our Lord. Flight to Egypt at the earlier time meant distrust in God and reliance on the arm of flesh; no such alternatives accompanied the decision of Joseph. Thus it often happens that consistency to principle will permit and require great variations of conduct according to the changing necessities and dangers of life. 2. The same act may have a different character with different persons. Identical general moral obligations apply to all of us equally. But men have different duties in the carrying out of those principles, according to their constitutional differences of capacity and disposition. One man can stand on the verge of a precipice without a tremor, another turns giddy as he approaches it. For the one to be there is harmless, but it is most dangerous for the other. The first man may do what is no risk to him, but the second will be foolish and wrong if he follow his example. So there are scenes which afford temptation to some temperaments and none to others. The duty to avoid them must vary with this variation of danger. 3. The same act may have a different character according as it is performed with a different motive. Flight may denote cowardice or prudent caution. Passive endurance may be determined by weakness and indolence, or it may result from submissive trustfulness. II. THE OUTWARD OF DIVINE WARNS US TO ACTIONS SOLELY BY THEIR INNER . 1. We should be careful not to condemn others because their behaviour strikes us as superficially opposed to what is right from our own point of view. Their circumstances, character, and motives may be quite different from what we suspect. The man who is condemned as a miser may be wisely thrifty. He who is regarded as a meddlesome busybody may be conscientiously discharging what to him is a public duty. The seeming devotee of pleasure may be generously laying himself out to brighten the sad world with ministries of happiness to others. The apparently ambitious despot may be an enthusiast for the regeneration of humanity. 2. We must beware of the slavish imitation of the best examples. What was wise and right in them may be positively wrong in us. Even our imitation of Christ must be spiritual rather than external. Surely in calling us to follow him, he does not require us, like St. Francis, to become homeless wanderers, because the Son of man had not where to lay his head. Because he drove out the desecrators of the temple with violence, it may not be right for us to use similar violence, when what was done by him from pure zeal might only be followed by us with angry passions. BY A.F. MUIR Inquiring of God is great crises. I. THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF IT. 1. Because of his claim to respect and obedience. It was a traditional custom in Israel. Jehovah was their national God. He had delivered them, created them into a nation, and laid them under eternal obligations. (1) There is a general obligation upon all so to do. Even those who do not recognize any special relation existing between God and themselves have reason for drawing nigh to him. There are moments when the things of life assert their sacredness and awful mystery, when God besets them behind and before. His providence is a continual appeal. And the sense of sin, of helplessness, and of indefinite hope leads them to his footstool. (2) It is specially incumbent upon those who are related to him through grace. Judah represented ancient Israel, and, although now but a remnant, was still privileged with the presence of a true prophet of God. Christians should be eager and ready to call upon him, as they have the promises reaffirmed in Christ, and the witness of his Spirit in their hearts that they shall not ask in vain. Their whole position is due to his grace, and it is but right that this should be acknowledged. 2. Because of helplessness and danger. The petitioners were "left but a few of many." They knew that it was through their own folly for the most part that they had been brought to such a pass. We know that in the great crises of life we are unable to guide ourselves. The future is dark and full of trouble. 3. Because of God’s wisdom, power, and love. He knows all things, and is able to deliver from all evil; and he has assured us of his willingness to guide and protect. The larger, grander policy of life is only possible with his inspiration. II. THE SPIRIT IN WHICH IT SHOULD BE ENTERED UPON. 1. Humility. In external attitude and language they left little to criticize (Jeremiah 42:2). Consciousness of our own need and weakness. 2. Confidence. We must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of all them that diligently seek him. Their requesting Jeremiah to pray to the Lord his God, and their expression of willingness to do as he should advise, showed a measure of faith. 3. Obedience. This they professed (verse 6). 4. Sincerity. (Verse 6.) III. THE DANGERS TO WHICH IT IS EXPOSED. Notwithstanding all their profession, we can detect: 1. Signs of systematic neglect of God and religious ordinances. The expression "came near" suggests a previous habitual distance from Jehovah. They appear more anxious to conciliate the prophet than him whom he served. There is no confession of sin. Probably Jeremiah had been all but ignored up to that time. What a strange phrase, "the Lord thy God"! The prophet seeks gently to lead them to a better standing—"the Lord your God;" which they seem to adopt. "To whom we send thee" still betrays the absence of filial love and intimacy. Their subsequent behaviour showed that: 2. They were unreal and hypocritical in their whole attitude. They had made up their mind as to what was best for them to do, as the resort to the "habitation of Chimham" already proved. With one foot in Canaan, as it were, and another out of it, they pretended to inquire of God. This is a very common practice, but it is one which not only robs prayer of its meaning and efficacy, but also brings upon the head of those who are guilty of it a grievous curse, as in this instance. A portion of their prayer was answered, but in a way they little expected: "The Lord be a true and faithful witness between us."—M. Jeremiah 42:19-22 Carnal predispositions. I. THEY ARE THE GREAT SOURCES OF IN . In sending Jeremiah to God they did not mean what they said. There was no honest willingness to do as the prophet might reveal. The only hope for them in their forlorn condition is thus tampered with and destroyed. It is possible that at first they may have meant well, but as they proceeded with their inquiry through the prophet they must have known that they had only one intention, which they had not laid aside or even held in abeyance. Yet such is the subtlety of the hypocritical heart that it continues in its hypocrisy until it deceives itself. "They inquire not to learn what is right, but only to receive encouragement to do what they wish." II. THOSE WHO INDULGE THEM ARE THEIR OWN WORST ENEMIES. 1. They deceive and injure themselves. "Ye dissembled in your hearts" (verse 20); literally, deceived yourselves; "used deceit against your souls" (margin). Thinking they were taking counsel of God, they were really obeying their fears and lusts. Can a greater wrong be done to one’s self than this—to think one’s self religious and obedient to the heavenly will when one is only selfish and sinful? Safety and happiness lay in following simply the Divine guidance; but this they could not do, for they knew not God’s message when it came. "Thinking themselves wise, they became fools." Their spiritual nature is henceforth unreliable, and their greatest perils will be encountered in their most religious hours, and when they think themselves most in agreement with God’s will. 2. The curse of God is denounced against them. What they choose will be their destruction. The very things they sought to avoid by going to Egypt are met there. And there is no mitigation; the position is one wholly wrong, and consequently the wrath of God is unceasing until they cease to occupy it. To remain in Egypt, with its idolatries and abominations, was virtually to annul the covenant. Soon every trace of true religion would disappear, and they would become like their neighbours, and be absorbed into the nations in whom God had no pleasure. He cannot tolerate falsehood, pretension, the form of godliness without the reality. And this severity is true mercy. Many a one "plucked as a brand from the burning" has had reason to thank his Saviour that "the way of transgressors is hard." "Let a man examine himself." "Be not deceived: God is not mocked."—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 43:7 Dissembling in prayer. This section may teach us much on this very serious matter. I. WHAT IT IS TO IN PRAYER. It is: 1. To pray in a deliberately continued unregeneracy of heart. The hearts of not a few of those Jews who now sought Jeremiah’s prayers were deliberately held in a condition of disobedience. They had never really repented. How many such pray, but their prayer is a dissembling! 2. When allowing ourselves in forbidden paths. The Jews had no business on that border land. It was a yielding to temptation to go there. So when we come from sin to the throne of grace, and go thence to sin again, this is, etc. 3. When we are not setting ourselves to mortify our evil affections. The Jews here showed no real, sincere intention to give up their own will and to obey God’s. They would not have been on that border land had such been the case. And so where there is no real striving against sin, this is, etc. 4. When whilst we pray we regard iniquity in our heart. That is to purpose and intend it; or to look upon it complacently and desiringly. The Jews, whilst praying to know God’s will, were all the while looking with strong desire after what they knew was wrong. Like as when Balaam offered his many sacrifices, his heart was all the while going after its covetousness. II. WHAT CAN LEAD MEN TO BE GUILTY OF SUCH ? We should imagine they never could be; that the thing would be too outrageous, wicked, and absurd for any one to be guilty of. And yet there have been and are many such prayers. They may be partly explained by: 1. The force of habit. The locomotive, if left to itself, will run along the rails for considerable time and distance, slowing and stopping only very gradually, though the steam has been shut off the whole while. So those who have been wont to offer prayers will keep up the form and habit, though the heart be wanting. 2. They may be themselves deceived. Their strong desire for God’s sanction might lead them to imagine they would gain it by their prayers. 3. They would not break with God altogether, and they deem that they can keep up their communications by such methods as these. III. HOW PRAYERS ARE PROVED TO HAVE BEEN OF THIS EVIL . 1. By anger at their refusal. See how angry these Jews were. The state of mind with which we come away from our prayers will show much the true nature of those prayers. 2. When we make them only through others. The Jews left it to Jeremiah. So now men leave to their ministers or friends the prayers they profess to value. 3. When they are followed by open and defiant disobedience. So was it here (Jeremiah 43:1-7). Nothing could more plainly have shown how hollow and insincere were their prayers. And so now, when men pray, and rise up and go and do worse than before, what can their prayers have been? IV. WHAT ARE THE RESULTS OF SUCH PRAYERS? They grieve the Spirit of God. They harden the heart, and tend to make men of a reprobate mind. Cf. our Lord’s words to the Pharisees—the pattern dissemblers of his day. They pave the way to "the damnation of hell." Therefore—thus let us conclude—be our prayer, "Search me, O God, and try my heart," etc.—C. Jeremiah 42:7-18 Man’s utter dependence upon God. These verses plainly show this much forgotten but never failing truth. They tell how the land of Judah, desolate, unprotected, and oppressed, could be and should be made a happy land for them. Whilst Egypt, the land they hoped so much from, should bring on them all the sorrows which they thought by going there to escape. Thus we are taught that it is according to God’s favour our lives are blessed or unblessed, bright or dark. Mere circumstances are unable to ensure either the one or the other, but the presence or absence of God’s favour alone. Now— I. MEN DO NOT THINK THIS. See their frantic endeavours to make their circumstances pleasant. And how they struggle against adversity, as if all evil were contained in that! Their opinion is very clear. II. BUT YET IT MUST BE. For: 1. Our happiness or unhappiness depends entirely on the way in which we regard these circumstances. That is to say, it depends upon our mind, upon that which is within us rather than that which is without. Hence what gives great pleasure to one yields none or even the reverse of pleasure to others. The merry laugh of children, e.g,, to one in deep sadness, or irritable, or discontented. And vice versa. But: 2. God has constant access to the minds of us all, and he has made their satisfaction to depend upon him. "Nostrum cor inquietum est donec requiescat in te". He can flood them with joy in the darkest hour—Paul and Silas in the dungeon at Philippi; and he can make the most favourable circumtances powerless to render a man happy—Haman because of Mordecai; the conscience stricken, those from whom for any cause he hides his face, are illustrations. And abundant facts prove the powerlessness of mere circumstance over the minds of men. III. THE THAT THESE OUGHT TO HAVE UPON US. 1. Not to lead us to despise circumstances, and so to be careless as to the outward lot of either ourselves or others. For though they have not all power over the mind, God has given them very much power—a power that they lose only when he pleases. 2. But to estimate them rightly. This we can only do as we bring into view the unseen and the eternal, which can only be as we live in view of it by the habit of prayer, thought, and practical regard to God’s will as expressed in conscience and his Word. So shall our balances be adjusted, and we shall rightly judge. There is a machine employed at the Mint of such perfect accuracy and finish that, when a number of sovereigns are tested by it, it will automatically and instantly and infallibly reject every one that fails in the least degree to come up to the proper standard of weight. So if we thus bring into view the unseen and eternal, all the crowd of facts and events that come before us day by day will each one spontaneously, promptly, and infallibly be judged, and we shall neither under nor over estimate them but as we ought. 3. To seek above all things the favour of God; for "in his favour is life, and his loving kindness is better than life itself."—C. BY D. YOUNG Waiting on the Divine ordinance I. THE REQUEST OF THE PEOPLE 1. The apparent unanimity of it. All the people come, from the least to the greatest. Certainly there were not very many of them. They were but a remnant to begin with, and now still further reduced. But such as they were, an outward unity obtained among them. Outward unity is often obtained with comparative ease, but it must not be forgotten that it may cloak indifference, discord, opposition, and may be followed by contradictory conduct, even on the part of those who make the largest professions of submission. 2. The profession of submission to Jehovah. The request described a real want, whether the people meant all they said or not. And there is no reason to suppose that they did not mean it at the present time of asking. Men ask sincerely enough for Divine guidance, not being able to see at the time how hard it will be to follow it up. They want to be shown a way in which to walk, and then, when the way is shown, it looks too hard and perplexed to be God’s way. They want to be shown the thing to do, and, when it is shown, there appears to be no use in it, no obvious relation of means to ends. Here is a result of prophetic teaching. The people had learnt from many prophetic utterances what they ought to ask for. 3. Their dependence on the prophet. Here is man showing his need of mediation. The people had come to know at last that Jeremiah was the faithful and accepted servant of God, This is the best way of recognizing a good man—to ask him to help those in need. And they wished also to commend their desires to the prophet. They wished him to pray a prayer that should be his as well as theirs. II. THE PROPHET’S ANSWER. That he complies with the request is little to say. The prayer was one he could pray with all his heart. Well would it have been if he had been asked to offer it years before. That which taxed him was to tell them that he would faithfully report the answer. For he knew that God’s message would go deep into the necessities of the case; that God’s answer could not be comprehended by the limits of man’s desires. This is the temptation of messengers, to keep something back through fear, or expediency, or mistaken kindness. Now, Jeremiah was well assured from a long experience that Jehovah never said a word too many or too few. The genuine promptings of the Spirit of God are the very best guide as to what we should tell men in the hour of their need. III. THE PROMISE OF THE PEOPLE. They seem to hint that they are ready for difficult and painful requirements. History is not lost upon them so far as their professions are concerned. They hint how they have learnt that disobedience to God brings the worst of evils. One thing, however, they had not yet learnt, and that was the difference between knowledge and power. When men are in great straits they will make large promises in the hope of deliverance; not at all insincerely, but meaning all they say. It was with the people here as it is with people in dangerous illnesses—the way of restored health is to be the way of obedience and piety. That people make such promises shows that the promises are right; the wrong thing is that they lack in strength, persistency, and inward purpose to keep them. God has to make this lack plain before men will humble themselves to have it supplied.—Y. Jeremiah 42:7-12 Divine comforts for those in doubt and fear. I. THE MEANING OF THE . There are ten days to wait between the prayer of Jeremiah and the answer of Jehovah. Why this waiting? It must have been in some way for the sake of the people. They had said very emphatically they would be obedient; would they be obedient to begin with, to the extent of waiting ten days for God’s answer? It had also to be seen whether they would continue in the spirit of obedience at all; and would they all continue in the same spirit? II. DEPENDS ON THE OF THE PEOPLE. God will do great things for them if only they do not destroy the effect of his actions by their self-will and instability. They were to show their trust in God by abiding in the land. Nothing could be done without this. God uses, to indicate his work for them, two words which imply fixity—building and planting. Let us also recollect the greatness of God’s power to them that believe. If we take no trouble to furnish the occasion, we must not complain. III. THE GREAT WORK GOD IS TO DO. It is indicated by these two net infrequent figures of buildin gaud planting. God was willing to make these people his husbandry, his building (1 Corinthians 3:9). He had been lately engaged in a great pulling down and rooting up; and why? Because his people had been putting up the wrong buildings, planting the wrong plant. Every plant not planted by God must be rooted up. God is the Builder, not a mere helper in building. We may be said to be fellow workers with God, but it can never describe him rightly to call him fellow worker with us. The work and the glory are his of building up the holy character, the perfect manhood, the everlasting home. Pie it is who makes his people fruitful in every good word and work. And the way for all this building and planting was now clear so far as God himself was concerned. All the pulling down and rooting up was done. Only let the people give the needed opportunity and all else would prosper. IV. CAUTION AGAINST FEAR. The temptation here, as so often, was to fear man too much and God too little or even none at all. "The fear of man bringeth a snare." The people feared the King of Babylon, forgetting the limits of his rower and the way in which he was controlled by Jehovah.—Y. Jeremiah 42:13-18 A land to be avoided. How solemn and urgent this warning! Let us ask why it was needed, why God seemed thus to cast doubt on the power of the people to obey him. I. THE LAND WAS NEAR. They were right in the way to Egypt, having, indeed, moved Egyptwards rather than in any other direction (Jeremiah 41:17). II. IT HAD OBVIOUS . 1. It seemed to be a land of peace. Egypt had been locked to as a friend and ally. The desolation of Jerusalem had come from the north. When people have been going through a time of war and siege, peace is naturally the blessing put in front of their thoughts. And is not this a good thing, it may be asked? Yes, surely, if peace be desired on high grounds, and from a horror of discord among men. But men may seek it simply to escape from disturbance and from loss of life and property. Their seeking of peace may be a sign of cowardice and altogether grovelling aims. Danger may be escaped by the outer man, only to be concentrated more effectually on the man within. 2. It would be a land of bread. Another recommendation of a land which it was unquestionably right, for men to attend to. Egypt was one of the great granaries of the ancient world. But it did not therefore follow that it was a land to live in. Israelites, in particular, needed to recollect how their fathers, beginning by going to Egypt for bread, ended by sinking into most oppressive bondage. Besides, even the land of bread was at times a land of famine. 3. It consequently looked a land to dwell in. God is the God of his people only when they are in their proper place. He was God of the exiles in Babylon, because their going into Babylon was of his operation. But those who went to Egypt in search of mere immunity from toil and inglorious ease could not expect to have the Divine favour. They wanted to get the great ends of life without discipline, sacrifice, and endurance. III. THE VAIN PURPOSE TO ESCAPE FROM EVIL. God tries to make the people understand that they take the germs and principles of evil with them. What we find in any place depends on what we bring; and what we bring we must, in process of time, inevitably find. What had there been to hinder the land of Israel from being a land of peace and a land of bread? Nothing but the faithlessness and general wickedness of the people. We cannot sow wickedness in one place, and then hope to go and reap only good things in some other place. God can turn any place, however fruitful, into a wilderness; and, on the other hand, we know how Jesus made a wilderness a place to feed five thousand men. Jehovah spoke with all this severity to these people to make them understand how hard a thing real obedience was.—Y. Searching the heart. There is here a very sudden and striking turn away from the tone of the previous part of the message. God looks into the future, and, seeing what actually will happen, seeing that Egypt will maintain its attraction, he warns the people they are going towards a certain doom. Their present state was one of undue, overweening self-confidence; and God will not allow people to remain under deception as to their own weakness, if a startling and abrupt message will serve to arouse them from it. Perhaps we shall not be far wrong in assuming that the changing tone of the prophecy is occasioned by the changing mood of the audience. While the prophet is speaking of the dangers of Egypt, their deep desire after Egypt is half revealed. The one gate into which they wished to enter is peremptorily closed against them. All at once there may have been a sort of awakening to the fact that God knew their hearts better than they did themselves We must recollect, too, that Jeremiah spoke out of no short or imperfect experience. He saw that the people were disappointed; that, instead of a word pointing them towards Egypt, there was sentence upon sentence warning them against it. How hard it is to be sure of knowing the will of God! How easy to mistake for it the impulses of indulgent human prudence! God tells the people plainly they are going to seek for things they wilt never find. Instead of living in peace, they are to die by the sword. Instead of getting abundance of bread, they are to die by famine and by the pestilence that accompanies lack of bread. Here altogether is an example of the need of that prayer in Psalms 139:23, Psalms 139:24.—Y. The flight to Egypt; Jeremiah’s prediction of Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Egypt. Jeremiah 43:2 All the proud men. It would seem as if the "proud men" were distinguished from others. Jeremiah had called the whole people together (Jeremiah 42:8); but a few domineering men assumed to represent the rest. Jeremiah 43:3 Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on. A singular supposition—Jeremiah leaving the initiative to his secretary! It may be conjectured that Baruch had somehow made himself specially unpopular; he may have been a more practical man (comp. Jeremiah 45:5) than Jeremiah. Jeremiah 43:5 All the remnant of Judah, that were returned from all nations. The specification is peculiar, as it seems to leave out of sight the most important part of the gathering at Mizpah, via. the "men, and women, and children, and those of the poor of the land" (Jeremiah 40:7)—the very persons who are mentioned just afterwards. Possibly there is some confusion in the text. "All nations" doubtless means especially Moab, Ammon, and Edom. Jeremiah 43:7 Tahpanhea. An Egyptian frontier city (see Ezekiel 30:18 and note on Jeremiah 2:16), where the fugitives had to wait till the views of the Egyptian government respecting them were made known. The supposed site of the Pelusiac Daphnae has not yet been explored; a single inscribed fragment would reveal the Egyptian name, and probably ratify the identity of Daphnae with the Tahpanhes of the prophets. Jeremiah 43:9 Take great stones, etc. A strange symbolic act of Jeremiah’s is here described. "We must not suppose, arguing from our Western and precise notions, that he would be at all necessarily interfered with. In fact, he would have a twofold security, as a prophet of God to those who acknowledged him as such, and in the opinion of others as insane, and, according to Eastern ideas, thus especially under Divine promptings in his acts" (Streane). He is directed to take great stones and embed them in the mortar (not "clay") in the brick pavement at the entry of the palace. When the events predicted came to pass, these stones would testify that Jeremiah had predicted them. The word rendered "brick pavement" is of doubtful meaning. In Nahum 3:14 it signifies "brick kiln." Jeremiah 43:10 And will set his throne, etc.; viz. for the victorious king to hold judgment (comp. Jeremiah 1:15, Jeremiah 1:16; Jeremiah 49:38). He shall spread his royal pavilion; rather, his tapestry (the root means "brilliance"); i.e. the bright coloured covering of the throne. Jeremiah 43:11 He shall smite the land of Egypt. On the invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, wrongly controverted by some, see note on Jeremiah 46:13. Such as are for death. Such as are destined for death (i.e. pestilence, as Jeremiah 15:2; Jeremiah 18:21). The words, "and deliver," prefixed in the Authorized Version, are unnecessary; "land" is equivalent to "population." Jeremiah 43:12 Burn them; viz. the temples. Egypt was full of gorgeous and imposing temples, which could not, however, always be burned, nor were the conquerors of Egypt anxious to display hostility to Egyptian religion. Carry them away captives; viz. the idol gods (comp. Jeremiah 48:7, "Chemosh shall no forth into captivity:" and Isaiah 46:2, "Their soul [or, ’personality’] hath gone into captivity"). The prophet speaks from the point of view of a believer in the idol gods. He shall array himself with the land of Egypt, etc. (For "array himself with" and "putteth on,"read wrap himself in and wrappeth himself in.) Ewald well explains this figure. "As easily as the shepherd in the open field wraps himself in the cool night in his mantle, will he be able to grasp Egypt with his hand and fling it round him like an easily managed garment, in order then to leave the land as an absolute conqueror, clothed in this attire of booty, in peace, without an enemy." Jeremiah 43:13 The images of Beth-shemesh; rather, the pillars of Beth-shemesh; i.e. the obelisks of the temple of Ra, the sun god, from Which Heliopolis derived its sacred name "Pe-Ra" "the abode of Ra." It was the custom to place obelisks in pairs at the entrance of their temples. Only one of those of Heliopolis is still standing, though that, indeed, is the oldest in Egypt, for it was "set up at least four thousand years ago". That is in the land of Egypt. To distinguish it from the Beth-shemesh in Palestine. But we may also render "which are," etc.; comp. "the gods of Egypt" in the second verse half. The Septuagint reads, "which are in On." Moral causes of unbelief. The causes of unbelief may be either intellectual or moral. It is not just to assume that they are of the latter character. There is an honest doubt, and many a brave soul has been forced to fight its way over a wild desert of difficulties before seeing the light of Divine revelation. Nevertheless, it is necessary for our own warning and in controversy with others to remember that there are moral causes for unbelief, and that in some cases these may be much more operative than any purely intellectual consideration. Azariah and his friends have discovered no good ground for doubting the Divine authority of Jeremiah’s message. They have seen nothing to detract from the claims of the prophet and nothing to contradict what he says. Yet they reject his message and charge him with falsehood. The palpable explanation of their conduct may serve to explain the ground of much unbelief in our own day. In the main this consists in two things. I. THE OF THE . Jeremiah had run counter to the determination of the leaders of the people. Instead of modifying their conduct in obedience to the Divine message, they preferred to reject the message and deny its authority. This was most irrational, Yet it is a sample of the commonest conduct. People test their creed by their will instead of their reason and conscience and its own evidences. They say they do not like certain ideas, as though truth were a matter of taste. But truth is the statement of facts, and facts are not altered by sentiments. In the present instance the question was as to God’s will. Was it not possible from the first that this might contradict the opinions of the people? Otherwise what was the use of the prayer for direction, that these very men had asked Jeremiah to offer, and the reply to which was his unpopular message? If God’s will and truth always agreed with our private notions, what would be the good of revelation and commandment? It is in the conflict of the two that the chief value of the Divine message is to be found. II. THE PRIDE OF MAN. We are expressly told that they were "proud men" who rejected the prophet’s message. The rest of the people seem to have been willing to acquiesce in it. There is nothing so blinding as pride. Your proud man is an inevitable bigot. By undue assurance of knowledge he closes the avenues of fresh knowledge and limits his own possession of it. Thus pride cuts away the ground beneath its own feet. The credulity of unbelief. I. . Johanan and his companions here bring before us a striking instance of the credulity of unbelief. Refusing to admit that Jeremiah was divinely inspired, they asserted that he was instigated by Baruch the scribe. Now, we have seen Baruch acting solely as the amanuensis and spokesman of the prophet—indeed, effacing himself with genuine humility and wisdom to serve the prophet the more faithfully; could this man be the inspirer of his master’s most decided utterances? The idea is preposterous. It is an evidence of gross credulity—the credulity that believes in one’s own inventions, though they are infinitely less reasonable than the opposite ideas they are set up to oppose. All unbelief is belief—it is belief in the negation of a proposition, and it requires as much evidence as the proposition it denies. It also has its consequences in reason which should be followed out remorselessly. Defenders of the faith have been too apologetic. They would often have been wiser if they had turned the flank of opponents and exposed the weakness of their position. It might often be shown that, in accepting this position, the opponents were standing on less firm ground than that which they dispute. For something must be true. If we came down to absolute nihilism, and discovered that nothing existed, even that discovery would be a truth. The absolute rejection of one proposition involves the acceptance of its opposite. But this opposite may be beset with heavier difficulties or favoured with weaker evidences than those which accompany the rejected proposition. If so, to accept the opposite proposition is really a mark of greater credulity than to admit that which presented the first claims. II. THE OF MAY BE IN THE OF THE AGE. Consider it in relation to the main topics of these controversies, viz.: 1. The being of God. If there be no God, then the world must be eternal or self-created—conclusions which may be shown to leave more difficulties than the hypothesis of a Creator—and all the best thoughts of the highest orders of minds must be misconceptions—a strange result for those who would regard the mind of man as the highest existence in the universe. 2. The immortality of the soul. Difficulties beset the theory of immortaIity. But what greater difficulties they have to face who, first believing in God (and we now have a right to start from that position), hold that the deepest appetite of man is destined never to be satisfied, that his highest aspirations are directed to an impossibility, and that his greatest powers are doomed to be blighted before they have grown to their full development? What credulity is required to make us believe that a good God could create a Tantalus! 3. The inspiration of the Bible. if the Bible be not inspired of God, the first literature of the world, containing by far its deepest, wisest, purest thoughts, and exercising unbounded influence for good, is founded on a delusion or a lie; for the writers of the Bible plainly claim to be inspired. 4. The Divine origin of Christianity. Christianity is the greatest fact in history; it revolutionized the decaying life of the old world, and gave a fresh upward movement to humanity; it is now the leading factor in the highest life of the foremost races of mankind; and it claims to be Divine. It seems to some of us that to say this claim is false, and thus to force upon us the inevitable alternative that its founders were deluded, and that it is a mere growth of human thought and effort, requires a faith which is so irrational as to be justly characterized as credulity. Jeremiah 43:8-13 Prophetic stones. Jeremiah planting stones at the entrance of Pharaoh’s palace was prophesying by act. The stones were mute prophecies interpreted by the verbal prophecies which in turn they were to confirm in the future. These prophetic stones have their lessons for us. I. DIVINE ARE FIRM AND . They are like the great stones. Words are but air waves; to the incredulous the strongest words may be mere sound and fury, signifying nothing; they melt as they fall. But in the stone we have weight, massiveness, persistence, something that cannot be blown aside with a breath, which will not fade with time, which may be handled, and which remains after it is forgotten, and can be exhumed after being buried. Such is a Divine purpose—thus solid and thus enduring. II. DIVINE MAY BE HIDDEN UNTIL THE TIME FOR THE OF THEM. Jeremiah hides the stones. There are prophecies which have been uttered once, and the method of executing them kept secret from us until they are fulfilled. But many Divine purposes are never known till they are accomplished. III. EARTHLY THRONES ABE SET UP ON OF DIVINE . Jeremiah lays the foundation of a throne (verse 10), and he does this as a servant of God executing his will. All earthly power rests ultimately upon a Divine sanction. Yet this fact does not diminish the human responsibility of those who exercise it. The prophet planted the stones; he did not erect the throne. Nebuchadnezzar would be responsible for the throne he set up, the way he established it, and the use he made of it. IV. GOD EMPLOYS HUMAN IN THE OF HIS . Nebuchadnezzar is God’s servant. There is a Divine economy in this. If evil cannot be stayed without the withdrawal of those liberties that God sees it to be right to leave intact, the harm of it may be mitigated by making it self-counteractive, the wickedness of one hindering or punishing that of another. V. FLIGHT FROM THE OF GOD IS . The Babylonian yoke was a Divine chastisement upon the Jews. They were urged by inspired prophets to submit to it as appointed by God. Some refused and fled to Egypt. But in Egypt they were neither out of the reach of God nor beyond the power of his instrument Nebuchadnezzar. There is no escape from God but by fleeing to God, no deliverance from the doom of sin but in submission to him against whom we have sinned. VI. IN GUILT WILL BE IN DOOM. The Jews who fled to Egypt were to share the punishment of that nation. The Egyptians who harboured the Jews were to bring upon themselves the fate that followed the refugees. BY A.F. MUIR The stones of Tahpanhes. Great uncertainty as to the fulfilment of this prophetic parable. Are we bound to assume that it was actually carried out? It is possible, according to some critics (but see Exposition on Jeremiah 46:13), that the accomplishment of the prediction, as of many others, was only contingent. It is very vivid and definite, but that is quite consistent with the intermediate occurrence of circumstances in the spiritual state of the Jewish sojourners that enabled God to cancel it. Just as at this time their disposition may have been alarmingly idolatrous and worldly, so at a later stage it may have changed. I. WHAT THE PARABLE MAY HAVE . 1. The contingent certainty of Divine judgment. The action may have represented, not only the sequence of events, but that of principles. If, then, the events did not occur, it would still remain true that, in the kingdom of God. such a dependence of principles is eternal; sin is ever nigh to cursing. So much is this the case, that it may be said to contain the elements of its own punishment, like the stones hidden in the clay. (1) The stones are hidden in the clay with which, although heterogeneous, they stand in a divinely appointed relation. (2) The interpretation given by the prophet further strengthened this impression in the minds of the spectators. It was the same power, viz. the Chaldean, which had already scourged Judah, that was to follow the remnant into distant Egypt. The continuity of the judgment with those which preceded it is thus forcibly set forth. Nebuchadnezzar, if or when he came, could not be mistaken for other than a divinely ordained instrument of vengeance. The advantage of such an understanding of the prophecy is obvious—it ceases to have a particular and transitory significance, and becomes at once necessary and universal. We need that lesson graven upon our hearts today: "The soul that sinneth it shall die;" "He that soweth to the flesh," etc. 2. That dependence upon any earthly power is utterly vain. Egypt is dreamt of as a refuge from their woes. Its power, typified by the clay of the kiln or brick field, only overlies the power of God, typified by the Stones. They would be in his hands still, although they knew it not. Through the clay of worldly dependence they must needs fall upon the stones of Divine judgment. Man cannot flee from his Maker. There is no earthly security from the consequences of sin. If the remnant of Judah, pursuing its tendency towards worldly mindedness and idolatry to the hitter end, should persist in putting its trust in the Egyptian power, to whose religion and life it was in such imminent danger of assimilating itself, woe to it! Through Pharaoh even will they be confronted with Nebuchadnezzar yet again. God is the only true Helper and Saviour, and in the practice of holiness and the precepts of true religion is security alone to be found. What assurance company can shield the sinner from the consequences of his misdeeds? And if God be for any man, who can he against him? II. WHAT THE PARABLE MAY HAVE . It has been conjectured (by Naegelsbach and others) that the symbolic action of Jeremiah and its interpretation so forcibly appealed to the imagination and conscience of the Jews as to change their hearts. That some such consequence as this was intended seems very probable. If it resulted as they suppose, then the judgment was averted which depended upon their misconduct and worldliness. "God repented him of the evil." This is one of the great aims of such teaching—so to affect the heart through the imagination as to subdue its evil tendencies and lead it to the pursuit of righteousness and truth. The crowded Jewish colony of Alexandria may then be taken, not as a refutation of the words of Jeremiah, but as a proof that these words produced their legitimate impression, and brought about a deep and lasting reformation. The lesson of all which is that the relation between sin and its punishment, and the futility of earthly securities and screens from Divine vengeance, cannot be too forcibly represented. God will bless the faithful preaching of his Word, and is infinitely more willing to have mercy than to prove his predictions by allowing men to harden their hearts.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 43:1-13 Hearts set to do evil. Such were the hearts of these Jews. They show concerning such— I. THAT WALL NOT ALTER THEM. It is not always true that affliction will make the heart better. It serves this blessed end with some—cf. "Before I was afflicted I went," etc.—but not with all. Did not in this case, but though "often reproved," they only "hardened their neck." II. PRAYERS AND OF DO NOT CONTROL THEM. They can go together. Alas! that it should be so; but they will not rule. They are but so many cobwebs, which the heart set to do evil will break through as easily as a man breaks through the gossamer filaments which stretch across the path on which he is walking. III. AND ARE ALWAYS READY TO EXCUSE THEM. "Thou speakest falsely," they said to God’s prophet. "Baruch … hath set thee on." So, so pitifully, they try to justify themselves. IV. GOD DOES NOT TO PREVENT THEM. We often wish be would, depriving us of our liberty when it would only do us ill. But his method is to let us go our own ways, and if, as is so wretchedly often the case, they be evil ways, then, when we are filled with the fruit of them, we may come to a better mind, and so more firmly choose the good which we should have chosen at the first. How much happier a man forever that younger son would have been if he had never previously left his father’s home for that far country! V. ARE SURE TO FOLLOW THEM. They did in this case; they always do sooner or later. For the will must bend to God. VI. GOD’S WILL NOT BE BY THEM. See how bold as a lion is the prophet of God; how fearlessly he denounces his people’s sin. Oh, for fidelity such as that in all the prophets of the Lord!—C. Building on the sand. The Jews trusted in the strength of Pharaoh. They had done this before, but to no purpose. The prophets of God always protested against such trust (cf. Isaiah 31:1-9.). Here, in spite of all warning, they are resolving upon such reliance again. But they were building on sand. The destruction came; the very destruction they thought, by their acting as they had done, they had certainly escaped. Thus do and shall be done by all who are like them. Such are— I. They that think to establish themselves by wicked ways. II. Those that rely upon men and not on God. III. Those that trust to uncertain riches. IV. Those that think saying "Lord, Lord," whilst living ungodly lives, will save them.—C. BY D. YOUNG Jeremiah 43:1 The view of a prophet’s complete work. I. A PROPHET IS ONE WHO HAS TO SPEAK THE WORDS OF JEHOVAH. Not his own words, not the words of other men. This applies to the substance of the message; for it is plain that each prophet has his own style. The chief thing to be remembered is that a prophet never goes forth on his own impulse. Men in their zeal for right may go out to protest against wrong and fight against it, but this does not make them prophets. The prophet’s strength and claim and responsibility lie in this, that he can ever preface his announcements by "Thus saith the Lord." And all preachers and teachers will approach the prophet’s position just in proportion to the extent in which they can fill their addresses with Divine declarations. The essential elements of prophecy can never be out of place. II. HE HAS TO SPEAK ALL THE WORDS OF JEHOVAH. The prophet is not to be an eclectic, picking out some of God’s words as suitable and others as unsuitable. God’s omniscience can alone judge what is suitable. If to him it seems suitable a word should be spoken, then it is suitable. God speaks not to apparent needs, but to real ones. God, always saying something for the present, makes his weightiest words to bear upon the future. The responsibility of the prophet is simply that of being a brave and faithful messenger. III. HE IS SENT TO SPEAK THESE WORDS. He does not merely take up words of Jehovah which he thinks suitable for the emergency. This is his work to act as a special messenger from Heaven. Others have to expound the Word already spoken, already written; but the prophet hears a voice directly from the excellent glory, "Go and make known my will to men." And in all prophecy there is evidence, to one who will look for it, that the prophet is a sent man. IV. HE HAS TO SPEAK WORDS TO THOSE ON WHOM GOD HAS A CLAIM. Jehovah is not only the God of Jeremiah, he is the God of all the people. This was an historical fact of which they could not get rid. It was the glory, security, and blessing of the people, if only they could see it. And is not Jehovah also our God?—God coming for a while more closely in contact with one nation, that ultimately he may be in contact with all. If we admit the claim of Jesus, we admit the claim of Jehovah also. He speaks through ancient prophets to us, because the essentials of their message have to do with the permanent life of men. V. HE SPEAKS TO ALL THE PEOPLE. In this particular instance the request came from all the people, so the message was correspondingly to all. Prophets, of course, had often messages for particular men, but even these messages are so founded upon general principles as to become worthy the attention of all. Prophecy concerns man as man; it meets the young with dawning consciousness, and grasps the old till their latest hour. VI. THE PROPHET MUST TAKE CARE TO MAKE AN END OF HIS . He does not simply cease speaking; he has to make people feel he has said all he has to say, and that the time has come for them to have their say, or rather for them to enter with promptitude and devotion upon corresponding deeds. They may not hear all they would like to know, and thus it must be made clear they have been told all that it is good for them to know. With God all things are for edifying, not to inform curiosity or comply with every actual desire.—Y. The visitation upon Egypt. Here again is one of the symbolic acts which the prophets were commanded at times to perform. So the hiding of the girdle by Euphrates (Jeremiah 13:1-27), the commanded celibacy of the prophet (Jeremiah 16:1-21.), the dashing of the potter s bottle to pieces (Jeremiah 19:1-15.). But while these symbolic acts are described in terms which make them perfectly clear, the hiding of the great stones mentioned here needs more full explanation than we can reach to get the significance it. Still, this much of the drift of the action we perceive that Jehovah will make quite manliest, that Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Egypt is one divinely ordained and sustained. Not, of course, that Egypt is to suffer simply because these men have gone there; its idolatries are the deepest ground of its calamities. But the delusion of the men of Judah must be looked at in the light of the sufferings of Egypt. In all this experience of death and captivity and slaughter, of temple burning and image breaking; in all this entire appropriation of Egypt by the Babylonian king, these men of Judah must not expect to escape. There is no second land of Goshen for them—a place of immunity and peace. If only they had stayed where they thought there would be no safety, then they would have been safe; and going where they made sure of safety, they found the worst of ruin. It reads as if Egypt was to come under Babylon more even than Jerusalem had done.—Y. Jeremiah’s debate with the Jewish fugitives in Pathros; his last prophecy. Jeremiah 44:1-14 Accusation brought against the obstinately idolatrous people. Jeremiah 44:1 Which dwell; rather, which dwelt. It appears from this verse that the Jewish fugitives had separated in Egypt, some going to the two northern frontier cities, Migdol (on which see R.S. Poole, ’The Cities of Egypt,’ Jeremiah 8:1-22.) and Tahpanhes or Daphnae, others further south to Noph, i.e. Memphis, or, less probably, Napata (see on Jeremiah 2:16), and Pathros (i.e. Upper Egypt; comp. Isaiah 11:11). Jeremiah 44:6 Was kindled in; rather, burned up. Jeremiah 44:7 Against your souls; i.e. against yourselves. The "soul" is the personality. Jeremiah 44:8 That ye might cut yourselves off; rather, that ye might cut (them) off from you. Who are meant is clear from Jeremiah 44:7. Jeremiah 44:9 Have ye forgotten, etc.? The prophet wonderingly asks if they have forgotten the sins of their forefathers and the consequent calamities. No other explanation of this present idolatry seems possible; and yet how passing strange is it! Their wives. The Hebrew has "his wives," i.e. according to Kimchi and Hitzig, the wives of each of the kings (sometimes great patrons of idolatry). But it is better to adopt, with Ewald, Graf, and Dr. Payne Smith, the reading of the Septuagint, "his princes." Jeremiah 44:10 They are not humbled; rather, not made contrite (literally, not crushed, viz. by repentance). Jeremiah 44:11 To cut off all Judah; i.e. the Judah in Egypt, not that in Babylon. Notice the qualification of this too absolute statement in Jeremiah 44:14, Jeremiah 44:28. Jeremiah 44:14 They have a desire; literally, they lift up their soul (comp. Jeremiah 22:27). Jeremiah 44:15-19 The reply of the people. The special mention of the women suggests that the occasion of the gathering was a festival in honour of the Queen of Heaven. Jeremiah 44:15 Had burned incense; rather, were burning incense. The practice was still going on. Jeremiah 44:17 Whatsoever thing goeth forth; rather, the whole word which hath gone forth. A particular vow to the divinity is meant. The queen of heaven (see on Jeremiah 7:18). Then had we plenty of victuals, etc. An extremely important passage, as revealing the view taken of their misfortunes by Jews of the average type. Jeremiah regarded the misfortunes of his country as proofs of the displeasure of Jehovah; these Jews, on the other hand, of his impotence. Jeremiah 44:19 This part of the reply belongs to the women, who declare that, their husbands’ consent having been given to their vow, Jeremiah has no right to interfere (see Numbers 30:6, Numbers 30:7). Burned …poured, etc.; rather, burn, pour. Did we, etc.; rather, do we, etc. To worship her. The sense of the Hebrew is doubtful; but the best reading seems that of Rashi, Graf, and Dr. Payne Smith, "to make her image." Without our men; rather, without our husbands. Jeremiah 44:20-30 Jeremiah’s rejoinder. Jeremiah 44:21 Remember them; i.e. the repeated acts of idolatry. Jeremiah 44:25 With your hand; rather, with your hands. Ye will surely accomplish, etc.; rather, ye shall, etc; by all means perform your vows, and take the consequence. The irony of the passage is lost by the "will" of the Authorized Version. Jeremiah 44:26 My Name shall no more be named. Because no Jews will be left alive in Egypt. Jeremiah 44:28 Yet a small number, etc. Isaiah’s doctrine of the remnant. In the midst of judgment, God remembers mercy, and his ancient covenant. A remnant is saved as the nucleus of a regenerate people. Jeremiah 44:29 A sign; rather, the sign. Jeremiah 44:30 I will give Pharaoh-hophra, etc. The sign consists in the capture of Hophra by his deadly enemies. Henceforth he will live in constant alarm, for he is in the hands of those "that seek his life." All that we know of the fate of Hophra is derived from Herodotus (2:169), who states that Amssis "gave Apries over into the hands of his former subjects, to deal with as they chose. Then the Egyptians took him and strangled him" (see further on Jeremiah 46:13). Jeremiah 44:1-10 Warnings from the past. History has its moral lessons. We who are heirs of the ages should learn wisdom from the mistakes as well as from the good examples of the past. Let us consider how this may be done. I. FROM THE SIN OF THE PAST. Jeremiah calls upon the Jews in Egypt to reflect on the wicked conduct of their nation, tracing it back from the present through successive generations of iniquitous court and private life. It is a gloomy task, but a wholesome one. Tacitus was, perhaps, the greatest moralist of his age, because he saw into the moral side of history, and ruthlessly exposed the vice and cruelty and treachery which underlay the splendour of Roman imperialism. Because we can read history with some measure of detachment from the passions and prejudices of the hour, we may learn to see therein the character of actions which are closely parallel to others nearer home. Thus the past may become a mirror of the present, and one that rectifies the images from the confusion which accompanies the direct vision of what is very closely connected with our own person. II. FROM THE DIVINE VOICE IN THE PAST. God had instructed and urged his people to forsake their sins. He had not left them in the dark or unchecked—"Howbeit I sent unto you all my servants the prophets." This had been done with earnestness and emphasis—"rising early and sending them." It was a revelation of the evil character of their deeds—"this abominable thing;" an appeal to them to cease from such wickedness—"Oh, do not this abominable thing!" and a declaration of the Divine abhorrence of their conduct—"that I hate." All this has been said concerning the wickedness of the past; but it is to be reflected upon for its application to the present. We also may find profit in considering the ancient voices of heaven. The warnings of the Bible may be reread and reapplied in our own day. If we see no new Jeremiah, we have the inspired words of the old Hebrew prophet, and they are as true now as ever. What God hates he hates eternally. What he forbids is always wrong. The object of his urgent appeal should command submission at all times. III. FROM THE OF THE PAST. The object of punishment is twofold. First, it concerns the guilty; secondly, it has lessons for witnesses. It is chastisement to the offender, it is warning to others. No punishment would be just if it were simply given as a deterrent. But being deserved and needful on account of the conduct of the victim, it is then utilized in perfect justice for the general benefit of the community. We should be thankful for the fact that the fate of others is not altogether obscure, so that we may profit by the sad lessons of their experience. Jeremiah 44:16 Open rebellion. I. GOD LEAVES US FREE TO ACCEPT OR REJECT HIS . Whatever may be urged from the standpoints of abstract philosophy and of speculative theology, in practice, as Butler says, we all act as though we were free. In the Bible, too, this practical freedom of the will is constantly implied and appealed to. Though we have no moral right to renounce the Law of God, though we shall suffer if we do so, the terrible power of rebellion is entrusted to us that our loyalty may be proved and our service may remain free and willing. II. ALL EVIL CENTRES IN THE WILL. The idolatrous Jews will not hearken to the word of Jeremiah. Herein lies the sum and substance of their offence. Depraved appetites and wicked passions are temptations to the evil will or products of its deeds. In themselves they are no more wicked than the external temptations which appeal to the purest elements of our common human nature. Guilt consists in yielding to them—in the act of the will that consents, indulges, or urges. III. WILFUL OF TRUTH IS AGAINST GOD. Not to hearken is to revolt. We must be careful to distinguish pure intellectual doubt and unbelief from this revolt of the will against truth. The latter may not deny the correctness of what it rejects; it simply refuses to follow it. If it does fail to believe the truth, but through only wilfully closing all avenues of evidence, the blame of an evil will must be attached to it. IV. SELF-WILL IS AN EVIL WILL. In rejecting the Divine message the idolatrous Jews insolently add, "We will certainly do the whole word which hath gone forth out of our own mouth" (see verse 17). 1. Self-will even in regard to things innocent in themselves is nevertheless an evil will. For we are not our own masters. The servant is wrong if he disobey his master, though to do a harmless act. The soldier is guilty in disobeying orders, whatever other course he may take. We are "under authority." If our Captain says, "Go," we are not free to stand for the most innocent reason. 2. Self-will is too often directed to evil things. Those Jews who deliberately rejected the Divine message chose to perform acts of idolatry of their own will. Our will is corrupt. Left to itself it chooses much that is evil, To keep it pure we must lift it up to union with a higher will. When it breaks loose and defiantly chooses its own private course, its evil nature will incline it to a bad course. V. IN SIN BECOMES IN GREATER SIN. The husbands support their wives in the evil practices of the women, and together they declare that for the future they will pursue these practices openly and deliberately. But the closest relationship and the warmest affection are no reasons for defending wicked conduct, much less for encouraging and sharing it. When the love of husband and wife conflicts with the love of God, even that most near and sacred tie should yield to the highest of all obligations. Otherwise the marriage relation, which is instituted for the blessings of mutual comfort and happiness, becomes a curse. Jeremiah 44:18 Chastisement misinterpreted. I. IT IS TO MISTAKE THE CAUSE AND PURPOSE OF GOD’S IN . Instead of accepting their calamities as punishments for their sins against Jehovah, the Jews in Upper Egypt argue from them to conclusions of unbelief in the power and goodness of the God of their fathers. They are not alone in their error. The problem of suffering and its source and aim is profoundly difficult. The glib repetition of old platitudes only mocks at the mystery it can never solve. Job’s friends were good men, and two of them able men; but "miserable comforters" were they all, because their explanation of the cause of the tragic agony before them was so utterly inadequate. Two reasons for error in the interpretation of chastisement may be detected in the case of Jeremiah’s contemporaries. 1. An evil disposition. These men had no desire to recognize the hand of the true God in their experience. They had followed their wives in favouring the immoral rites of a heathenish cult. Jeremiah’s teaching was rejected with insult; the idolatrous religion was grasped with obstinate self-will. Behaving in this way, the Jews in Upper Egypt were not in a fit state to judge fairly of the meaning of God’s dealings with them. Our "views" of truth depend materially on our attitude towards it. Bad passions and a corrupt will prevent men at all times from profiting by chastisement. 2. The delay of chastisement. This was not contemporaneous with the sin. It would seem that the corruption which followed the reformation of Josiah was not so bad as that which preceded it. Yet it was after this that the blow fell. Now, a similar experience may often be noted. Charles II. was a worse king than James II; and Louis XV. than Louis XVI. The revolutions did not occur when things were at their worst. They took time to ripen. The chief causes of them were not their immediate antecedents. The same may be expected in private lives. Therefore it may require searching thought to trace the trouble down to its real root. II. IT IS TO FALL INTO ERROR THROUGH GOD’S IN . By a false inference drawn from the experience of trouble, the idolatrous Jews were led to fling off the last relic of their ancient faith, and to renew their allegiance to the heathen religion they had partially renounced in outward act, though not, as it now appears, in the inclinations of their hearts. Consider the process by which this result was reached. 1. A delusion as to the nature of repentance and its effects. The Jewish refugees had imagined that their abandonment of open idolatry would have warded off the impending doom. They were enraged at discovering their mistake, and they took the result as a reason for daring scepticism. Important lessons may be derived from their mistake, e.g. (1) that outward reformation is useless before God without heartfelt repentance; (2) that there are necessary consequences of sin which no repentance can obviate—improvidence leading to poverty, intemperance to disease, crime to secular punishment, in spite of all the genuine tears of a Magdalene; (3) that when God accepts repentance and forgives the penitent, it may still be necessary to chastise him for the good of his own soul. 2. The mistake of judging of the truth of a religion by the worldly advantages that accrue from it. Godliness has "promise of the life that now is" (1 Timothy 4:8). Under the Old Testament economy this promise was emphasized. Nevertheless, even in the Jewish religion it was often recognized that suffering might fall upon the people of God (e.g. Psalms 22:1-31.). With our fuller light, we know that the temporal advantages of religion are but a small part of its blessings; that under certain circumstances it may bring more worldly loss than gain; that there are Christians who reckon that if in this life only they have hoped in Christ, they are of all men most pitiable (1 Corinthians 15:19). Therefore we should settle it well in our minds that, as worldly injustice and calamities of all kinds may fail upon the devoted servants of Christ, the experience of these things should not shake our faith. This fact needs to be well considered and realized, because there is no more frequent cause of sudden and violent scepticism than a series of great and inexplicable troubles. 3. The sin of pursuing religion for its worldly profit. Even if godliness is profitable for all things, it cannot be truly followed for the sake of gain. To choose our religion according to the advantages it may give us, is to subordinate truth to convenience, and to degrade to the position of a servant that which claims to rule as a master, or will have nothing to do with us. Jeremiah 44:22 The limit of God’s forbearance. I. GOD’S IS LIMITED. There is no limit to his love. His mercy "endureth forever." There is no limit to his patience, his endurance of the most provoking wickedness. But there is a limit to God’s forbearance. Consider what determines this. 1. Justice. There is a point where necessary justice must interfere to prevent further wrong and punish what is already done. 2. The good of the community. Mercy to the criminal may involve injustice to the victim. There are abandoned wretches whom the world would find inestimable advantage in caging up out of the power of doing further mischief. There must be a point where their rights cease and the rights of others step in. In the Divine government this must be noted and acted on. 3. The advantage of the offender. It is a curse to a man to leave him forever unchecked and unpunished. He may be left for a season to give all necessary scope for the operation of milder measures and for his own free repentance. But when the gentleness has failed, the only chance lies in some drastic treatment. II. IT IS TO REACH THE LIMIT OF GOD’S . It was reached by the antediluvians, by the cities of the plain, by the Jews at the time of the Captivity, by the Jews when Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus, by many a nation and many a man since. It may be reached by us, This subject, therefore, is not a question of abstract theology, touching only the ideal relations of Divine attributes. It is tremendously practical. 1. The limit may be reached in our lifetime. Men presume on their prosperity till God providentially strikes them down in desolation, and they learn in their anguish the folly of their long abuse of God’s long suffering mercy. 2. It will come to the impenitent in the next life. Death will bring it if it has been stayed during all the earthly life. The longer it is delayed the more fearful will be its consequences to those who "treasure up to themselves wrath in the day of wrath." III. IT MUST BE TO REACH THE LIMIT OF GOD’S . Then all the vials of wrath will be outpoured. The horror of the judgment ensuing can only be measured by the greatness of the forbearance which restrains it. If that were not very fearful, why should God hesitate so long in letting it loose? Why should he use all other possible means to prevent the necessity of resorting to it? Why should he urge and plead with us to hear his voice today and harden not our hearts? Sinful vows. I. SINFUL VOWS ARE AMONG THE MOST WICKED OF SINS. Some sins are committed hastily and in passion, these with more deliberation; some without strong desire, these most earnestly. II. IT IS A SIN TO PERFORM SINFUL VOWS. If we were not at liberty to make the vows, we are not at liberty to perform them. We cannot be bound to do that which we have no right to do. If we have promised to do an unlawful act, we should not consider that promise binding upon us, since our word cannot abrogate the law that forbids the act. III. GOD LEAVES MEN FREE TO EXECUTE THEIR EVIL . The Jews in Upper Egypt were to be left to the performance of their vows to the queen of heaven. This implied no sanction; it was only the withholding of forcible restraints. What a solemn responsibility lies in the fact that we have this large liberty after we have chosen an evil way, and before we are called to judgment for it! IV. GOD CEASES TO WARN MEN OF THE DANGER OF THEIR WICKED COURSES. They are then left to themselves till their sin ripens. It is a terrible fate, but consistent with the goodness of God, as we may be sure that, if God deliberately ceases to warn a man, it is because warnings are lost on him or simply harden him. We may so sin as to become "seared in our own conscience with a hot iron" (1 Timothy 4:2). V. THE FRUIT OF THE WICKED COURSES WHICH MEN HAVE CHOSEN FOR WILL BE THE WORST OF THEM. They need no external penalties performed by executioners of justice. Sin is its own executioner, the natural effect of sin its own punishment. In the natural results that followed the performance of their wicked vows the idolatrous Jews will reap the bitterest harvest of retribution. "The sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth death" (James 1:15). The remnant of the remnant. Of the Jews who escaped the sword of Nebuchadnezzar in the invasion of their land, "a remnant "fled to Egypt; of this body of refugees "a remnant" was to survive the dangers that would destroy the greater part. Thus but a small number would return to Jerusalem in safety. For their folly in fleeing to Egypt the fugitives would suffer a second desolation, while the captives in Babylon and the patient poor people who remained in the land of their fathers would be spared. Yet even out of this further calamity some few would be brought in safety. I. IS WITH MERCY. Many are spared at the first blow. Some of these are only hardened in wickedness. A second blow falls. Still some are spared. God is reluctant to give his people up. If he can find room for any mercy in the midst of the severest judgment, he will exercise it. II. GOD’S IS . Even now it must be so; for "shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" But we do not yet know its purposes and its methods, and therefore to us it looks as though it could not take note of individual deserts. Ultimately we shall see how God has overlooked no exceptional case. Noah is picked out of the drowning world. Lot is remembered in Sodom. Elijah is provided for in the general drought. We can look for no such evidences of an interfering Providence in earthly things now, perhaps, but the truth they illustrate holds good, and must work its blessed results in the day of final account. Natural selection does not always result in the survival of the morally fittest on earth. On the contrary, the good may become martyrs, the bad triumphant tyrants. But we see only the opening acts of the drama. The final catastrophe will reveal the justice that regulates. III. LEFT TO , NO MEN COULD ESCAPE THE DOOM OF SIN. In the eternal judgment there could not even. be a remnant of a remnant, "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." All would, therefore, receive the wages of sin. IV. BY THE OF CHRIST ALL WHO HAVE SINNED MAY BE SAVED. This is large enough to deliver, not merely a remnant of a remnant, but every man who has fallen, however low he lies in the mire. V. AT FIRST BUT A REMNANT OF A REMNANT ARE SAVED BY CHRIST. The question whether few were to be saved was not to be answered for the satisfaction of idle curiosity (Luke 13:23). But that only a few sought the grace of Christ at first is a historical fact. The number has grown wonderfully, and yet how large a part of the world must be accounted still dark and dead in sin! But the few are saved that they may win the many. The first disciples became apostles. The small remnant laid the foundation of a great nation. The Church is called to evangelize the world. BY A.F. MUIR (vide Jeremiah 43:8-13). The condition of hardened sinners desperate. I. WHY IS IT SO? 1. Because repeated warnings have been rejected. (Jeremiah 44:4, Jeremiah 44:5.) These have been inspired and infallible. Had they believed ever so little they might have trusted implicitly what was spoken, accompanied as it was with such miraculous credentials. We, in these last times, have had the Lord himself. He has revealed the heart of the Father. (2) They were sufficiently numerous and seasonable. God "rose up early and sent them." He sent them all. No opportunity or peculiarity of individual influence was emitted. Christ is greater than all the prophets put together, and his gospel is universally declared and universally authoritative over the consciences of men. God cannot send another messenger, nor would it avail if he could. 2. Because the lessons of experience have been ignored. (Jeremiah 44:9, Jeremiah 44:10.) How terribly severe had not these been! It was scarcely possible for greater temporal punishments to be inflicted. Yet it was in the discipline of these judgments they were to have been saved. The path of transgressions, as the sinner looks back upon it, is marked by ruin and death. Yet will he not repent. 3. Their persistent disobedience is an intolerable offence to God. (Jeremiah 44:8.) God’s judgments are not exhausted, but his patience may be. The history of offence and punishment will not repeat itself indefinitely. There are abysses of wrath. There is an eternal fire. Let them beware lest they be utterly consumed. II. WHAT ARE THE SIGNS THAT IT IS SO? 1. The Word of God is wholly against them, The indictment has no redeeming feature. 2. The pathos and pitifulness of God’s entreaty. (Jeremiah 44:4, Jeremiah 44:7.) There is compassion in the Divine mind because of the consequences that impend. Who so able to understand the sinner’s circumstances as his Father? He who can see before and after, and who can fathom the mystery of iniquity, fears for his erring child. III. WHAT ELEMENT OF HOPE, IF ANY, IS STILL LEFT FOR THEM? 1. God still pleads. Silence would mean hopelessness. Whilst his servant is authorized to speak, there may remain a way of escape. 2. The fatherly compassion his voice betrays. There are tears in the entreaty: "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!" It is the birth cry of an evangel; a prophecy of Jesus. Mercy may move and melt where judgment has failed. "For the love of Christ constraineth us," etc. (2 Corinthians 5:14); "But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).—M. Jeremiah 44:15-23 Credentials of religion. Very important to know why we prefer one religious system to another, and also why we ought to prefer it. A man is continually in need of having to give a reason for the hope that is in him. The higher religions find the field already occupied by many great systems, and have to vindicate themselves. The arguments employed here are those most commonly adduced, because most superficial. As appealing to the sensuous and material side of human nature, they are very influential. I. WORLDLY FOR A . Here they are employed on behalf of a false religion, an idolatry; but they are often made use of in recommending true religion. They are generally of two classes, viz. pertaining: 1. To authority. The idolatry here defended was (1) general and fashionable; (2) ancient; (3) patronized by royalty; (4) practised in the mother city of God’s people. 2. To tendency. It was alleged to have promoted prosperity and peace. II. THEIR . 1. Authority is only valuable as it helps to establish truth. Sin in its most flagrant forms, ignorance and inhumanity, have been more and longer prevalent than the greatest religions the world has seen. The most cruel and debasing religions are the most ancient in most countries. The only authority which can be admitted in such a connection is that of the best, i.e. the wisest and purest. 2. The tendency argument is open to similar objections. It is a great deal to say in favour of a religion that it has promoted the welfare and happiness of its supporters; but it is not so easy to prove it. Here the prophet alleges that it was their idolatry which lay at the root of all the misery of the people of Judah. It requires a very wide, varied, and lengthened induction of a people’s circumstances ere such a statement is legitimate either way. And even if it were made out to one’s satisfaction that a religious system had a beneficial effect upon the material condition of a people, it must still be remembered that man is a spiritual being, and that his moral and spiritual nature will sooner or later enter an imperious claim to attention and satisfaction. Only that which is right and true can meet the wants of the human spirit under all circumstances. And God is the one Being who can satisfy the spiritual aspirations and needs of his creatures. If the best and the holiest of men cannot be content with material advantages and comfort, but are ever yearning for something beyond, it is evident that utilitarianism must be interpreted in a very spiritual sense indeed ere it can pass muster as a tolerable criterion of any religion. It is chiefly because Christianity has revealed a Divine communion and a universal moral basis that it is destined to supplant all other creeds. But at the same time, it is also enforced by the test of utility in its more material aspect. No religion has so advanced the comfort, civilization, and peace of this world.—M. Jeremiah 44:26-28 The danger of corrupting true religion. God has from the beginning been solicitous for the purity of his revelation and worship. He would never suffer his ordinances to be tampered with, or share his honour with other gods. "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" (Deuteronomy 6:13; Luke 4:8). I. IT HAS BEEN GUARDED BY AWFUL . Frequently in Old Testament history the death penalty was inflicted upon spiritual pretenders, false prophets, and idolatrous worshippers of Jehovah. The warning of the text is very significant; a time was to come when no Jew would any more swear by Jehovah in Egypt, for the very good reason that there would be none there. "In the form of asseveration the Name of Jehovah would be still retained, although they had long since been devoted to the service of other gods. But Jehovah, who is a jealous God, rejects honour and acknowledgment which he must share with others; and so his Name shall no longer be heard from the mouth of any Jews in Egypt" (Hitzig). In the New Testament men are warned of making the Word of God "a cloke for lasciviousness;" of "perishing in the gainsaying of Core;" of tasting of the powers of the world to come, and falling back; of making gain of godliness; of handling the Word of God deceitfully, and wresting it to their own destruction; or of adding aught to the revealed truth (Revelation 22:18, Revelation 22:19). II. REASONS FOR THIS , 1. Objective. (1) The slow advance of truth. (2) The costliness of the Divine relation. 2. Subjective. (1) Partly in the very nature of the ease—moral simplicity being sacrificed in the self-consciousness of a corrupt worship. (2) The necessity of inspiration by the truth in order to the spiritual welfare and true immortality of man.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 44:1-30 Jeremiah’s last sermon. There are other prophecies of Jeremiah recorded in this book in the chapters that remain, but this discourse is the last that we know of his delivering. And with it the curtain falls upon this great prophet of God; upon Baruch, his beloved companion and helper; and upon the wretched Jews for whose good he had laboured, but in vain. A long interval separates it from that in the previous chapter; for we see the people not now at Tahpanhes, at the border of Egypt, but gathering from all parts of the land to Pathros, to a great heathen festival there. And a very awful discourse it is. There is not one word of gospel in it, but the boom of the heavy bell of doom is heard resounding all through it—not one solitary chime of grace, or mercy, or hope anywhere. It is like the words of the Son of man when he comes to judge the world, and all nations are brought before him, to those on his left hand. They are told their sin and their doom. They make such defence as they can, which is rather a defiance than a defence; they are answered, and their sentence is pronounced again. There is throughout both these discourses nought but "a fearful looking for of judgment and of fiery indignation." "There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin." Such sermons might well have suggested these apostolic words. In this one note— I. ITS —THE OF THE . The prophet reminds them that they had seen God’s judgments upon their brethren and fathers, and they knew the cause, that it was their sin against God. They had heard warning after warning addressed to themselves against the same sin. And not only had these warnings been repeated, but many messengers had been sent, and these had given their message with all earnestness and zeal, in season and out of season, and God himself had deigned to entreat with them and plead with them, saying, "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!" But they had disregarded, despised, disobeyed all, and they were not humbled (verse 10) even now. Therefore was their judgment pronounced against them and their doom was fixed. II. THE ANSWER OF THE PEOPLE. They would not believe in their doom. They resolved to persist in their sin. They declared they were every way better off in serving idols than in serving God. III. THE PROPHET’S REPLY AND OF GOD’S AGAINST THEM. . As we read and ponder this terrible chapter, and remember that as its declarations concerning the past were true, so also were those that related to the future; for the judgment came upon them to the uttermost, far more than fell on those in Babylon. What can our hearts say to this? "Who would not fear thee, O Lord?" "Keep back thy servant … from presumptuous sins."—C. The end of Jeremiah; or, going down in clouds. With this chapter Jeremiah disappears from view. The sadness which surrounded his first ministry accompanies it to the last and deepens at its close; like a sunset in clouds, going down in darkness and storm, The path along which he had been led had been via crucis, a via dolorosa indeed; a lifelong tragedy, an unceasing pain. We can only hope that death came soon to him after his recorded history closes. We have seen him torn from his native land and carried down to Egypt. We see him in the forty-third chapter at the border of the land; in this, in the heart of Egypt, at Pathros, probably forced to witness the degrading idolatry of his people, and unable to do aught to prevent it. An idol festival, accompanied, doubtless, with all the wonted pollutions of such worship, is proceeding, and he lifts up his voice once more in stern protest. But in vain, as heretofore. He vanishes from our view at an hour when his countrymen, so far from being less addicted to idols, were now open in their sin, vaunting it and declaring their determination to adhere to it, and their reset that they had ever done otherwise. What a farewell between a minister of God and the people of his charge! There never was but one other like it—the farewell of him who said, as he wept over another doomed Jerusalem and a future Jewish people, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." What became of Jeremiah from this date we know not. "No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day." "There is the Christian tradition resting doubtless on some earlier belief, that the long tragedy of his life ended in actual martyrdom, and that the Jews at Tahpanhes, enraged by his rebukes, at last stoned him to death." The testimony to the martyrs at the close of the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews is thought to contain allusion to him: "They were stoned"—so we read. There is a Jewish tradition, however, which says that he made his escape to Babylon, but Josephus, like the Bible, is utterly silent as to the prophet’s end. And it has been suggested that the tradition of the Jew and the silence of the historian are alike owing to a desire to gloss over some great crime. The suggestion is a probable one. "But he did not need a death by violence to make him a true martyr. To die with none to record the time or manner of his death was the right end for one who had spoken all along, not to win the praise of men, but because the Word of the Lord was in him as ’a burning fire.’ The darkness and doubt that brood over the last days of the prophet’s life are more significant than either of the issues which present themselves to men’s imaginations as the winding up of his career." "But a careful examination of his writings show that, whilst the earlier ones are calmer, loftier, more uniform in tone, the latter show marks of age and weariness and sorrow, and are more strongly imbued with the language of individual suffering." How glad we would have been had the clouds lifted ere he died, and a gleam of sunshine had irradiated the hitherto almost unbroken gloom! Some of the prophets were permitted to have a blessed onlook into the better days that were coming. He who wrote the closing portion of Isaiah’s prophecies did so; like Moses from Mount Pisgah. But it was not so to be with this prophet of God. His sun was to go down in clouds, and, though he had faithfully kept God’s commandments, there was not for him in this life any "great reward." Though out of love for his countrymen he had refused the offer of a peaceful and honoured home in Babylon, like Moses, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God" he yet failed to win their affection or obedience; and they remained in the same evil mind to the last. He had walked in the fear of the Lord. But those ways had. not been for him "ways of pleasantness," nor its paths "paths of peace." The brokenhearted old man appeals to God and man, "Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow." The twenty-second psalm—that which seems to tell so clearly of the sufferings of our Lord—is thought by many to have been written by him, and tp tell of his own deep distress. Priest, patriot, prophet, martyr, hero of the faith indeed, what a life was thine from beginning to end, from thy first call by God to thy last rejection by men! These lines, translated for our day, and sung by our comfortable congregations—with what consistency they who sing them best know— "If I find him, if I follow, What his guerdon here? Many a sorrow, many a labour, Many a tear;" —are applicable enough to one like that great prophet of God, whose career began, continued, and, most of all, ended, in sorrow, labour, and tears. But the review of such a ministry must assuredly have its lessons. As we think of it are we not reminded— I. OF "THE MAN OF SORROWS," OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST? No doubt other great servants of God, whose ministry and especially whose end have been like that of Jeremiah, come into the mind. John the Baptist in Bible history, and Savonarola in later days. The parallel between this great Florentine preacher and our prophet has often been noticed. The insistance upon spiritual religion, the sad and terrible close of his career,—these have led many to look upon Savonaroia as the Jeremiah of the Middle Ages. But these resemblances are incidental and undesigned. That, however, between our Lord and his honoured servant who, in so many ways, preceded him, is not incidental, nor can it be called undesigned. But whilst the prophet is like our Lord in so many respects, yet, great as were his sorrows, those of the Man of sorrows were greater still. For our Lord knew more of the evil of sin and hated it more intensely. He sacrificed more and endured more. And so the experience of the prophets, like that of all God’s servants, only goes to show that Christ has sounded deeper depths of sorrow than any that his servants can ever know. "Christ leads us through no darker room Than he’s been through before." Hence always "underneath," however deep the depths out of which we cry, "are the everlasting arms" of his sympathy and love and help. II. OF THE OF OUR BURDENS WITH THOSE OF MANY OF THE OF GOD? How it shames us to think of the things we murmur about, when we contrast them with what such men as Jeremiah continually endured! Surely as we think of the severity of his cross, and especially that of our Saviour, we shall cease to complain of what ours may be. III. OF WHAT THE GRACE OF GOD CAN DO? Did the prophet of God endure and contend so nobly, and was he faithful unto death? But is not "Jesus Christ the same yesterday," etc.? Then he who so strengthened his servants in days gone by will do the same still. Let us, therefore, go forward without fear. IV. OF THE OF THE COST ERE WE ENTER UPON THE SERVICE OF GOD? We see in the career of Jeremiah what may be required of us. Our Lord said to one candidate for discipleship, "The foxes have holes, and," etc. He would have the man consider if he were prepared to bear a life like that. And as we read what has been demanded of the Lord’s servants, and may be of us, it is well that we, too, should count the cost. But do not count it so as to decline it; no, but that you may hasten to the treasure store of Christ, to the riches of his grace who will make his strength perfect in our weakness. V. OF THE GREAT FOR A FUTURE LIFE WHICH SUCH A CAREER AS THAT OF ? We have seen how uninterruptedly sad his life was, and how darkly it ended. Now, can any say that there is nothing more for such a man as that; that he and all they "who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished"—that is, the noblest, the purest, the best; those whose lives were beautiful, brave, God-like,—that these have perished? And yet, if death ends all, they have. It is incredible. VI. IF SUCH MEN DEEMED IT WELL TO ALL THEIR PRESENT FOR THE FAVOUR OF GOD, ARE WE WISE WHO REFUSE TO , who love the world and cling to it and make it our good?—C. Jeremiah 44:4 The mind of God towards sin and sinners. "Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!" Idolatry is the sin specially referred to here. And it was indeed an "abominable thing." Pollution, cruelty, degradation, were inseparably associated with it. But the words may be applied to all sin—should be so applied. For what is sin? It is the acting out of that evil corrupt nature which we know to our cost lurks within us all. It is the stream that naturally flows from an evil fountain, the fruit that is sure to grow on a corrupt tree. Now, this view declares the mind of God— I. TOWARDS SIN. 1. He calls it "this abominable thing." Thus he brands it. See how justly. For what do we call abominable? Is wrong done to a benefactor abominable? Is not every sin such a wrong? God does not command more than he deserves when he says, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," etc. What do we not owe to him? and how do we requite him? Is wrong done to one who has entrusted his goods to us that we may employ them for him, who has made us his stewards that we may employ rightly that which he has committed to our care,—is faithlessness to such abominable? But is not sin precisely such a wrong? Our mind, affections, will, our body with all its faculties and passions,—what are they aught else but our Maker’s goods with which, as stewards, he has entrusted us? Let conscience declare the use we have made of them—that sin makes of them. Is wrong done to the defenceless and innocent abominable? Do we not cry out loudly against such a one? But is not sin such a wrong? We sin not to ourselves. We entail the consequences of our actions on those who cannot defend themselves, who are utterly innocent, and who will surely suffer by what we do. No man dieth to himself. He drags down in the vortex in which he himself is engulfed children, friends, neighbours, companions, all whom he has influenced and helped to make sinful like himself. Is wrong done to vast numbers abominable, so that when we hear of how one has brought ruin upon multitudes our anger against him grows the more? Surely it is so. But where do the ever-widening circles of sin’s deadly influence stop? How wide an area do they enfold? "Jeroboam the son of Nebat … made Israel to sin." Is that which pollutes and defiles, which is sensual and unclean, abominable? But sin is guilty of all this. For all these reasons and others sin is an abominable thing. 2. He hates it. "Do not … that I hate!" God hates nothing that he has made. To us some creatures are hateful and some persons. But not so to God. He does not hate even the sinner, but only his sin. It is not alone that it is abominable in its own nature that he hates it, but it works such ruin, spreads sorrow and desolation far and wide. It has opened and peoples the abodes of the lost. And it does despite and dishonour to the Son of God. How, then, can God do otherwise than hate it? II. TOWARDS THE SINNER. Note the pleading tone of this verse, "Oh, do not," etc.! What pity, what compassion, what yearning love, are all discernible in this beseeching entreaty which God addresses to the sinner! "Hear, then, God say to you, ’Do it not!’ Now, what are you going to do? Do you mean to tell me that you will persist in it? Do you really mean that? Now, think! Do you really mean to go on sinning in the face of such a message as this?—with conscience smarting, and saying in its guilty smart, Do not that abominable thing! with memory weighted with the recollection of past transgressions, and saying by the leaden burden which it carries, Do not that abominable thing! With all this, and much more, do you mean to say that you will continue in sin? With remorse, like spiritual tempest, already springing up within your soul, and threatening to destroy all your joy and peace; with a fearful looking for of judgment and future indignation; with your miserable convictions, and with your bitter fears; with your gloomy forebodings, and with your knowledge of the results and consequences of sin;—do you mean to tell me that you are determined to continue? Well, if you be determined to continue, when the offended Father comes down to you in his marvellous condescension, and cries, ’Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate!’ then, we fear, there is but little hope; and certainly, if this state of heart continue, we cannot have much hope concerning you. It is probable that if some of you pass by many more seasons of conviction, God will say, ’He is joined to his idols; let him alone;’ and you will be, in this world, left alone. You will come here, perhaps, according to your custom, but you will be left alone, I shall never have a message to you; I shall never have a prayer for you; no warning from these lips will ever reach you; you will be insensible as the very pews in which you sit, and nothing shall seem, in these ordinances, to be a voice from Heaven to your guilty and needy soul. Thus will you live until, with a seared conscience, you lie down on the bed of death, and there, perhaps, when it is too late, all your old fears will be awakened. You may send to your minister upon that bed of death, and he may come, but by your bedside he may be speechless, his very power to pray may depart from him, and in trying to ask mercy for you all his utterances may be choked; and you may go from that wretched dying bed to hell. And as you sink down into the pit, the millstone about your neck will be the abominable thing which God hates".—C. Jeremiah 44:17, Jeremiah 44:18 The apparent profitableness of sin. This was what they asserted. And there seemed something in the assertion. All the great nations around them, and of which they knew anything, were idolaters—Assyria, Type, Babylon, Egypt, and the powerful Philistine, desert and other tribes. But Israel was in great trouble and humiliation. But the argument would have been valid if at the time of their fidelity they had always suffered, and if in their disobedience they had always prospered. They knew, if they would speak the truth, that the very reverse was the fact. When faithful, a thousand fell at their side, etc; but it came not nigh them. But when disobedient—though God bore with them for a while, and this forbearance they perverted into an argument for their sin, as so many do still—then it was their troubles came. But, no doubt, ungodliness did and does at times seem to be the most profitable course. This is so because— I. If it were not so, then there could be no such thing as faith. II. Nor could there be holiness—no love of goodness and God for their own sake. III. The ungodly are held back by no scruples as the godly are. IV. And they have the advantage of concentration of energy. They care only for one world; the believer cares for two, and most not for this but for the next. V. The long suffering of God may lead them to repentance. VI. Therefore, let us not grudge the wicked their prosperity, nor deem their ways better than the ways of God.—C. Wretched reasons for a wrong resolve. When we come to a good resolution there can always be found good reasons for it. But when we come to a had resolve the reasons for it do not always appear so bad as they are. They can be plausibly urged and maintained, and appear very valid until they are more closely examined and the light of God’s Word is brought to bear upon them. Then they appear what they really are. That Word is the Ithuriel’s spear, which detects and declares what seemed to be something altogether different. Thus is it with the reasons urged here by the miserable exiles in Egypt for their persistence in their idolatry. Note— I. THEIR RESOLVE. It was (1) that they would not hearken to the prophet of God; and (2) they would go on paying their vows, and burning their incense "unto the queen of heaven." Now, (3) this was a resolve proved to be wrong by the plain Word of God, the example of the noblest men of their race, the experience of their forefathers, and by the sorrows that had come and were yet to come upon themselves. But they urged— II. THEIR REASONS. These were: 1. Their vows. As if a sinful vow could be made less sinful by keeping it; cf. Herod’s vow to Herodias’s daughter. Bad promises are ever better broken than kept. 2. Custom, which they said had in its favour: (1) Antiquity. Their fathers did so. Yes; some of them had; but not all, nor the best. (2) Authority. Their kings, princes, etc. But this, also, largely false. (3) Unity. They all did it, But there were a faithful few still. (4) Universality. It was done everywhere. Not everywhere, hut, no doubt, extensively and very much, it was true, in Jerusalem, the metropolis of their land. All this was but a portion of the truth. 3. They pleaded advantage. They were better off when they acted thus; only trouble came when they worshipped God. No doubt sentence against their evil work was not executed speedily, and for a while their prosperity was not interrupted. Hence they perverted this forbearance of God—as men do still—into a pretext for going on in their evil way. Then when the judgments did come, and under the lash of them they gave up their idols, it was only an outward abandonment, not a genuine repentance, and such con. duct did not bring back the forfeited, favour of God. Hence, they said, it had been better not to have forsaken their idols at all III. AND THESE REASONS ARE IN FORCE STILL. How many excuse and defend their idolatry of the world and self and sin on the ground of custom, of gain thereby, and of loss if they act otherwise! And the force of these so called reasonings is great indeed with "men of this world." Where, then, can be found that reasoning which will beat back and beat down their fatal force? In this alone—the Divine Spirit acting through a consistent, believing, happy Church.—C. The husband’s responsibility. "Did we make her cakes to worship her … without our men?" These women pleaded that they had their husbands’ sanction for what they did. It could not have been otherwise considering the subordinate position women occupied in Oriental nations. No doubt, therefore, the husbands and the male heads of families generally not only permitted, but even prompted these things. Hence it was some sort of excuse and defence for these women thus engaged in idolatrous worship. Such defence is allowed in human law. For the husband, by Christ’s law as well as man’s, is the head of the wife. If so, then the chief responsibility and the chief guiltiness on account of the sin of the household rest on the man at the head of it. The especial blessing of God was pronounced on Abraham because, says God, "I know him, that he will command his household after him." The anger of God came on Eli because he failed to do this. To escape such guilt, let husbands: 1. Be in the Lord themselves. 2. Marry only in the Lord. 3. Be careful to maintain family religion. 4. Set themselves to seek the grace of God’s regenerating Spirit for all their households.—C. BY D. YOUNG A severe lesson unlearned. I. TO LEARN THE LESSON. The suffering had not happened a long way off and to a people of strangers. Those who were to be taught had seen for themselves. The suffering was the very cause that prompted them to seek a home in Egypt, and even at this moment it was no great distance that separated them from the land of desolation. And so also have we opportunities, only too many, to learn from the sufferings of others. All suffering teaches something, if only we are willing to learn, and the suffering that comes through sin should have a peculiarly instructing power. Opportunity is also given, not only to learn ourselves, but to teach others. The daily newspaper, with its records of crime, folly, violent death, and lifelong disgrace, puts all who read it under a great responsibility for ordering their lives aright. II. THE FULL OF THE . The cause of it all is clearly stated. The unfaithfulness of a nation to their God. Even to have begun a departure from God was great wickedness, but persistency still further intensified the guilt. Other nations were faithful to their gods, though they were really no gods and had rendered no service, whereas Israel owed its growth, its position, its prosperity, its fame, to Jehovah. We do not know the origin and moulding of any other people as we do those of the people of God. We cannot think of the great suffering connected with the desolated cities of Judah without thinking also of Jehovah’s long suffering, and of the continuous prophetic means he employed to set before his people their wickedness and peril. On the other hand, we have a lesson with respect to what seems unpunished iniquity. Suffering is surely being gathered up for it. Time is being given for repentance and amendment. III. THE LESSON IS . We say "unlearned," because it effected no change. Suffering by itself cannot change. Suffering, indeed, appears to have different effects with different people, but the suffering is not really a cause. It but gives occasion to see whether men will yield to the new life and energy which comes from God. There had been a great upheaval in Judah, but so far as concerned the Jews dwelling in the land of Egypt the only change was one in the scene of their idolatries. They were the same men in Egypt as at Jerusalem.—Y. Jeremiah 44:11-14 The doom on those making sure of safety in Egypt. I. A FIXED . The obstinate self-will of man brings into relief the inflexibility of the righteous judgments of God. The remnant of Judah set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there. What, then, is to be expected but that Jehovah should set his face against them? The more self-will becomes a power in the life, the more nearly does it move in direct opposition to him who is the true Sovereign and Disposer of every human life. We can guess something of the thoughts of these Egypt seekers. They say to themselves, "Henceforth we shall consult for our own safety." They speak as if the peculiar perils hitherto besetting them were the perils of one place rather than another. Perhaps even they reckoned that outside the land of Israel they were beyond Jehovah’s reach. Here there is a lesson for us in our selfish aims and pursuits. All selfishness is bad, but even in selfishness a lesser badness is a degree of goodness, and it is well for a man if he gets frequently shaken in his selfishness; for then, his face not being steadily against God, he will find God looking on him encouragingly, to draw him out of his selfishness altogether. II. A . Complete, that is, in the sense of general and final. There was but a remnant to begin with, and of that a very small remnant might escape. The very smallness of the remnant, however, would but magnify the completeness of the destruction, no place is secure against the visitations of God’s righteous wrath. Indeed, the greater the appearance of natural security, the more manifest will be the breaking in on this security of the Divine justice. Men must be taught, even by terrible lessons, that, as there is the best kind of safety under the shadow of God’s wings, so there is the worst kind of danger the further we go from God. To multiply our own defences is really to multiply our own perils. III. A PURPOSE. This remnant, not finding in Egypt the expected safety, thinks there is nothing easier than to go back again to the land of Judah. Whereas they find too late that, while departure from their own proper place is easy enough, return to it may be impossible. Opening the door to get out was one thing; opening it to get in again quite another. Seventy years was to pass before they of the Captivity should return from Babylon—indeed, it would really be another generation altogether; and should those who sought Egypt in contumacy and rebellion expect to fare better? We must be wise in time. To be wise too late gives suffering its keenest edge. So Judas brought back in vain the thirty pieces of silver, and Esau found no place of repentance though he sought it carefully with tears. This is why God is so earnest in promising wisdom and light to those who seek for them, that we may seek for them at the right time, at the beginning of the great opportunity of life, and at the beginning of every smaller opportunity.—Y. Supposed and real reasons for calamity. I. A REASON. What is the calamity? Sword and famine. Certainly a calamity to be removed and as far as possible averted for the future. And casting about to discover a reason for the calamity, the men of Judah, or rather the women, for it is they who appear most prominently in this declaration, discover that the reason is to be found in the discontinuance of their offerings to the queen of heaven. What a family matter this offering was is shown by Jeremiah 7:18. The women kneaded dough to make cakes to the queen of heaven. These offerings must have been very generally given up when the migration into Egypt took place, and then, on the coming of the sword and famine, what was more natural than for these women to connect the calamity with the discontinued offerings? In one thing they were quite right; there was a supernatural reason for the calamity. Wrong as they were, it was well they did not rest in any mere natural reason. They were sure that a Divine Being of some sort or other had to do with their troubles. The direction of thought is different now. When calamity comes upon people, if they connect it with God at all, they very often do so in an arbitrary kind of way, as if nothing but a mere superior will, without reason or purpose of any sort, had sent calamity to them. It is easy to pity what we call the ignorance and superstition of this crowd of women, but always we can see the errors of other times far more easily than those of our own. The causes of suffering need to be inquired for very carefully, very patiently; for wrong conclusions only bring more suffering than ever. II. THE REAL REASON. They had forsaken Jehovah. Not that there is any necessary connection between the forsaking of Jehovah and the sword and famine. Nothing but our faith in the reality of a prophet’s predictions can enable us to see this connection. There is oftentimes an utter forsaking of God, yet neither sword nor famine follow. The true and necessary result of going after something else than God is found in the consequent misery and emptiness of the life. Continually we suffer from our inability to see things in their right proportions. Bad as sword and famine may be, there are things infinitely worse. The fact that this multitude was debasing itself by worshipping the queen of heaven pointed to a state of things far worse than any physical suffering could be. Physical suffering may at any time be removed, if desirable, by a miracle. But that darkness of the heart producing essential idolatry, a darkness so loved and cherished, who is to remove that? Nay, the very fulness of temporal comforts may become a veil between God and the soul. The very thing which helped to deceive the people here as to the real causes of things lay in this, that at the time when they were worshipping the queen of heaven they had plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.—Y. Jeremiah 44:27 Watching over men for evil. I. THIS IS NEVER OF CONDUCT. If God ever watches over any man for evil it is because the man’s conduct deserves it. It is not so necessarily with our watching. We may watch over a man for evil either from intensity of malice or intensity of selfishness. We may wish to do him ill from revenge or because his prosperity seems to mean our adversity. A word announcing watch over men for evil is a very serious word to fall even from Divine lips; and while ,God may speak it, perhaps we ought never to speak it. But at the same time, we cannot help watching over men for evil, and what we need especially to guard ourselves against is the doing of this from wrong motives. We must follow in the footsteps of God himself. When we censure others, or oppose them, or make them suffer in any way, let it be clear to ourselves and as far as possible clear to the world that their conduct has demanded it. II. EVIL CONDUCT IS NEVER FROM SUCH . God says that he is watching in this particular instance, but we know that he watches for evil against all evil doers. We speak of evil doing as being invariably followed by suffering, but this is only one way of putting the matter. We may also say that when suffering follows our wickedness it is the proof that God is watching for evil over the evil doer. And in this matter we need zealously and boldly to do as God does, though, of course, we must do it according to the measure of human limits and infirmity. When any one is engaged with determination in any evil pursuit, it must be ours to show that we are by no means indifferent. God’s watching over wicked men for evil is often done through the eyes of his own people; for if we have the Spirit of God in us there will be something of Divine discernment. III. A TRUTH THAT NEEDS TO BE AT THE SAME TIME. If God watches over the wicked for evil and not for good, it is equally true that he watches over the righteous for good and not for evil. Not one life, going on patiently and bravely in uprightness, is unobserved by him. Whatever the appearances may be, the abiding realities of life are against the wicked and for the righteous.—Y. Human and Divine confidence. I. IN WHAT THEY ARE ALIKE. 1. In the assurance with which they are expressed. Here are men, in their worldly wisdom, perfectly certain that the course they have adopted will turn out right. It is always important to notice the assured unquestioning spirit in which men will set out on their enterprises. They do not seem to see the failures, disgraces, and humiliations of others; such overwhelming troubles are not to come nigh them. And all this is great testimony to the use of faith to men. God means men to be confident. The confidence which he ever expresses himself is meant to find a correspondent confidence in us. We need never be dubious in matters of a spiritual kind, however dubious we have to be as to certain external results. If we only act in the right, divinely ordained way, then we can continually be confident that all will come right. 2. In the time of waiting needful to justify the confidence. God speaks words, the truth and profound significance of which it may take not merely generations but even millenniums to make manifest to the whole world. Everything immediately apparent to the outward eye may contradict what he says. And something of his own wisdom and insight into the future he gives to men of the right spirit, so that they may work for results which are to be developed through long periods. He makes it possible for men to go on believing, hopeful and patient through all discouragements, and even to die in the faith that what they have sown others will reap. Thus faith which God makes to stand in the beginning he strengthens and establishes even to the end. And that faith which makes men themselves to utter confident dogmatic words will not be shaken all at once. Time is to try all things—the wisdom of the wise and the folly of the fools, the result of that which is sown to the Spirit and that which is sown to the flesh. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ PROMISE TO BARUCH. Jeremiah 45:1 These words; i.e. the revelations which Baruch had committed (or was committing) to writing. Jeremiah 45:3 Hath added grief to my sorrow. Baruch felt "sorrow" or "pain" at the sinfulness of the people; "grief" or "anxiety" was added by Jeremiah’s announcement of the judgment. I fainted in my sighing; rather, I am weary with my sighing; comp. Psalms 6:7 (Authorized Version, 6). Jeremiah 45:4 That which I have built (comp, Jeremiah 1:10 and parallel passages). Even this whole land; rather, and that is the whole earth. Jeremiah 45:5 Seekest thou great things, etc.? All around is passing through a sore crisis, and canst thou expect a better lot? It is no time for personal ambition, when the very foundations of the state are crumbling. In all places whither thou goest. This seems to indicate that Baruch’s time of exile would be a restless one; it would nowhere be safe for him to take up a settled habitation. Jeremiah 45:1-5 The grief of one soul, and its consolation. This chapter is devoted to one man. Among the large prophecies concerning whole nations, room is found for a prophecy to a single individual. The Bible is at once universal and individualistic in character. Its narratives alternate history with biography. God cares for the whole world, and truth is largess the universe; yet God does not forget one soul in its private distress, and truth has special applications to special cases. I. THE GRIEF. Baruch had a double distress—grief added to sorrow. 1. The first sorrow. Probably this arose from a consideration of the wretched condition of the nation in its vice and decay. It is right and natural that good men should feel deep concern at the state of their country. The Christian should have the spirit of him who "when he beheld the city, wept over it." Moreover, if we see much of the wickedness of the world, we should not be satisfied with steadily condemning it, nor with congratulating ourselves on our own superior goodness. The sight should fill us with sorrow. They who go thus astray are our own brethren. And is not there much of the same sin in all of us? Often the wickedness which shocks us in others is only the full development of the very sin that lurks in our own hearts. 2. The added grief. (1) This came from the prophecy. Baruch was commissioned to write and read. His privileged position, so near to the fountain of inspiration, only deepened his distress. High spiritual privilege may bring only sadness in this world’s experience. Increase of knowledge may be increase of sorrow. Revelation is sometimes a cause of distress. In the present case the prophecy was a declaration of the approaching doom of Jerusalem. We should contemplate the punishment of the impenitent with profound grief. Revengeful, triumphant, or self-complacent feelings in regard to this terrible subject are quite unchristian. (2) Baruch had personal grounds for his distress. In the approaching overthrow of his nation all his cherished hopes of personal ambition were shattered. The most sanguine too often suffer the bitterest disappointments. (3) Jeremiah’s grief would add to that of Baruch. Sorrow is contagious. He who is much with "the Man of sorrows" will be likely to feel strange grief in contemplating the evil of the world. Baruch could find no rest in his grief. The greatest weariness is not the result of hard work; it comes from distress of heart. It is trouble, not work, that breaks down the strong life to premature old age. The blessedness of the heavenly rest is that it is rest from sorrow as well as from toil. II. THE . Jeremiah has a prophecy for Baruch. God speaks to individual souls, The preacher must be preached to. Has not he who would save others a soul of his own to be saved. How sad that any preacher should declare the Divine message to the people, but hear no voice speaking peace to his own troubled soul! If he were as faithful as Baruch, he might expect, like Baruch, to receive a Divine consolation. Note the characteristics of this consolation. It did not deny the cause of grief. Much comfort is unreal and false in trying to do this. The consolation for Baruch consisted chiefly in furnishing him with advice regarding his views of God’s action and his own aims in life. 1. A lesson of acquiescence in the Divine will. God is acting within his rights. It is vain to rebel. Peace is found in submission. 2. A rebuke to ambition. Self-seeking brings distress. As we live out of self we gain Divine peace. 3. A promise of safety. After the lessons intended to lead Baruch into a right mood, God promises him his life—only this, but this is much for a humble man who knows he does not deserve it, and a good man who will devote it to God’s service. Divine destruction. I. GOD CAN DESTROY HIS OWN WORK. What he made he can unmake. People dogmatize about the indestructibility of matter, of atoms, of souls. How do we know they are indestructible? Is God’s omnipotence limited by the properties of his own works? But apart from all metaphysics, the complex world, being constructed, is plainly subject to destruction. It is monstrous to think the universe is a huge Frankenstein, able to escape from the power of its Maker. II. GOD HAS A RIGHT TO DESTROY HIS OWN WORK. There is no property so clearly belonging to a person as the work of his own hands. All things that exist were made by God, and all belong to him. What he gave us he has a right to withdraw. His gifts are loans, talents to be used for a season and then returned. No creature has a right to its own life before God. He freely gave it; he may withdraw it. Much less have we sinful creatures any such right. III. GOD WILL NOT DESTROY HIS OWN WORK WITHOUT GOOD REASON. A power is not necessarily always put forth nor a right in perpetual exercise. God does not act capriciously nor cruelly. He is the Creator rather than the Destroyer. He delights in creating because he loves his creatures. He takes no pleasure in destroying, but will only do it under urgent necessity. IV. THERE ARE UNDER WHICH GOD WILL DESTROY HIS OWN WORK. All things were good when they came from their Maker’s hands. But some have been corrupted. When a thing is hopelessly corrupt there is no reason for preserving it and much for destroying it. See this in earthly experience—the Flood, the destruction of Jerusalem, and m greater judgments—the wages of sin, death, and the final destruction of the world. Therefore let us not presume that any work or institution is eternal because it was established by the eternal God, that any possession of ours must be permanent because it came from him, or that our own life is safe because God breathed it into us. Self-seeking. Self-seeking is treated in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, as both wrong and not really profitable to the self-seeker, although it seems be prompted by natural instincts and supported by good reasons. Let us consider the grounds of these representations. I. WHY SELF-SEEKING IS WRONG. God does not require absolute altruism; we are only commanded to love our neighbours as ourselves. Natural self-regarding instincts created by God can surely be innocently exercised. It cannot be necessary for all efforts of men to rise in social position, etc; to be condemned. What, then is the self-seeking which is blameworthy? 1. That which offends against justice by seeking selfish gain at the expense of others. What frightful injustice ambition must answer for, in liberty destroyed, lives sacrificed, confusion and misery sown broadcast! 2. That which offends against charity by disregarding the good of others. In the spirit of Cain it cries, "Am I my brother’s keeper?" So long as it attains its own ends, it will not lift a finger to move another man’s burden. But Christ teaches us that it is not enough that we do not injure others, we must also actively help them; it is not enough that we do not steal, we midst go further and "give to him that asketh." 3. That which offends against duty by sacrificing the vocation of life to private gain. We are not free to live to ourselves, because we are not our own masters. We are called to God’s service. Our duty is to serve God, not self, so that whatsoever we do may be done "unto the Lord." Self-seeking is rebellion against our Lord and Master. In times of public distress self-seeking is peculiarly odious. Such were the times in which Baruch lived. Then there are loud calls of duty and noble tasks to be done. The general grief makes the thought of one’s own pleasure and profit out of place. To use that distress as a ladder by which to rise to greatness is indeed despicable. II. WHY SELF-SEEKING IS NOT . In a worldly sense and for a time it may be, but not really and ultimately. Even in the lower human relations, how often do the seeds of ambition bring a harvest of anxiety! The self-seeker reaches the climax of his endeavours, his most brilliant dream is realized, he is a king—and he wears a hidden coat of mail, hides himself in a fortress-castle, has not the liberty of his meanest subject, is driven near to madness by the fear of assassination. "He who ascends to mountain tops shall find The loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow; He who surpasses or subdues mankind Must look down on the hate of those below." When extreme greatness and extreme disappointment are neither realized, lesser self-seeking brings its corresponding trouble. It narrows the heart and destroys the purest and best delights—the joys of human sympathy. Christ shows to us deeper grounds for regarding it as a vain pursuit. "The first shall be last, and the last first." The reason he gives is that "Whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall save it." Only in proportion as we live out of self can we enjoy a life worth living; only then, indeed, do we truly live at all. By trying to make ourselves great, though we may reach a high external position, we fall to a low internal condition—we become mean and small; while in forgetting self and sacrificing self for God and for mankind we become unconsciously great. BY A.F. MUIR Baruch’s message; or, God’s consideration for his servant. It is not always well to know more than others. Future things are for the most part mercifully bidden from us. The prophecies of God’s kingdom in the world, as they awaken new hopes, also occasion new anxieties; and the latter will be the greater in proportion to our failure to comprehend and sympathize with the Divine purpose. Baruch was not in the same relation of spiritual sympathy and self-effacement with relation to the Word as Jeremiah was; he did not share the same moral elevation, and therefore his perplexities. In reward of his faithful, self-denying work as amanuensis to the prophet, a special communication is made to him with reference to his state of mind on hearing the threatenings of God against Israel and the nations. I. TO RECEIVE SUCH A WAS A HONOUR. In identifying his name with the book he wrote it immortalized him. His work was a comparatively humble one, but it required its own virtues, and these are recognized. Nothing done for God in a right spirit is forgotten by him. Amidst imperial and world wide changes the interests of his servants are ever watched over with special care. When we see the Sovereign Disposer of events, when empires are as small dust in his balance, arranging for the welfare of a single individual, merely because of help given to one of his prophets, shall we not acknowledge how precious in his eyes is even the least of his servants? They are children of the great King. II. IT TO HIS COMFORT AND PEACE OF MIND. The anxiety and fear which weighed upon Baruch are thereby dissipated. God loves to see his children cheerful and in sympathy with his will. It is just from the "sorrow of the world that worketh death," he seeks to deliver us. The work of Baruch would be easier and less oppressive when he was assured that his own safety would be secured. But how poor is this promise compared with the" life and immortality brought to light in the gospel"! The children of promise are not only delivered from the sorrows and disappointments of this present evil world, but made sharers in the final triumphs of redemptive love. III. IT A FAULT. 1. The caution. "And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek them not." Earthly ambition has often crept into the heart of God’s servants. It is not consistent with faithful, single-eyed service. They that would further the kingdom of God in the world must seek it first. Baruch was reminded that this is not our rest. And when the powers of the world were being shaken was no time for self-advancement. His sighs were not pure. He mourned over opportunities lost, not of laying up treasure in heaven, but of accumulating it on earth. 2. The promise. "Thy life will I give unto thee for a prey." It seems poor, compared with his hopes. He perhaps anticipated a slight rebuke and chastisement of Israel, a few changes and adjustments, and the carrying on of the Divine purposes to a speedy issue. This illusion is gently but firmly checked. The world has a severer ordeal to pass through ere the ancient offence can be expiated, and the arena cleared for the Divine future. His hopes are, therefore, not wholly destroyed, but transferred. He will be spared to see the things beyond, and meanwhile it will be his privilege to help on that better time. Happy for him if, thus corrected, he attains to a diviner calm of spirit and a more thorough acceptance of the Divine terms and conditions. He too was but a sinner, whose deliverance was in itself a great and undeserved mercy (cf. Matthew 24:1-51.).—M. BY S. CONWAY Baruch; or, the young recruit reheartened. Baruch reminds of Mark (Acts 13:13). Both were good and faithful men; both became discouraged; both were reheartened; both found profitable to the ministry and true to the end. Now, as we look on this Divine reheartening of Baruch, we are taught much— I. GOD. 1. We see his grace. He does not overlook or forget his servants. He notes their distresses and devises means for their relief. "Like as a father pitieth," etc. 2. We see his methods with those who are as Baruch was. (1) Though animated by love, they were severe rather than soothing; stern rather than gentle and consolatory. We have many parallels to this. Cf. ch. 12; "If thou hast run with the footmen," etc. How stern the dealing of God with Moses! No entreaty could procure the alteration of the sentence of exclusion from Canaan that had gone out against him. See also our Lord’s message to John the Baptist in prison: "Go, tell John," etc. No gentle message of sympathy, but rather of rebuke for his failure of faith. So with Paul’s thorn in the flesh, the Lord would not remove it. In all these cases there is rather the sharp, bracing, rousing summons to duty than words of soothing pity and tenderness. Far more like Paul’s dealing with the recreant Mark—he virtually cashiered him—than that of Barnabas, who, Son of Consolation that he was, was all for comforting him and dealing gently with him. (2) God tells him that he has heard his complainings. When we talk to ourselves, we often forget that every word is audible to God. The people about our Lord were often talking to themselves concerning him, and, though they said nothing out loud, we constantly read how "Jesus answered and said," showing that he had heard all they said. (3) He gives him to understand that his purpose is not to be set aside because of his complainings. "The Lord saith thus." It we cannot bring our circumstances to our mind, our wisdom is to bring our mind to our circumstances. Baruch was shown that he must do this. (4) He implies that a seeking after "high things" for himself had much to do with his complaining. He was of great ability, of noble lineage (Jeremiah 51:59; Josephus, ’Ant.,’ 10. Jeremiah 6:2; Jeremiah 9:1), the grandson of Maasiah (2 Chronicles 34:8), and this may well have animated him with hopes of high office in the state, such as his brother had held; or his nearness to Jeremiah may have led him to believe that he should be the prophet’s successor. (5) He promises him that his life shall be spared, though with much difficulty—"given to him as a prey." We cannot tell what afterwards became of him. Tradition varies. There was not much comfort in all this, but rather a "What doest thou here, Elijah?" (1 Kings 19:1-21.). 3. His motives. The leaders of an army must not be weaklings. Those who have stern work to do must themselves be stern. Luther, not Erasmus, must head the Reformation movement. Hence God disciplines his most trusted servants by very severe methods. Even our Lord, "He learned obedience by the things that he suffered;" "He was made perfect through sufferings." 4. His success. That which he purposes is ever done. Baruch here, as Mark afterwards, was reheartened and did good service again. II. THE WORK. Demands self-denial, involves much suffering, and has much sorrow in it. No wonder that in ancient days men shrank from the pastoral office. "Nolo episcopari" meant something then. Are any thinking of it? Count the cost. Are any in it? Let them, as they need, seek daily strength from God. "Chief Shepherd of thy chosen sheep, From sin and death set free, May every under shepherd keep His eye intent on thee." Let those not so charged of the Lord pray for those that are. III. YOUNG OF JESUS CHRIST. 1. There is much that is delightful in them. Their ardour, their zeal, their affection. Elisha to Elijah, Timotheus to Paul, so here Baruch to Jeremiah. 2. But they are apt to be discouraged and desponding. They need enduring power. Melancthon thought he should soon convert men to the truth. But Luther tolls how the old Adam was soon found to be too hard for the young Melancthon. 3. Let them submit cheerfully to the methods of discipline God has appointed for them, and be on their guard against all self-seeking ambition. 4. And they are to remember that, though their life be given to them, it shall be "as a prey." They wilt have to watch, to toil, to contend, to struggle, even for that. "The Son of God goes forth to war … Who follows in his train?" C. Ambition prohibited. "Seekest thou great things," etc.? God searches the heart, and probably discovered that, lurking secretly there, there was somewhat of an unhallowed ambition. Had he been other than one of God’s chosen messengers, such ambition would have been natural and reasonable (cf. former homily). God does not directly charge him with this, but sets him on self-examination. This ever the Divine method. Are we seeking great things for ourselves? If we are, God says to us, "Seek them not." And the reasons are many. Some of them are such as these— I. We cannot tell whether they are designed for us. If they are not, they will bring us only misery; cf. David in Saul’s armour. If they are, they will come without our seeking. II. To make ourselves our supreme object is ever wrong, despicable, and in the end ruinous. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die, give up its own life. If it do not, it abideth alone; if it do, it bringeth forth fruit. "He that loveth his life shall lose it, but he," etc. (John 12:1-50.). III. Great things mean great responsibilities and terrible possibilities of great guilt and harm done to others and ourselves. IV. Whilst seeking them, we let go what is more precious than them all. "Whilst I was busy here and there, lo, he was gone." V. They tend to tie us down to earth and to fill our hearts with that love of the world which is death. "Ah! Davie, Davie," said Johnson to Garrick, as they wandered through the beautiful demesne of a great nobleman, "these are the things that make it so hard for a man to die." A similar story is told of Cardinal Richelieu, who caused himself, when near death, to be borne into his magnificent picture gallery, and there is reported to have made, to one near him, a like remark.—C. BY D. YOUNG Counsel and comfort for the man overcome with bad tidings. I. THE EFFECT ON BARUCH’S OWN MIND OF WHAT HE HAD HAD TO WRITE. Baruch came in simply to be a scribe and transmitter. Seemingly a friend of Jeremiah, he must have been in considerable sympathy with the prophet in his purposes and predictions. Doubtless he had made himself acquainted with each prophetic utterance as it came forth from Jehovah. But he had never had them all before his mind at one time, as now became necessary, through his having to write them down. Hence we have here an illustration of how more is required than the mere utterance of a word of God in order to produce a deep effect from it. A man may think he understands and receives it, and yet the understanding and reception may be far from what they ought to be. Not till Jeremiah’s prophecies stand before Baruch in one mass does he fully discern the trouble coming on his people. Jehovah has spoken many times, and always in the same way, against the wicked and their wickedness. And so we see how important it is to get the impression, not only of successive parts of God’s words, but of that Word as a whole. Moreover, if Baruch was oppressed by the consistent mass of threatening, it is equally possible for us to be uplifted and strengthened by a consistent mass of promises and encouragements. We shall ever find in the Scriptures that which we look for and prepare ourselves to find. II. SOME OF BARUCH’S OWN . Baruch seems to have been not exactly what we should call an ambitious man, but still one who wanted to get on in the world. Perhaps he had a position which made it reasonable for him to expect influence and authority. But what can a man of this sort look for in a state rapidly declining to its fall? Baruch had to learn all at once that he must seek for such things as God would have him seek for. Thus we see God combining a lesson for the individual with the message for the nation. Baruch could hardly have been the only man competent to act as a scribe, but God, in taking him, took one who needed correction, needed to have his purposes turned into a more submissive way and a less self-seeking one. III. MUST DEPEND UPON . There had been times in the Jewish state when Baruch might have been a very useful man in some high position. But every man must accept the conditions of the time in which he lives. At one time the great temporal blessings may be those of attainment, at another those of escape. And so, to some extent, it is in spiritual things. There are times when what Christ does for us puts on the aspect of salvation; we are glad because of the great evils from which we are delivered. There arc other times when we are not contented with merely thinking of deliverance; we want something positive—growth, fruitfulness, perfection. Then we are seeking great things spiritually—things which are always to be sought. And we may add they are always to be found, however adverse temporal conditions may be.—Y. This chapter, the first of a series, consists of two prophecies united, though it is probable enough that the latter was intended to supplement the former, for Jeremiah 46:2-12 are clearly incomplete (from the point of view of this group of prophecies) without a distinct and unmistakable prediction of the conquest of Egypt. The earlier prophecy is, in fact, not itself a prediction, but a triumphal ode, analogous to such as we find in the Becks of Isaiah and Ezekiel. It falls into three stanzas: (1) verses 3-6; (2) verses 7-9; (3) verses 10-12. In the first two the great event is described with poetical imagery; in the third, its cause is declared, and the irremediable completeness of its effects. The point of time assumed is immediately before the battle of Carehemish. The Egyptian army has taken up its position by the Euphrates, and Jeremiah, from his prophetic watch tower, recognizes the importance of the step. He knows that a collision of the two great powers is inevitable, and that the fortunes of his world will be decided by the result. It is, in short, a "day of Jehovah" which he sees before him. As a prophet, he cannot doubt what the issue will be. He falls into a lyrically descriptive mood, and portrays the picture which unrolls itself before his imagination. Jeremiah 46:1 Against the Gentiles; rather, concerning the nations (as distinguished from Israel). This heading relates to all the seven prophecies in Jeremiah 46-49:33. Jeremiah 46:2 Against Egypt, against the army; rather, concerning Egypt, concerning the army. Pharaoh-necho. Necho II; a member of the twenty-sixth Egyptian dynasty, sou of Psametik I. (Psammetichus), who had for a time revived the declining power of Egypt. Herodotus (2.158) credits him with being the first to construct a canal to the Red Sea, which seems an exaggeration (see Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s note ap. Rawlinson), also (4.42) with having caused the circumnavigation of Africa, after which the Phoenician seamen brought back the startling news that they had had the sun upon their right hand. This energetic monarch noticed the decline of Assyria, and, at the battle of Megiddo (Herodotus, 2.159, wrongly says Magdolus or Migdol), reattached Judah to the Egyptian empire. Four years later, at the battle of Carchemish, he himself sustained a crushing defeat at the hands of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (2 Chronicles 35:20). Carehemish. This was the great emporium of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. Its true site was discovered by Mr. George Smith, in his last fatal journey, to be at Jerabis or Jirbas, on the right bank of the Euphrates. It was anciently a city of the Kheta (equivalent to Khittim, "Hittites"), but passed to the Assyrians, under Sargon, under whom it attained the highest commercial prosperity, especially after the overthrow of Tyre by Sennacherib. The "mana," or mina, "of Gargamis" is constantly referred to as a standard weight in the commercial cuneiform inscriptions. In the fourth year, etc. Marcus Niebuhr wishes to put a stop before these words, so as to make them a definition of the date of the prophecy. He thinks the date of the battle of Carchemish was the third and not the fourth year of Jehoiakim. This view, however, is very uncertain (see Keil), and it is exegetieally very unnatural to detach the closing words of Jer 46:2 from those which precede. The obvious inference, moreover, from the prophecy (Jeremiah 46:2-12) is that it was written at or about the time of the battle; a special date for the prophecy did not require to be given. Should Niebuhr’s chronological combinations, however, turn out to be correct, the mistake would probably not be that of Jeremiah, nor of his scribe, but of his editor, who may easily have fallen into error in the mere minutiae of chronology. Jeremiah 46:3 Order ye, etc. The leaders of the Egyptians are heard summoning their men to make ready their armour, and set themselves in array (comp. Jeremiah 46:9). The buckler (Hebrew, magen) is the small shield; the shield (Hebrew, cinnah) is the large one (scutum), which covered the whole body. Jeremiah 46:4 Harness the horses; viz. to the war chariots, for which Egypt was famous (comp. Exodus 14:6, Exodus 14:9; 1 Kings 10:28, 1 Kings 10:29: Isaiah 31:1). Get up, ye horsemen. An equally possible rendering, and one which better suits the parallelism, is, "mount the chargers." Put on the brigandines. "Brigandine" is an archaic word (Hakluyt’s ’Voyages’), meaning the armour of a "brigand "or member of a "brigade," or "troop" (comp. Italian, brigata). The Hebrew word means "coats of mail." Jeremiah 46:5 That so well equipped an army should flee seems incredible. Hence the astonished question, Wherefore have I seen, etc.? literally, Why do I see (that) they (are) dismayed, turning back? And look not back. With the object of rallying the scattered forces. For fear was round about. It is a pity that the Authorized Version has not kept one uniform rendering for this favourite expression of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 6:25 (see note) it is translated, "fear is on every side" (Hebrew, magor missabib). Jeremiah 46:6 Let not the swift flee away. A strong way of expressing that even the swiftest cannot expect to flee, just as, in Isaiah 2:9, "forgive them not" means "thou canst not forgive them." Nothing seems to have struck the Jews so much as the unparalleled swiftness of the Chaldean warriors (Hebrews 1:6, Hebrews 1:8; Jeremiah 4:13). They shall stumble; literally, they have stumbled; it is most probably the prophetic perfect ("they shall certainly fall"), though Ewald denies this, and consequently maintains that the prophecy was written after the battle of Carchemish. Toward the north; i.e. "in the northern region," or, more loosely, "in the north" (comp. Isaiah 2:10). Carchemish was, of course, far to the north of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 46:7 Who is this, etc.? "Once more surprise at the [same] phenomenon recurs, and in a stronger form; a monstrous, devastating river appears to roll itself wildly along, overwhelming all countries: who is it? It is Egypt, which is now threatening to overrun the earth and to lay everything waste, whose various nationalities are advancing fully equipped" (Ewald). As a flood; rather, as the Nile (y’or, a word of Egyptian affinities, and only once used of another river than the Nile, Daniel 12:5, Daniel 12:6, Daniel 12:7). The naturalness of the figure in this context needs no exhibiting. It reminds us of Isa 8:7, Isaiah 8:8, where the Assyrian army is compared to the Euphrates. Are moved as the rivers; rather, toss themselves as the rivers. By the "rivers" the prophet means the branches of the Nile, which are described by the same word in Isaiah 19:8; Exodus 7:19. Jeremiah 46:8 Egypt riseth up, etc. The answer to the question in Jeremiah 46:7. The city. The article is not expressed; and there can be no doubt that the word is used collectively of cities in general (comp. Jeremiah 47:2). Jeremiah 46:9 A call to the army, particularizing its two grand divisions, viz. the warriors in chariots, and the light and heavy armed infantry. M. Pierret, of the Egyptian Museum at the Louvre, writes thus: "The army was composed (1) of infantry equipped with a cuirass, a buckler, a pike or an axe, and a sword; they manoeuvred to the sound of the drum and the trumpet; (2) of light troops (archers, slingers, and other soldiers carrying the axe or the tomahawk); (3) warriors in chariots. Cavalry, properly so called, was not employed … The Egyptians also enlisted auxiliaries, such as Mashawash, a tribe of Libyans, who, after the defeat of a confederation of northern peoples hostile to Menephtah, into which they had entered, refused to leave Egypt, and entered the Egyptian army; the Kahakas, another Libyan tribe; the Shardanas (Sardinians); the Madjaiu, who, after having been in war with the Egyptians under the twelfth dynasty, enrolled themselves under the standard of their conquerors, and constituted a sort of gendarmerie," etc.. Among the mercenaries mentioned by Jeremiah, the Ludim deserve special mention. They are generally supposed to be a North African people (and so Ezekiel 30:5). Professor Sayce, however, thinks they may be the Lydian soldiers by whose help Psammetichus made Egypt independent of Assyria, and his successors maintained their power (Cheyne’s ’Prophecies of Isaiah,’ 2.287). Come up, ye horses; rather, bound (or, prance), ye horses. The verb is literally go up, and seems to be used in the same sense, only in the Hiphil or causative conjugation, in Nahum 3:3 (which should begin, "Horsemen making (their horses) to rear"). Ewald and others render, "Mount the horses," the phrase being substantially the same as in Nahum 3:4 (see above). But the parallelism here is opposed to this; and the prophet has evidently been a reader of the prophecy of Nahum, as the very next clause shows. Rage, ye chariots; rather, rush madly, ye chariots (alluding to Nahum 2:5). The Ethioplans; Hebrew, Cush; often mentioned in connection with Egypt. The whole Nile valley, as far as Abyssinia, had been reduced to an Egyptian province. At last Cush had its turn of revenge, and an Ethiopian dynasty reigned in the palaces of Thebes. The Libyans; Hebrew, Put (which occurs in combination with Lud, as here with Ludim, in Ezekiel 27:10; Ezekiel 30:5). This appears to be the Egyptian Put (nasalized into Punt), i.e. the Somali country on the east coast of Africa, opposite to Arabia (Brugsch). Jeremiah 46:10 The contrast. And yet that day is (the day) of the Lord, Jehovah Sabdoth (the rendering of the Authorized Version, For this is the day, etc; is clearly a mistake). The "day of Jehovah" is an expression so familiar to us that we are in danger of losing a part of its sublime meaning. It is, in brief, "that crisis in the history of the world when Jehovah will interpose to rectify the evils of the present, bringing joy and glory to the humble believer, and misery and shame to the proud and disobedient …. This great crisis is called a day, in antithesis to the ages of the Divine long suffering: it is Jehovah’s day, because, without a special Divine interposition, there would be no issue out of the perplexities and miseries of human life." We may say, with equal truth, that there are many "days of the Lord," and that there is only one. Every great revolution is a fresh stage in the great judgment day; "die Weltgesehichte ist das Weltgericht" (Schiller). The loci classici for the expression in the prophets are Amos 5:18, Amos 5:20; Zephaniah 1:7, Zephaniah 1:14; Joe 2:1, Joe 2:11; Isaiah 2:12; Isaiah 13:6, Isaiah 13:9 (in Isaiah 2:12, the phraseology closely resembles that of our passage—"for there is a day unto Jehovah Sabaoth;" Jehovah, that is, hath it in readiness in the supersensible world, where there is no time, and where all God’s purposes have an ideal, but no less real existence. We might, in fact, render our passage, "but that day (is the day that belongeth) unto the Lord," etc.). The Lord here, as generally elsewhere, is that expressive form which intimates the universal lordship of the God who has revealed himself to Israel. The sword. A comparison with Isaiah 34:6 suggests that it is "the sword of the Lord" which is meant—a symbolic phrase for the Divine vengeance, which meets us again in Jeremiah 12:12; Jeremiah 47:6; Deuteronomy 32:41, Deuteronomy 32:42; Judges 7:20 (comp. Joshua 5:13); Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 31:8; Isaiah 34:5, Isaiah 34:6; Isaiah 66:16; Zechariah 13:7. If Jehovah can be spoken of as having an Arm, a Hand, and a Bow, why not also as having a sword? Both expressions represent the self-revealing side of the Divine nature, and are not merely poetical ornaments, but correspond to awful objective realities. Divine vengeance exists, and must exercise itself on all who oppose the Divine will. Hath a sacrifice. The same figurative expression occurs in Isaiah 34:6, and, developed at considerable length, in Ezekiel 39:17-20, where the slaughtered foes are described as fatted beasts, rams, lambs, he-goats, bullocks—animals employed in the Jewish sacrifices. This, then, is the purpose for which this immense host "rolls up from Africa"—it is that it may fall by the Euphrates, at once as a proof of God’s justice, and as a warning to transgressors. Jeremiah 46:11 Go up into Gilead (see on Jeremiah 8:22). In vain shalt thou use, etc.; rather, in vain hast thou used, etc.; a much more vigorous, pictorial expression. Thou shalt not be cured. The literal rendering is more forcible, there is no plaster for thee; i.e. no bandage will avail to heal the wound (comp. Jeremiah 30:13). Jeremiah 46:12 Hath filled the land; rather, the earth, corresponding to "the nations." Jeremiah 46:13 The word, etc. This verse is the heading of a new prophecy, which, however, for the reason already mentioned (see introduction to this chapter), is not to be regarded as entirely independent of the preceding prophecy, but rather as a supplement (just as Isaiah 18:1-7, though not in strict sequence to Isaiah 17:12-14, is yet a supplement to it). The heading does not expressly state when the prophecy was written, but from the mention of Nebuchadnezzar, both in the heading and in the prophecy itself, we may assume a date subsequent to the battle of Carchemish, for the earlier prophecies contain no reference to that redoubtable name. An important question now arises—When did Nebuchadnezzar invade and conquer Egypt? and what would be the consequences of admitting that a Babylonian subjugation of that country is historically not proven? There can be no doubt that Jeremiah did hold out such a prospect; for he not only says so here, but also in Jeremiah 43:8-13 and Jeremiah 44:30. In the latter prophecy it is not Necho, but Hophra, in whose reign the blow is to fall. But no monumental evidence has as yet been found [see, however, postscript to this note] of anything approaching to an invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar; nor do the accounts of Herodotus (2.159, etc.) at all supply the deficiency (on this, however, see further at end of note). It is true that Josephus quotes passages from Berosus, the Babylonian historian, to the effect that Nabopolassar had set a Chaldean governor over Egypt, but that this governor had revolted, and that Nabopolassar’s son, Nebuchadnezzar, crushed the rebellion and incorporated Egypt into his empire. But these events happened, according to the quotation from Berosus, partly before, partly immediately after, the death of Nabopolassar, and was consequently earlier than the prophecy in this chapter. Another fact of importance must be mentioned in this connection, viz. that Ezekiel repeats the announcement of the Babylonian conquest of Egypt, of which he speaks as if it were to happen at the close of the thirteen years of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Tyre (Ezekiel 29:17-21). Thus there is a gradual increase in the definiteness of the announcement. Looking at our chapter by itself, we might suppose that the conquest was to take place soon after the decisive battle at Carchemish. After the murder of Gedaliah, when Jeremiah had removed to Egypt, we find him foretelling the sore punishment of Egypt in greater detail, and the name of Hophra (instead of Necho) is introduced as that of the deposed king. Finally, Ezekiel (as we have seen) specifies a definite time. Now, it is true that our knowledge of this period is somewhat incomplete. We have not the direct historical proof that could be wished as to the result of Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Tyre, though it would be fastidious to scruple at the evidence which satisfied so cool a judgment as that of George Grote. The great historian denies, however, that Tyre at this time suffered such a terrific desolation as is suggested by a literal interpretation of Eze 26:1-21; and continues in these remarkable terms: "Still less can it be believed that that king conquered Egypt and Libya, as Megasthenes, and even Berosus so far as Egypt is concerned, would have us believe—the argument of Latchet, ’Ad Herodot.,’ 2.168, is anything but satisfactory. The defeat of the Egyptian king at Carchemish, and the stripping him of his foreign possessions in Judaea and Syria, have been exaggerated into a conquest of Egypt itself". Supposing Mr. Grote’s view of the facts of the siege of Tyre to be correct, it is clear that the prophet’s reproduction of the Divine revelation made to him was defective; that it presents traces of a stronger human element than we are accustomed to admit. Tyre had to suffer a fall; but the fall was not as yet to be so complete a one as Ezekiel, reasoning upon his revelation, supposed. It is equally possible that Jeremiah and Ezekiel, reasoning upon the revelation of the inevitable fall of Egypt, mistook the time when, in its fulness, the Divine judg. ment was to take place. The case may, perhaps, turn out to be analogous to that of an apparently but not really unfulfilled prophecy in Isaiah 43:3. A literal interpretation of that passage would give the conquest of Egypt to Cyrus; as a matter of fact, we know that it was Cambyses, and not Cyrus, who fulfilled the prophecy. It would not be surprising if we should have to admit that it was Cambyses, and not any earlier monarch, who fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah. Certain great principles of God’s moral government had to be affirmed; it was of no moment whatever whether Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, or Cambyses was the instrument of their affirmation. A parallel from Isaiah may again be adduced. The shameful captivity of Egypt, and perhaps Ethiopia, which Isaiah foresaw in the time of Sargon (Isaiah 20:3), was not realized in fact until Esar-haddon despoiled Tithakah, King of Egypt and Ethiopia, of the whole of Upper Egypt. There are cases in which a literal fulfilment of prophecy may be abandoned without detriment to Divine revelation, and this seems to be one of them. And yet we must always remember that even the letter of the prophecy may some day turn out to be more nearly in harmony with facts than we have supposed, our knowledge of this period being in several respects so very imperfect. It has been acutely pointed out that the oracle given to Necho (Herod; 2.158), "that he was labouring for the barbarian," seems to imply a current expectation of an invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, and that the gradual conquest by that king of one neighbouring country after another suggests that the invasion of Egypt was at any rate the object at which he aimed. The silence of Herodotus as to a Chaldean invasion is, perhaps, not very important. He does not mention Necho’s defeat by Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish, nor does he ever refer to the victories over Egypt of any King of Assyria. .—The above note is left precisely as it was written, February, 1881, in ignorance of Wiedemann’s then recent discovery of a contemporary hieroglyphic inscription which, as the report of the German Oriental Society expresses it, "ratifies the hitherto universally doubted fact of an invasion of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar." The hieroglyphic narrative is supplemented and confirmed by two cuneiform records, and the combined results are as follows. In the thirty-seventh year of his reign, Hophra or Apries being King of Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar undertook an expedition against Egypt, and penetrated as far as the island of Elephantine, and damaged the temple of Chnum, which stood there. His army could not, however, pass the cataracts. At Syene the Egyptian troops, under Neshor, met and repelled the invaders. Two years later, however, the Babylonians came again, were victorious over the Egyptian host under Amasis, and compelled the whole land to pay tribute. Thus we have a remarkable confirmation of Ezekiel’s prophecy that Egypt should be "waste and desolate from Migdol unto Syene, even unto the border of Ethiopia" (Ezekiel 29:10). It should be mentioned that the Babylonians are not described in the hieroglyphics by their proper name, but as "the Syrians (?), the peoples of the north, the Asiatics;" it is from a terra-cotta cuneiform tablet that we learn that, in Nebuchadnezzar’s thirty-seventh year, a war arose between him and the King of Egypt, which ended with the payment of tribute to the former. The value of prophecy does not, happily, depend on the minuteness of its correspondence with history, and the evidential value of the argument from such a correspondence is but secondary. Still, as long as such a correspondence can be proved, even in part, by facts such as Wiedemann has discovered, the apologist is perfectly justified in using it in confirmation of the authority of Scripture. The second prophecy falls into two parts—verses 14-19 and 20-26 respectively. Jeremiah 46:14-19 The cities of Egypt are called upon to prepare to meet the foe. But it is in vain; for all that is great and mighty in the land—Apis, the mercenary soldiers, and the Pharaoh—bows down before that terrible one who is comparable only to the most imposing objects in the inanimate world. Pharaoh’s time is over; and Egypt must go into captivity. Jeremiah 46:14 Declare ye; viz. the approach of the foe (comp. Jeremiah 4:5). The news is to be told in the frontier towns Migdol and Tahpanhes, and in the northern capital Noph or Memphis (see on Jeremiah 2:16; Jeremiah 44:1). The sword shall devour, etc.; rather, the sword hath devoured those round about thee. The neighbouring nations (the same phrase occurs in Jeremiah 48:17, Jeremiah 48:39) have one after another succumbed; no ally is left there. Jeremiah 46:15 Why are thy valiant men, etc.? The literal rendering of the received text is, Why is thy strong ones (plural) swept sway (or, cast down)? He stood not, because Jehovah thrust him! It is true that the first half of the verse might, consistently with grammar, be rendered, "Why are thy strong ones swept away?" But the following singulars prove that the subject of the verb in the first verse half must itself be a singular. We must, therefore, follow the reading of the Septuagint, Vulgate, Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and many of the extant Hebrew manuscripts, and change the plural "strong ones" into the singular "strong one." The word so rendered is elsewhere in Jeremiah one used (in the plural) of strong horses (Jeremiah 8:16; Jeremiah 47:3; Jeremiah 1:11); but there is no necessity to bind ourselves to this acceptation. Other possible meanings are (1) strong man, e.g. Judges 5:22 and Lamentations 1:15; (2) steer, bull, e.g. Psalms 22:13 and Psalms 22:1:13, and (metaphorically of princes) Psalms 68:31. It is a tenable view that "thy strong one" is to be understood distributively as equivalent to "every strong one of thine." But it is certainly more plausible to regard the phrase as a synonym for Apis, the sacred bull in which the supreme god Osiris was believed by the Egyptians to be incarnate. This was a superstition (strange, no doubt, but not so ignoble as some have thought) as deeply ingrained in the Egyptian mind as any in their complicated religion. "In fact, they believed that the supreme God was with them when they possessed a bull bearing certain hieratic marks, the signs of the incarnation of the divinity" (Pierret). His death was the signal for a mourning as general as for a Pharaoh, and the funeral ceremonies (accounts of which are given in the inscriptions) were equally splendid. M. Mariette has discovered, in the neighbourhood of Memphis, a necropolis in which the Apis bulls were successively interred from the eighteenth dynasty to the close of the period of the Ptolemies. For the Apis to be "swept away" like ordinary plunder, or "cast down" in the slaughtering trough (comp. Isaiah 34:7), was indeed a token that the glory of Egypt had departed. It is a singular coincidence that the very word here employed by Jeremiah for "bull" (abbir) was adopted (like many other words) into the Egyptian language—it received the slightly modified form aber. The Septuagint, it should be added, is in favour of the general view of the verse thus obtained, and the authority of the Egyptian-Jewish version in a prophecy relative to Egypt is not slight. Its rendering of the first half is, "Why hath Apis, thy chosen calf, fled?" But the probability is that it read the Hebrew differently, "Why hath Khaph (= Apis), thy chosen one, fled?" This merely involves grouping some letters otherwise, and reading one word a little differently. Jeremiah 46:16 To fall; rather, to stumble. The fugitives are in such a wild confusion that they stumble over each other. The parallel passage in the earlier prophecy (Jeremiah 46:12) suggests that the Egyptian warriors are here referred to, the most trustworthy portion of which, since the time of Psammetichus, was composed of mercenaries, the native troops having lost that military ardour for which they had been anciently renowned (see Herod; 2.152, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson’s note ap. Rawlinson). Being devoid of patriotic feeling, it was natural that these hired soldiers should hasten from the doomed country, exclaiming, as the prophet puts it, Arise, and let us go again to our own people. Greeks were probably among the speakers, at any rate, Ionians and Carians formed the mercenary troops of Psammetiehus, according to Herodotus (2.152). Jeremiah 46:17 They did cry there, etc.; rather, they cry there, viz. the following words. But why should attention be called to the place where the cry is made? and why should the mercenaries (the subject of the preceding verb, and therefore presumably of this verb) have their exclamation recorded? Alter the vowel points (which merely represent an early but not infallible exegetical tradition), and all becomes clear. We then get a renewal of the summons in Jeremiah 46:14 to make a proclamation respecting the war. The persons addressed are, not foreigners, but the children of the soil, and the summons runs thus: "Call ye the name of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, Desolation." No longer "Pharaoh," honoured by titles indicating that he, like Apis, is a Divine incarnation (neb, i.e. lord, and nuter, i.e. god), but Shaon, the Hebrew for Desolation, is the fittest name for the fallen monarch. The custom of changing names with a symbolic meaning is no strange one to readers of the prophecies. We have met with it in this very book (see Jeremiah 20:3); and Isaiah contains a parallel as exact as could be desired, in the famous passage in which the prophetic name (itself symbolic) of Egypt (Rahab, i.e. boisterousness, arrogance) is changed into "Rahabhem-shebheth" (i.e. "Rahab! they are utter indolence"). In behalf of this view we may claim the authority of a tradition still older than that preserved in the vowel points, for the Septuagint (followed substantially by the Peshito and the Vulgate) has, ΚαλέσατετὸὄνομαΦαραὼΝεχαὼβασιλέωςΑἰγύπτουΣαών. He hath passed the time appointed. A difficult clause, and variously interpreted. One thing is clear, that "passed" cannot be correct, as the verb is in the Hifil or causative conjugation. We must, at any rate, render, "He hath let the time appointed pass by." This is, in fact, the simplest and most natural explanation. There was a time within which repentance might have averted the judgment of God; but this "accepted time" has been foolishly let slip. Jeremiah 46:18 The threat implied in Jeremiah 46:17 is set forth more fully; he who speaks is a very different "king" from the fallen Pharaoh. As Tabor is among the mountains. The sense is deformed by the insertion of "is." The King of Babylon is compared to "Tabor among the mountains and Carmel by the sea." Mount Tabor is a most prominent object, owing to the wide extent of the plain of Esdraelon, in which it is situated; and a similar remark applies to Mount Carmel. The view of Tabor differs considerably according to the point from which it is taken; but "its true figure is an elongated oval" (Thomson). Carmel, so called from the rich orchards and vineyards with which it was anciently adorned, is not lofty (being only about six hundred feet above the sea), but the form in which it breaks off towards the sea has a beauty of its own. It is now deprived of its rich forest and garden culture, but is still described as "a glorious mountain." Jeremiah 46:19 O thou daughter dwelling in Egypt; literally, O inhabitress-daughter of Egypt. The phrase is exactly parallel to "virgin daughter of Zion." The "daughter of Egypt" means the population of Egypt, the land being regarded as the mother of its people. Furnish thyself to go into captivity. The rendering of the margin is, however, more exact. The "vessels of captivity [or, ’exile’]" are a pilgrim’s staff and wallet, with the provisions and utensils necessary for a journey (so in Ezekiel 12:4). Jeremiah 46:20-26 A figurative description of the dark future of Egypt. Jeremiah 46:20 Like a very fair heifer. (The insertion of "like" weakens the passage.) The well nourished heifer reminds of the prosperity of the fruitful Nile valley. But destruction cometh; it cometh out of the north; rather, a gadfly from the north hath come upon her (not, "hath come, hath come," as the received text has—a very slight change in one letter is required, supported by the versions). The figure is precisely analogous to that of the "bee in the land of Assyria" (Isaiah 7:18). St. Chrysostom renders "a gadfly" (see Field, ’Origen’s Hexapla,’ 2.708); and so virtually Aquila and Symmachus. Jeremiah 46:21 Also her hired men are in the midst of her, etc.; rather, also her hirelings in the midst of her are like, etc. These seem to be distinguished from the mercenaries mentioned in Jeremiah 46:9, the Ethiopians, Libyans, and Arabs, who were never adopted into the midst of the Egyptian people. On the other hand, the description will exactly apply to the Caftans and Ionians in the service of Psammetichus and Apries, who were "for many years" settled "a little below the city of Bubastis, on the Pelusiac mouth of the Nile." In this fertile country, itself comparable to "a very fair heifer" (Jeremiah 46:20), these pampered and privileged mercenaries became "like calves of the stall." They did not stand, etc.; rather, they have not stood (firm), for the day of their destruction is come upon them. Jeremiah 46:22 The voice thereof shall go like a serpent; rather, her voice is like (the sound of) a serpent gliding away. Egypt (like Jerusalem, in Isaiah 29:4) is imagined as a maiden (comp. Jeremiah 46:19) seated on the ground, and faintly sighing; and her feeble voice is likened to the rustling sound of a serpent in motion. Come against her with axes. A sudden change of figure. Egypt, or, more strictly, Egypt’s grandeur—its rich and complex national life, its splendid cities, its powerful army, all combined in one, is now compared to a forest (comp. Jeremiah 21:14; Jeremiah 22:6, Jeremiah 22:7; Isaiah 2:13; Isaiah 10:18, Isaiah 10:19, Isaiah 10:33, Isaiah 10:34). It seems far fetched to suppose, with Graf and Dr. Payne Smith, that the comparison of the Chaldean warriors to wood cutters arose from their being armed with axes. It is probably true that the Israelites did not use the battle axe, but the axe is merely an accident of the description. It is the forest which suggests the mention of the axe, not the axe that of the forest, and forests were familiar enough to the Israelites. Jeremiah 46:23 They shall cut down; better, they cut down. The prophet is describing a picture which passes before his inner eye. Though it cannot be searched; rather, for it cannot be searched out. The subject of the verb is uncertain. De Dieu’s explanation is, "Because the forest is so dense, so intricate, it is necessary to clear a path by cutting down the trees." But this does not seem to suit the context. Surely no other reason was required for the destruction of the "forest" than the will of the wood cutters. "Searching out" occurs in Job (Job 5:9; Job 9:10; Job 36:26; comp. also 1 Kings 7:47) in connection with numbering, and the second half of the verse expressly describes the foe as innumerable. The singular alternates with the plural, as in Isaiah 5:28, a host being regarded sometimes as a whole, and sometimes as an aggregate of individuals. Than the grasshoppers; rather, the locust. The name is one of nine which we find given to the various species of locusts in the Old Testament, and means "multitudinous." Jeremiah 46:24 Shall be confounded; rather, is brought to shame; the next verb too should rather be in the past tense. Jeremiah 46:25 The multitude of No; rather, Amen of No. Amon-Ra, or rather Amen-Ra, was the name adopted at Thebes (Homer’s Thebes "of the hundred gateways," ’Iliad,’ 9.383, called here "No," and in Nahum 3:8 "No [of] Anion") from the time of the eleventh dynasty, for the sun god Ra. Amen (Amen) signifies "hidden," for it is the mysterious, invisible deity who manifests himself in bodily form in the sun. From this name comes the classic designation, Jupiter-Ammon. Their gods … their kings; rather, her gods … her kings (viz. Egypt’s). The "kings" are probably the high officials of the state, not a few of whom were either by birth or marriage members of the royal family. Even Pharaoh, and all them that trust in him. With a suggestive allusion to the many in Judah who "trusted" in that "broken reed" (Isaiah 36:6). Jeremiah 46:26 Afterward it shall be inhabited, etc. After all these gloomy vaticinations, Jeremiah (as elsewhere in this group of prophecies; see Jeremiah 48:47; Jeremiah 49:6, Jeremiah 49:39) opens up a brighter prospect. "In the days of old," patriarchal and unmilitary, the fertile valley of the Nile offered a peaceful and a happy home to its teeming inhabitants; those times shall yet come again. To understand this, we must assume that during its period of depression Egypt has been but sparsely peopled, owing to the large numbers of its inhabitants carried away captive. Another explanation, "afterwards Egypt shall stay at home [i.e, ’be quiet’]," though equally justifiable item the point of view of the lexicon (comp. Judges 5:17; Psalms 55:7), seems less natural. Possibly Ezekiel 29:13-16 is a development of our passage; it contains a promise of future remission of punishment, though a promise qualified in such a way as to be akin to a threat. The words, "And it shall no more be the confidence of the house of Israel" (Ezekiel 29:16), seem like a comment on Jeremiah’s threat to "Pharaoh, and them that trust in him," in the preceding verse. Jeremiah 46:27, Jeremiah 46:28 A word of comfort to Israel, obviously not written at the same time as the preceding prophecy. The prophet is suddenly transported in imagination into the period of the Babylonian exile. Egypt and its fortunes are far away; the troubles of Israel entirely absorb his attention. After thinking sadly of the reverses of his people, he bursts out with an encouraging exhortation not to fear, though, humanly speaking, there was everything to fear. Did Jeremiah write these verses here? There is strong reason to doubt it; for they occur, with insignificant variations, in Jeremiah 30:10, Jeremiah 30:11, where they cohere far better with the context than here. Jeremiah 46:1-26 The judgment of Egypt. This is twofold, first in the defeat at Carchemish (Jeremiah 46:1-12), and then in a complete overthrow of the kingdom (Jeremiah 46:13-26), which Jeremiah seems to have anticipated immediately after, just as the early Christians connected the destruction of Jerusalem with the expected end of the world. Though this anticipation was not chronologically correct, the essence of the prophecy was ultimately fulfilled. The kingdom of the Pharaohs has passed away. I. EGYPT WAS A HEATHEN COUNTRY. The two prophecies about Egypt occur first in a series of predictions concerning the Gentile nations. God is the God of the Gentile as well as the Jew, of the heathen as well as the Christian, of the godless as well as the godly. In him all men live and move and have their being; from him they receive every blessing of life; to him they will have to give account of their deeds. Therefore God notes the conduct of heathen nations, and chastises them when needful; so he does with individual men who renounce his authority over them or are brought up in ignorance of it. The heathen will be judged by their heathenish light, and not by the high standards of Christian principles; but there is enough in that light to allow of a genuine judgment and a just sentence (Romans 2:14, Romans 2:15). The ’Book of the Dead’ contains a high and noble system of morality. With this in his possession, the Egyptian was without excuse in his vice and cruelty. II. EGYPT WAS AN ANCIENT NATION. Her history dates back long before the time of Abraham. But she found no immunity in age. If judgment is long delayed, it will come in God’s appointed time. The mere continuance of peaceful circumstances hitherto is not the slightest ground for crediting them with a special charm to ward off the sentence of Divine justice. The hoary sinner will not be spared out of regard to his years. Age is not venerable in itself. It is only odious when it is the ripening and rotting of a long life of sin. III. EGYPT WAS A LAND OF WEALTH AND , (For this point, see homily on verse 20.) IV. EGYPT WAS A HOME OF SCIENCE AND . There philosophy arose, and the knowledge of nature was first systematically pursued. There strange mystic religions had their birth. If knowledge could save a people, Egypt of all lands should be safe. But though knowledge is power, there are foes against which it is impotent, The science of the encyclopaedists was no protection against the horrors of the French Revolution. Modern science cannot find an antidote to sin, nor can modern inventiveness devise any armour that shall resist the piercing darts of Divine justice. Our religious simulation will not redeem our souls. V. EGYPT WAS THE ALLY OF ISRAEL. The alliance of the Church is no safeguard when the Church herself is erring. Companionship in sin with men who have been accounted Christians will do nothing to lighten the weight of guilt. They will have to suffer for their share in the wickedness, and if their previous reputation cannot shield them, it can have no protection to extend to others. VI. EGYPT MADE A BRAVE . Jeremiah describes the battle array in stirring words. The army was imposing. Yet was defeated. It is vain to resist the decree of Divine judgment. He who fights against this is striking at Heaven. The blow can only recoil on his own head. VII. EGYPT WAS TO BE AGAIN. God mingles mercy with judgment. He has pity on the heathen. He seeks the ultimate recovery of those whom he first punishes. In later years Egypt became the home and centre of the most brilliant Christian life and thought. Incurable diseases. I. WHAT ARE ? 1. Sin. No man can root out his own evil nature. The wicked man, left to himself, will never grow into righteousness. Sin does not burn out; it continually finds fresh fuel and kindles a greater fire. 2. The judgment of sin. This cannot be resisted, for it comes from the hand of the Almighty. It cannot be bought off by compensating merits, for the most we can do is not to deserve more punishment in the future by new sin. When we have done our best we are "unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do." II. HOW GOD CURES THE DISEASE. Christ is the good Physician, the great Healer. Where medicine fails miracle triumphs. She who "had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse" was made whole by a touch of the hem of the Saviour’s garment. The cure may be impossible with man, but with God all things are possible. 1. The cure for sin. This is in the new birth which makes the Christian a "new creation" in Christ Jeans, and the constant aid of the Spirit of God to cleanse and purify the soul. 2. The cure for the judgment of sin. This is in the free pardon offered to the penitent who trust to Christ, and it is secured through his mediation, his one sacrifice for sin, and his perpetual intercession for sinners. The heifer and the gadfly. "Egypt is a very fair heifer, but a gadfly cometh." I. WORLDLY ARE NO AGAINST TROUBLE. The heifer is very fair, yet the gadfly attacks her. Egypt, rich in her fertile Nile valley, the granary of the East; splendid with vast and gorgeous temples, whose ruins are now the wonder of the world; in the forefront of speculation and science; hoary with antiquity, and proud of her aeons of history even in Jeremiah’s age—twenty-five dynasties had already passed away;—this great Egypt is to suffer humiliation at the band of the upstart Babylon. Her very magnificence attracts the greedy invader. Wealth and rank may ward off some distresses, but they will invite others which never condescend to attack the poor and obscure. II. WORLDLY AFFORD LITTLE IN TROUBLE. If the heifer is very fair, her beauty is no antidote to the pain she feels when the probe of the gadfly is in her back. Egypt may have every advantage of wealth and science, and yet she finds no comfort in these things when her life blood is flowing beneath the sword of the rude invader. The death of her firstborn is as heavy a blow to the queen as to the meanest slave in the land. The rich man feels his gout at least as acutely as the poor man. Mental distress, anxiety, and care are not to be bought off with money. III. A SMALL MAY PRODUCE GREAT TROUBLE. The gadfly is but half an inch long. Yet it can so irritate the heifer that she will rush madly about, with head thrust forward and tail stuck out, in the vain hope of escaping from her tormentor. Many a man has just one cause of trouble, looking to others quite insignificant, yet which is to him the fly spoiling the most precious ointment. How much of the distress of life comes from the fret and worry of little things! It is a comfort that we are not only invited to cast our burden upon the Lord, but to cast all our "care upon him, for he careth for us." IV. WE MAY BE UNABLE TO PREVENT THE ATTACK OF THE OF TROUBLE. The horns, which would be good weapons for attacking a large animal, are useless against the gadfly. Many troubles come like this fly. We cannot touch them; they are swift to attack, and once they are upon us no defence is possible. In our own strength we cannot throw off the smallest sin. Perhaps we are strong to resist great temptations, and fall victims to miserable little failings. The devil is not always a roaring lion; sometimes he is more like a gadfly. We can drive off the lion; we cannot resist the gadfly. Lying, theft, murder, etc; may be kept out, and yet our souls may lose all peace and Divine communion by yielding to hasty temper, discontent, cowardice, etc. But Christ comes as the Saviour from all evil and all sin, including those meaner sins which may ruin our spiritual life even when greater sins are avoided, (See homily on Jeremiah 30:10, Jeremiah 30:11.) BY A.F. MUIR The judgment of the nations. I. UTTERED BY THE PROPHET OF THE . 1. Because they are related to the theocracy. Even in antagonism; but sometimes in conscious or undesigned cooperation. The future of the kingdom of God is not, therefore, to evolve itself independently of these, but in close connection with them. It is this, and this alone, which gives them their importance. They are associated with the destinies of God’s people. What mysterious necessity is it that ever blends God’s kingdom with the main stream of history? It is the dominant influence even when it seems to be temporarily overthrown. 2. The kingdom of God is to be fulfilled in the whole earth. Not only in Israel is it to come, but in the "uttermost parts of the earth." The kingdoms of this world are to "become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ" (Revelation 11:15). For this reason their history, too, is sacred, and is to be read in the light of revelation if it is to be understood. The true history of every nation and individual is determined by relation to the truth of God. 3. For the instruction and comfort of God’s people. It is manifest that Divine providence can be explained worthily only upon such a scale. And the subjects of the Divine kingdom have to be taught the real character and destiny of the powers into relation with which they are brought. God is seen as ruling, not only in a little corner, but in the whole earth. II. UTTERED AT ONE TIME. There is a question as to which order ought to be observed in mentioning them. 1. But the selection is made upon an evident principle, viz. that of (nearly) contemporaneous relation to Israel. And whatever their relations amongst themselves or toward Israel at any given time, in general they are opposed to the kingdom of God, and represent the influences with which it has to do in its progress amongst men. They are "the world powers" as opposed to the "powers of the world to come." 2. It is part of the scheme of Divine revelation to arraign from time to time the spirit of this world in its varying forms and phases. The world’s life and history thus cease to be complex and involved, and are seen to resolve themselves into the principles of good and evil, darkness and light. The turmoil and movement are really those of a great duel—that of the kingdom of God against the kingdom of this world. III. UTTERED FINALLY AND . It is destruction that is predicted, and as real historic powers we do not hear of them again. There is something very grand and solemn in this arraying and dismissal of the nations. Their political influence, military power, or commercial supremacy avails not against this imperative Word of the Most High. What is it but an anticipation of the judgment of the earth by the Son of man (Matthew 25:31)? Has not our Saviour already ground for his claim, "I have overcome the world"? The gospel of the kingdom of God is, therefore, no little thing done in a comer, but the economy of a world, and the law of life and death throughout all ages.—M. (Vide on Jeremiah 30:10, Jeremiah 30:11.)—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 46:1-28 Judgment going on from the house of God. The former chapters have shown judgment beginning at the house of God. This and the following chapters show that judgment going on. I. BEGINS AT THE HOUSE OF GOD. This whole life here is more or less a time of trial. God never suffers his Church to be long at ease. But there are especial times of trial, as in persecutions, bereavements, uprisings of the power of sin. And sometimes, as in the former chapters is told, God sends his actual judgments and chastisements upon his people. Now, concerning this, note: 1. It is just that judgment should begin at, etc. For God has a right to the reverence and obedience of his own people. If a father be not obeyed in his own house, where else should he be? More of light, privilege, and grace are given to his Church, and more of ill follows from their sin; and hence no wonder that judgment begins, etc. 2. And it is fit and suitable. Who cares for the household as the father? I hear a child in the streets use profane or foul language, and I am shocked that any child should use language like that. But if it were my child, with what horror and indignation should I be filled! All the father’s affection clusters round and centres in his home, and hence he will spare no pains nor refuse any methods—even judgments when they are needed, as once and again they are—whereby the highest well being of his children may be secured. 3. And it is merciful likewise. It was not judgment, but mercy also, that "drove out the man" from Paradise. Some discipline sterner than Paradise afforded was needed now for the subdual of that evil nature which had become dominant in man. And that nature must be subdued and the better nature formed in us, or the high and holy purpose of God cannot be fulfilled in us. II. BUT IT DOES NOT STOP THERE. To show this is the purport of this and the following chapters. 1. And how true this is generally! There is the sorrow of the world as well as that of the believer; and who would not rather have that of the believer than that of the world? 2. And how much greater is the sorrow of the world! "If they do these things in the green tree, what," etc.? said our Saviour. "If the righteous scarcely "be multiplied be saved, where," etc.? said St. Peter. And that "their sorrows shall" is inevitable. For they have no inward spring of consolation beneath them. There is so much more to be done in order to rescue them from their ways. The processes of agriculture are sometimes severe; but what are they compared to the stern work needed for bringing the land into cultivation. The police of a well ordered town cause some burden to the inhabitants; but what is that to martial law? They touch the all of the world, only the lesser good of the believer. And they stay so much longer time. There was no such restoration for the Gentile people told of here as there was and especially will be for the Jewish race. The Church of Christ has often been judged, but she has ever been restored, and will be yet more. But during her history, Rome, Venice, and political states within Christendom have risen, decayed, and disappeared. 3. How admonitory all this is! (1) To the child of the house of God. It bids him be thankful because he knows the motive, the measure, and the sure end of what he has to bear. Submission that he may at once escape the heavy hand of God and shelter in his heart. (2) To those not in the house of God. It says, "Come in, that judgment may be turned into chastisement, wrath into fatherly correction, and that the gates of death when they close upon you may shut out the further approach of sorrow, and not, as if there be no repentance they will, shut you in with it and with innumerable other sorrows more than the first. ’Verily I say unto you,’ saith our Lord, ’ye shall not come out thence until ye have paid the uttermost farthing.’"—C. Premature glorying. In this verse and in others we have the vain vauntings of Egypt. Thus far the judgments of God have been declared against his people. Now, having begun at the house of God, judgment goes on to the Gentile nations, one after another of whom are told of in the chapters that succeed this, and ending with the judgment on Babylon. Egypt and Babylon were the two great empires between which unhappy Judaea was "like a nut between the forceps," so that when these two drew together it went ill with the little kingdom that lay between. Now, in these chapters Egypt takes the lead and Babylon closes, the lesser nations occupying the central position. The invasion and conquest of Egypt is the subject of this forty-sixth chapter from the thirteenth verse. Its decisive defeat at Carchemish is told of in the previous portion. It was in anticipation of that disastrous battle that Egypt, persuading herself that it would issue so differently, is heard uttering the proud beastings of this eighth verse. At first it seemed as if these boastings were not vain, for at Megiddo, where King Josiah was slain, the Egyptian army did obtain a victory; but, three years after, when they had pushed on to the banks of the Euphrates, Nebuchadnezzar fell upon them there and completely vanquished them. Crestfallen and crushed, they had to make their weary way back to their own land; and shortly after we read (2 Kings 24:7), "the King of Egypt came not again any more out of his land: for the King of Babylon had taken from the river of Egypt unto the river Euphrates all that pertained to the King of Egypt." That was what came of all their vauntings, and the history is a noticeable one on many grounds. Now, it recalls to our mind the wise exhortation, "Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off" (1 Kings 20:11). Let us note— I. SOME OF THIS SPIRIT OF over confidence. The Bible is full of facts which illustrate this spirit. Pharaoh, in the days of Moses, asking, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey him?’ Goliath of Gath striding down the valley in furious pride to meet the stripling David. He swore by all his gods he would give those young limbs as a prey for the vultures to feed upon. Rabshakeh, again, general of the host Of the King of Assyria, terrifying and dismaying the devout Hezekiah with his fearful threatenings. And we know how the distress lasted until Hezekiah took the letter of the haughty heathen and laid it before the Lord. Then, serene and strong, his spirit rose up, and he was able to make fit answer. And we know how Jehovah avenged Judah, her king, and her people upon the vast multitude of their foes who in battle array lay around them. For— "Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strewn; For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed. "And the tents were all silent, the banners alone; The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Had melted like snow in the glance of the Lord." And we think, too, of Haman in his rage at Mordecai, vowing vengeance, and surely reckoning on wreaking it to the full. And Samson, imagining that nothing could deprive him of his great strength, so confident that at any moment he could break through every barrier, but at length enticed, betrayed, overcome, and ruined. And, passing to the region of spiritual things, we think of Israel pledging themselves, as they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, to perfect obedience. Of that rich "fool" of whom our Lord tells, and who made so sure of many years to enjoy his "much goods" laid up in store. And of the many who were candidates for discipleship, avowing themselves ready to follow him everywhere. And of Peter, boasting that, though all men should forsake the Lord, yet would not he. And Judas, who trembled not to take the office of apostleship though so incapable of sustaining it. And in common life how often we see this same spirit! Our Afghan disasters in 1879 were largely awing to it. But in spiritual life there is the same peril. There may not be the uttered words of vain vaunting, but the spirit may be there notwithstanding. For how little there is of the trembling, the watchful, the prayerful spirit lest we should be overcome! How far too much tampering with temptation! How few "pass the time of their sojourning here in fear" lest they should "seem to come short" of eternal life! How many are like the foolish virgins, who, all careless as to the unsupplied condition of their oil vessels, nevertheless contentedly lay down to sleep! How many are at ease in Zion, allowing themselves in a carnal security which too often is but the herald of a fearful awakening! II. INQUIRE—WHAT LEADS TO THIS SPIRIT? Some are of a boastful disposition. These Egyptians evidently were. He concerning whom the cautionary words already quoted were used, "Let not him that girdeth on his harness," etc; was another such habitual boaster. And this is human nature. Our pride dies hard, but is puffed up with wonderful ease. Then: 2. False estimates have a great deal to do with it. Underestimating our adversaries’, over estimating our own, resources and strength. Hence Benhadad, who thought such scorn of Israel, on the very eve of battle was, we are told, drinking himself drunk in his tent. Hence many are found dallying with danger, fluttering, mothlike, round the flame by which they are sure soon to perish miserably. The jocular way in which the devil is so generally spoken of proves that we do but little believe in him; for what men seriously believe they never joke about. And this false estimate is rendered more credible to us if we have obtained aught of success heretofore. Egypt had at Megiddo; Benhadad had. Hence their estimates. 3. Perversion of God’s truth. We encourage ourselves in this spirit of over confidence by dwelling too exclusively on promises of protection to the neglect of those which command all watchfulness and prayer. Men will read parts of the Bible only—those which please them most; and without doubt many have dwelt so much on the promises of God’s upholding grace and his perfecting that which he begins, that they have laid ide their armour—that indispensable armour of God. But any reading of God’s Word which leads us thus practically to disobey his command is thereby proved to be a wrong reading. For, just as the chemist’s litmus paper, plunged into a solution containing acid, at once reveals by its turning red the presence of that acid, however invisible and imperceptible it may have been before, so any interpretation of the Scriptures which leads to false security, premature and presumptuous confidence, which makes us red with this sad sin, proves that that interpretation contains the acid of falsehood. It is a sure test. God help us to heed it as we should. III. NOTE WHAT IT WORKS. These are seen strewn over every pathway along which this spirit hath been; like the bleached bones in the desert show the track of the caravan. IV. Consider, therefore, SOME AGAINST IT. God himself at times undertakes its cure. He did so with Peter. He let him go his way and fall, and in that crash the spirit of boastfulness was forever crushed. But we shall be aided by remembering the words of Christ and his apostles and of all his most faithful servant§. They all warn against this spirit, and urge the spirit of watchfulness and prayer. Remember, too, that better men than ourselves have fallen. The very fact that armour is provided shows that we need it. And note that there are chinks in your armour; and that some armour is of very worthless sort. . Whilst bidding you boast not, with equal emphasis we say, "Despond not." "The gist of all this is, confide in God, but distrust yourselves. Have done with every glorying except glorying in the Lord There is nothing like full assurance for excellence, and nothing like presumption for worthlessness. Never mistake the one for the other. You cannot trust God too much nor yourself too little. I read a book one day called ’Self-Made Men,’ and in its own sphere it was excellent; but spiritually I should not like to be a self-made man. I should think he would be an awful specimen of humanity. At any rate, a self-made Christian is one of a sort the devil very soon takes, as I have seen a child so take a bran doll and shake it all out. He likes to shake out self-made Christians till there is nothing left of them. But God-made men,—these are they that do exploits; and God-made Christians, who fall back upon the eternal strength at all times and confide there,—these are the men to hold on their way and to wax stronger and stronger" (Spurgeon).—C. The terror of sacrifice without its blessing. The ancient sacrifices had much about them that was very repulsive. The slaughtering and dismemberment of the vast herds of animals that were year by year brought to the altar must have involved in it very much that was of a revolting nature. No doubt their sensitiveness to such scenes of blood was far less than ours; but at the best it must have been a most painful spectacle. Hence scoffers have called it the religion of the shambles. But the salvation and blessing that came through the sacrifices divested them of all that was painful or repulsive to the offerer. But there may be all that is terrible about sacrifice—agony, blood, death, carnage—without any corresponding blessing. Such is the meaning here. Slaughter, but no salvation. The same word for "sacrifice" is used as in those which were offered according to the Law on the altar in the temple. And so in the parallel passages in Isaiah 34:6 and Ezekiel 39:17, which should be compared with this, and which are alluded to by St. John in the Revelation. In all these there is the terror of sacrifice, but none of its blessing. And there is that which corresponds to this now. Even Christ’s sacrifice may be a terror and not a salvation. It is so to: 1. Those who refuse it. 2. Those who apostatize from it, who count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, trampling underfoot the Son of God (Hebrews 10:1-39.). 3. Those who make it the minister of sin. Who "turn the grace of God into lasciviousness." There is, then a twofold aspect, of the Lord’s sacrifice. Either it must be that by it we rise or fall. "This child is set for the fall and rising again." The gospel is "a savour of life unto life, or," etc. Christ is a Rock on which we may build, or which, falling on the impenitent, crushes him to powder. Which for ourselves?—C. The real cause of the decline of empires. "Because the Lord did drive them." If we read ordinary histories, the overthrow of any monarchy is traced to such an invasion or to the loss of such a battle, or to some other ordinary and well known cause. And no doubt it is true that, through and by these things, the said results have been brought about. But there is ever a moral cause which lies behind, and it is to that must be traced up the series of events which have followed. The history of most ancient empires, in their origin, progress, decline, and fall, has been very much the same. A hardy, temperate, courageous people, driven by necessity or attracted by the hope of gain, fall upon some decrepit power, destroy it, and on its ruins build their own fortunes. For a while the same courage and virtue which enabled them to gain possession of their prize are manifested in consolidating their power and in building up their rule. But after the lapse of years, they have gained secure foothold and are able to live less on their guard against enemies. Wealth and luxury increase and exert their enervating power. In this soil the vices, whatever they may be, to which as a people they are predisposed, grow rapidly and affect the national habit and character. Then their decay has begun. It hastens rapidly on until, in their turn, this once victorious people are vanquished, overthrown by a nation more bold and righteous and therefore more powerful than themselves. This law can be readily traced in the histories of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and in more modern instances as well. Were there no moral causes at work in the overthrow of the French empire under Napoleon I.? In all cases it will be seen that,, in one form or another, God’s love of righteousness has been outraged, and vengeance has speedily, or surely if not speedily, come. What was the Reformation but the revolt of men’s consciences against the abominable sins of the Catholic Church? But how came that Church—once so fair, so beautiful, so glorious—to have sunk so low as to become hateful in men’s eyes? It was this same enervating influence of wealth, power, and other forms of earthly prosperity which sapped her spiritual strength until she became utterly unworthy of men’s confidence, and she was punished, and is so to this day, by the loss of well nigh all Northern Europe, the noblest half of her ancient domain. Therefore learn— This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ ON THE . It is clear from the contents of the prophecy (and the inference is thoroughly confirmed by its position) that it was written after the battle of Carchemish, with reference to the dreaded northern foe—Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon. The prophecy against Egypt precedes, because Egypt was by far the most important of the nations threatened by the advance of Nebuchadnezzar. But chronologically and geographically, it ought rather to have been placed at the end of the series, for Palestine had to be conquered before a design upon Egypt could have a reasonable chance of success. The commentators have given themselves much unnecessary trouble with the heading in Jeremiah 47:1, which assigns the date of the prophecy to a period prior (as it would seem) to the battle of Carchemish. They forget that the headings are not to be received without criticism as historical evidence for the date of the prophecies. Knowing, as we do, that the prophecies were edited, not only by the disciples of the prophets, but by students of the Scriptures long after their time, it is gratuitously embarrassing one’s self to give as much historical weight to the statement of a heading as to a clear inference from the contents of a prophecy. No doubt Providence watched over the movements of the editors; they must even be credited with a degree of inspiration, so far as moral and religious truths are concerned; but they were not exempt from being dependent on the ordinary sources of information in matters of history. It would seem, then, that, out of the various sieges of Gaza in the last century of the Jewish state, one in particular had fixed itself in the memory of the Jews; and it was not a siege by the Babylonians, but by the Egyptians. Seeing a reference to Gaza in Jeremiah 47:5, a late editor of Jeremiah appended to the heading already in existence the words, "before that Pharaoh smote Gaza." He was wrong in so doing, but he only carried out, like many favourite modern preachers, what has been called the atomistic method of exegesis, by which a single verse is isolated from its context, and interpreted with total disregard of the rest of the passage. But which Pharaoh did this editor mean? and when did he lay siege to Gaza? The general view is that he means Pharaoh-necho, who, according to Herodotus (2:159), first defeated "the Syrians at Magdolus," and then "made himself master of Cadytis, a large city of Syria." It is assumed that Magdolus is a mistake for Megiddo, and that Cadytis means Gaza; and the former supposition is probable enough (a similar confusion has been made by certain manuscripts at Matthew 15:39; comp. the Authorized and Revised Versions); but the latter is rather doubtful. It is true that in Jeremiah 3:5 Herodotus speaks of "the country from Phoenicia to the borders of the city Cadyfis" as belonging to "the Palestine Syrians;" but is it not more probable that Herodotus mistook the position of Jerusalem (Cadushta, "the holy (city)," in Aramaic) than that he called Gaza "a city almost as large as Sardis"? Gaza was never called" the holy city;" Jerusalem was. Sir Gardner Wilkinson (ap. Rawlinson’s ’Herodotus’) takes a different view. According to him (and to Rashi long before) it was Pharaoh-hophra or Apries who captured Gaza. We know from Herodotus (2:161) that this king waged war with Phoenicia, which is, perhaps, to be taken in connection with the notice in Jeremiah 37:5, Jeremiah 37:11, of the diversion created by an Egyptian army during the siege of Jerusalem. This hypothesis is to a certain extent confirmed by the mention of "Tyrus and Zidon" in Jeremiah 37:4, but stands in much need of some direct historical confirmation. Jeremiah 47:1 Against the Philistines; rather, concerning (as usual in similar cases). Before that Pharaoh, etc. (see introduction to chapter). Jeremiah 47:2-4 Hostile bands advance from the north; horror seizes the Philistines. Jeremiah 47:2 Waters rise up. The prophets think in figures, and no figure is so familiar to them (alas for the unstable condition of those times!) as that of an overflowing torrent for an invading army (see on Jeremiah 46:8, and add to the parallel passages Isaiah 28:18; Ezekiel 26:19; Daniel 11:10). Out of the north. To suppose that this refers to Pharaoh-necho returning from Carchemish seems forced and unnatural. If Necho conquered Gaza at the period supposed, it would be on his way to Carchemish, and not on his return. Besides," the north" is the standing symbol for the home of the dreaded Assyrian and Babylonian foes (see on Jeremiah 1:14). Isaiah had uttered a very similar prediction when the Assyrian hosts were sweeping through Palestine (Isaiah 14:31). An overflowing flood; rather, torrent. The same phrase occurs in Isaiah 30:28, where the "breath" of the angry God is described with this figurative expression. It is in autumn time that the torrents of Palestine become dangerous, and water courses, dry or almost dry in summer (comp. Jeremiah 15:18), become filled with a furiously rushing stream. Jeremiah 47:3 A fine specimen of Hebrew word painting. The rushing of his chariots. "Rushing" has the sense of the German rauschen, to make a rustling, murmuring sound. It is used (but as the equivalent of a different Hebrew word) in the Authorized Version of Isa 18:1-7:12, 13 of the confused sound made by an army in motion. In the present passage, the Hebrew word means something more definite than that in Isaiah, l.c.; it is the "crashing" of an earthquake, or (as here) the "rattling" of chariots. The rumbling of his wheels. "Rumbling" is a happy equivalent. The Hebrew (hamon) is the word referred to in the preceding note as meaning an indefinite confused sound. The fathers shall not look back to their children, etc. An awful picture, and still more effective in the concise language of the original. The Hebrew Scriptures excel (as still more strikingly, but with too great a want of moderation, does the Koran) in the sublime of terror. So overpowering shall the panic be that fathers will not even turn an eye to their helpless children. Observe, it is said "the fathers," not "the mothers." The picture is poetically finer than that in Deuteronomy 28:56, Deuteronomy 28:57, because the shade of colouring is a degree softer. Feebleness of hands. A common expression for the enervation produced by extreme terror (see Jeremiah 6:24; Isaiah 13:7; Ezekiel 7:17; Nahum 2:11). Jeremiah 47:4 The day that cometh; rather, the day that hath come (i.e. shall have come). It is "the day of the Lord" that is meant, that revolutionary "shaking of all things" (to use Haggai’s expression, Haggai 2:21), as to which see further in note on Jeremiah 46:10. To cut off … every helper that remaineth; i.e. every ally on whom they could still reckon. This passage favours the view that the judgment upon the Philistines took place at the same time as that upon Tyre. Nebuchadnezzar’s object was to isolate Tyre and Sidon as completely as possible. The remnant. The Philistines had suffered so much from repeated invasions as to be only a "remnant" of the once powerful nation which oppressed Israel (see on Jeremiah 25:20). The country of Caphtor. Some would render "the coastland of Caphtor," but the idea of "coast" seems to be a secondary one, derived in certain passages from the context. Properly speaking, it is a poetic synonym for "land," and is generally applied to distant and (accidentally) maritime countries. "Caphtor" was understood by the old versions to be Cappadocia. But as the remains of the Cappadocian language point to a Persian origin of the population which spoke it, and as the Caphtorim originally came from Egypt, it is more plausible to suppose, with Ebers, that Caphtor was a coast district of North Egypt. Crete has also been thought of (comp. Amos 9:7; Genesis 10:14; Deuteronomy 2:23). Jeremiah 47:5-7 The prophet changes his style. In ecstasy or imagination, he sees the calamity which he has foretold already come to pass. Philistia is not, indeed, altogether annihilated; it was not the will of God to make a full end as yet with any of the nations round about. But it is reduced to extremities, and fears the worst. Jeremiah 47:5 Baldness. A sign of the deepest sorrow (comp. on Jeremiah 16:6). Ashkelon is cut off. Ruins of Ashkelon are still visible. "It is evident that the walls of the old city were built on a semicircular range of rocky hills, which ended in perpendicular cliffs of various heights on the seashore. Wherever nature failed, the weak places were strengthened by the help of earthworks or masonry. On the southern and southeastern sides, the sand has penetrated the city by means of breaches in the walls, and every day it covers the old fortifications more and more, both within and without. The ancient towns alone rise distinctly, like rocky islands, out of the sea of sand. The ruins on the north are bordered by plantations of trees. They lie in such wild confusion that one might suppose that they were thrown down by an earthquake. There is no secure landing place; the strip of sand at the foot of the western wall is covered at high tide, when the waves beat against the cliffs. Still J.G. Kinnear, in 1841, found some remains of a mole, and this discovery is confirmed by Schick [the able German architect now at Jerusalem]." Thus writes Dr. Guthe, in the Journal of the German Palestine Exploration Society, remarking further that, in a few generations, the ruins of Ashkelon will be buried under the drifting sand. It is partly the sand hills, partly the singular fragmentariness of the ruins of Ashkelon, which gives such an air of desolation to the scene, though, where the deluge of sand has not invaded, the gardens and orchards are luxuriant. Dr. W.M. Thomson, in the enlarged edition of ’The Land and the Book’, observes that "the walls and towers must have been blown to pieces by powder, for not even earthquakes could throw these gigantic masses of masonry into such extraordinary attitudes. No site in this country has so deeply impressed my mind with sadness." With the remnant of their valley. "With" should rather be "even." "Their valley" means primarily the valley of Ashkelon; but this was not different from the valley or low-lying plain (more commonly called the Shefelah) of the other Philistian towns; and the whole phrase is an enigmatical, poetic way of saying "the still surviving population of Philistia." But this addition certainly weakens the passage, and leaves the second half of the verse abnormally short. It is far better to violate the Massoretic tradition, and attach "the remnant," etc; to the second verse half. But "their valley" is still a rather feeble expression; a proper name is what we look for to make this clause correspond to those which have gone before. The Septuagint reads differently, for it renders καὶτὰκατὰλοιπαἘνακείμ. We know from Joshua 11:22 that some of the Anakim were left "in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod;" and in David’s time the Philistines could still point to giants in their midst (1 Samuel 17:4; 2 Samuel 21:16-22), who, like the Anakim (Deuteronomy 2:20), are called in the Hebrew, Rephaim. It may be objected, indeed (as it is by Keil), that the Anakim would not be traceable so late as Jeremiah’s time; but Jeremiah was presumably a learned man, and was as likely to call the Philistines Anakim, as an English poet to call his countrymen Britons. No one who has given special attention to the phenomena of the Hebrew text elsewhere can doubt that "their valley" is a corruption; the choice lies between the "Anakim" of the Septuagint and the plausible correction of a Jewish scholar (A. Krochmal), "Ekron." How long wilt thou cut thyself? Shall thy lamentation never cease? (comp. on Jeremiah 16:6). The question is in appearance addressed to "the remnant" (personified as a woman), but in reality the judicial Providence who sends the calamity. Jeremiah 47:6 O thou sword, etc.; rather, alas! thou sword of the Lord.. It is the mystic sword of which we have heard already (see on Jeremiah 12:10; Jeremiah 46:10). Jeremiah 47:7 The seashore. So Ezekiel speaks of "the remnant of the seashore" (Ezekiel 25:16), referring to Philistia. Jeremiah 47:1-7 The judgment of the Philistines. I. A ON THE ANCIENT ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD. They have long ceased to be a power; now they shall cease to have any national existence. They are but a remnant; even this is to be cut off. Gradually the spiritual foes of the Christian are reduced in power and number. Old sins and old temptations are slowly subdued. Some linger on till the end of life. But all shall be overthrown, even the last enemy, death. II. AN . It comes up like a flood; i.e. it is swift, and it spreads far and wide. Such is a characteristic of Divine judgments. 1. They may be long delayed, but when they appear they rush down as a flood. 2. They penetrate to secret hiding places and flow to the most remote quarters, reaching those who would fain separate themselves from their companions in sin when they are forced to be also companions in suffering. III. A . The Philistines suffer grief—they cry and howl; these people are also smitten with the paralysis of fear—"the fathers shall not look back to their children for feebleness of hands" (Jeremiah 47:3). Some troubles can be endured and lived down by fortitude, by patient submission, or by the comforting resources of the inner life. But this is not possible with the judgments of Heaven. They are too terrific to be calmly endured. The inner sources of consolation are withheld. The soul is punished as well as the body. There is the bitterest drop in the cup of anguish. The soul will be tortured with shame, with remorse, with horror. That is hell. IV. A . "Baldness is come upon Gaza; Ashkelon is cut off." Great cities are overthrown, the ruins of them testifying to this day to the violence they have undergone. The end of the broad way is destruction. "The wages of sin is death." Whatever be the exact character of the destruction and death, the analogy of national judgment and the known deadening effects of sin upon the spiritual, the intellectual, and even the physical powers lead us to expect that the fearful fate of sin continued, unchecked, and unrepented of through all stages of chastisement will be some destroying process. V. AN . "Alas! thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet?" (Jeremiah 47:6). Philistia has never been restored. Some judgments appear to be irretrievable. All punishment must be sufficiently enduring to effect its end. The punishment of the next world is always referred to as terribly enduring, as partaking of the awful duration of aeons. How long such vague, vast ages will last none can say. May it not be the fate of any of us to make the experiment! Jeremiah 47:6, Jeremiah 47:7 The sword of the Lord. I. THE TERROR OF MAN BEFORE THE SWORD OF THE LORD. (Jeremiah 47:6.) 1. God wields a sword. There are terrors in some of the doings of the God of love. "Our God is a consuming fire." It is foolish and wrong to. blind ourselves to the stern side of God’s government, and to represent him as almost soft and weak in his indulgence of his children. 2. God’s sword may be seen in earthly calamities. It does not flash before us as when it was held by cherubim at the gates of Eden. It works in the form of natural calamities. It also makes use of human actions, wars, etc. Above the sword of man there glitters this terrible, irresistible sword. Thus calamities in this world are sent by God or overruled by God. 3. God’s sword may be restlessly active. It is not displayed for one fearful moment and then sheathed. Often there comes blow upon blow. Thus Job cries out beneath the wearying strokes, "How long wilt thou not depart from me, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle?" (Job 7:19). 4. We cannot see the reason for the terrible work of the sword of the Lord. We cry out in dismay before it. From a human point of view it may appear cruel and relentless. 5. We may naturally fed pity for those who suffer from this terrible sword. It is right, too, that we should intercede for them if it be possible for the judgment of Heaven to be stayed. II. THE DIVINE MISSION OF THE SWORD OF THE LORD. (Verse 7.) 1. The wielding of the sword is necessary. "How can it be quiet?" There are moral necessities which even the Almighty God freely accepts. Justice must be done. Right must be established. Evil must be suppressed. The process may be painful, and such as God would not choose on its own account and can take no delight in. Yet for these high requirements, though his children suffer and his own heart is wrung with commiseration, he cannot sheathe the sword till its work is done. 2. The wielding of the sword is for a good purpose. The necessity is not blind and objectless. The sword has its mission. To us who are in the thick of the battle this may not be discernible. The dust and heat, the rush and noise and confusion, the mingled cries of triumph and pain, are all we can observe; the plan of the commander cannot be read through all the turmoil of the field. But he has a plan, and the whole battle is converging to it. 3. The sword cannot be sheathed till its mission is accomplished. The mission is more important than the temporary comfort arising out of the immediate quieting of the sword. If this were to be done before the end were obtained, where would be the use of all that was already suffered? If the sword is stayed before victory is won, every drop of blood spilt is wasted, every pang suffered is suffered in vain. If the discipline of life were to cease before its great purpose were accomplished, its earlier stages would be stultified. 4. When the mission of the sword is accomplished the sword will be sheathed. It is drawn for a definite object. "The Lord is a man of war" for a season and for a purpose, not by delight nor perpetually. He is essentially the God of peace. No one is more anxious to see the sword laid aside than he who wields it. His joy is in peace and in benediction. Judgment is temporary. The victory and rest that follow will be eternal. BY A.F. MUIR The sorrow of the ungodly. The allusion is to a fashion common to the Philistines and other idolatrous nations in appealing to their gods. We perceive a similar tendency in the natural mind in its first moral concerns and spiritual troubles. It is the sorrow of the world to which, as to the Philippian jailor, the injunction has to be addressed, "Do thyself no harm." Notice— I. THE IN HUMAN NATURE. It is that self-inflicted suffering or deprivation will be of spiritual advantage and secure Divine favour. This is the secret of penance, pilgrimages, monastic life, and asceticism in general. The saying, often uttered of losses or pains over which one has no control, "Ah, well! it will be set down to our credit!" witnesses to the same idea. Remorse is largely explained on the same principle. II. THAT IT IS FOUNDED ON A OF THE DIVINE NATURE. Baal was a cruel god—a huge abortion and monstrosity. Not less cruel are the ideas of God’s character entertained by many reputedly religious persons. 1. The gospel declares that "God is love." Such self-inflictions are but folly, and have no religious value in view of this great truth. "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not … Lo, I come … I delight to do thy will, O my God" (Psalms 40:6-8; Hebrews 10:5-7); "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13; cf. Hosea 6:6); and "Wherewithal shall I come before the Lord, … he hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? (Micah 6:6-8),—are the expressions of the spirit of true religion, which alone harmonizes with the doctrine of a loving God. 2. God himself in the person of his Son has "borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." The worship which is alone acceptable to the Father must begin with the recognition of this. There is a "godly sorrow," but its advantage consists in its moral influence on ourselves, making us hate sin and follow after righteousness, etc. 3. Everything which ignores the merit of Christ’s sufferings and God’s revelation of himself must needs be hateful to him, and bring upon its authors his wrath and curse.—M. The sword of Jehovah. I. A OF DIVINE WRATH. "Sword of Jehovah" is an expression that seems to suggest the Philistines as the sneakers: "for though not bad Hebrew, it has a foreign sound, and makes the impression that the speakers attribute the sword raging against them only unwillingly and hesitatingly to Jehovah" (Naegelsbach). God in his true character is still unknown, but conscience witnesses to him as a dimly realized agent of moral recompense. Such language tells: 1. How ceaseless and terrible is the judgment of the heathen world. Ezekiel uses the same figure in relation to the Amorites (Ezekiel 21:30). "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked;" "Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God" (Psalms 139:19); "When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them," etc. (1 Thessalonians 5:3). 2. Of ignorance and moral distance from God. He is only conceived of as a God of vengeance—an all but impersonal fate. 3. Of the helplessness and superstitious dread of sinners. An imperfect knowledge is eked out and distorted by a diseased imagination. All moral strength seems to have gone out of them. II. AND AS A DIVINE . At first the answer of the prophet appears little other than a repetition of the Philistines’ thought; but it is far more. 1. This is not blind fate, but judgment strictly meted out and determined. 2. It declares, in effect, that the wicked cannot be suffered to remain on the earth. They must be subjects of continual and exterminating judgment. There is no escape. Is this so? Yes, so long as they remain impenitent and at a distance from him. Is it contradictory, then, for Zechariah to prophecy the conversion of the Philistines? The rightful end of judgment is mercy. The sinner is driven into the arms of the Divine love. Our helplessness prepares for the reception of his salvation.—M. BY S. CONWAY The sword that cannot be quiet. This chapter tells of another of the Gentile nations on whom the judgment of God was to come. These nations all lay in the march of the Babylonian armies, and were one after another overthrown. Philistia is represented as asking of the sword of the Lord, when it will be quiet, and the answer is, "How can it be quiet, when," etc.? (Jeremiah 47:7). It reminds— I. OF THE SWORD OF . The Lord hath given it a charge, and, though we may blunt it, we cannot perfectly quiet it (cf. Macbeth, Judas, and other conscience-haunted men). II. OF THE SWORD OF . "The Word of the Lord is not bound. How men have sought to sheathe it in the scabbard, to hide and hold it there, so that they may go on unchecked in their own ways! But it has leapt forth in spite of them; and, in spite of pagan, Roman, and other persecutions, has asserted its supreme might." III. OF THE SWORD OF THE DIVINE AGAINST SIN. Sin and sorrow are eternally married, and can never be put asunder. Where one is the other is never far off, and never will be in this world or the next. But forevery believer Christ has offered his own heart as a sheath for it. For such that sword is sheathed therein, and will be quiet there forever. "When Christ gave up the ghost The Law was satisfied; And now to its most rigorous claims I answer, ’Jesus died.’" C. BY D. YOUNG Apostrophe to the sword. I. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE SWORD OF JEHOVAH. Any man, or army of men, or any inanimate thing even, may be as a sword in the hand of God. Men are restricted in their agents to injure and destroy, and well it is so, though in old and superstitious times some of them were believed to control the powers of nature so that they could raise winds and tempests. But God, with his real and complete control over all natural forces, can turn them against rebellious man whenever and to whatever extent it may be necessary. It is not a case of a strong arm and a weak weapon, or a weak arm and a strong weapon beyond what the arm can wield. God smites, and not imperfectly; nor does he need to smite twice. II. WHAT IS BY THE . 1. The thought of God’s enemies. Here the Philistines are mentioned, so long the troublesome and jealous neighbours of Israel. But they are only types. There are still enemies numerous enough and active enough to keep the sword of God from lying quiet in its scabbard. Why were these Philistines reckoned enemies? Simply because of their wickedness. God is hostile to nothing but wickedness in man, and to that he is always hostile. There are Philistines still against whom a charge has to be given to the sword of God. And such must ever be destroyed, that is, not the men themselves must be destroyed, but that in them which selfishly upholds evil and profits by it. And even they themselves, if they continue the foolish war against God, must perish in the end. 2. The thought of God’s opposing activity to his enemies. Wherever there is emnity to God, Divine opposition to it becomes manifest. Hard as it may be to fight for God, it is harder still to fight against him. In being on God’s side against evil all the difficulties are at the beginning; in being on the evil side against God the difficulties, though they may look as nothing to start with, soon multiply and increase to the end. A charge is given to all God’s servants to be resolute and uncompromising in their opposition to all wickedness. 3. The thought of ultimate cessation of the sword’s activity. Surely the time is to come when the sword will lie quietly in the scabbard. He who came not to bring peace but a sword has peace for his ultimate aim. He will not say, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace; and when at last he will say, "Peace," we may be sure of the reality corresponding with the word.—Y. This prophecy is so full of repetitions that the question has naturally arisen whether the most prominent of these may not be due to interpolation. For instance: 1. Jeremiah 48:29-38 recur in Isaiah 16:6-10; Isaiah 15:4, Isaiah 15:5, Isaiah 15:6; Isaiah 16:12, Isaiah 16:11; Isaiah 15:2, Isaiah 15:3; not, indeed, without many peculiarities, and those peculiarities are so striking, and so little in harmony with Jeremiah’s usual mode of using his predecessor’s writings, that some have held that verses 29-38 were inserted by one of Jeremiah’s readers. 2. Verses 43, 44 so closely resemble Isaiah 24:17, Isaiah 24:18, and cohere so loosely with the context, that interpolation is a not unreasonable hypothesis. 3. Verses 45, 46, which are omitted in the Septuagint, are evidently based on Numbers 21:28, Numbers 21:29. 4. Verses 40, 41 closely resemble Jeremiah 49:22; the portion corresponding to that passage is omitted in the Septuagint. Jeremiah 48:1-8 The prophet foresees the calamity of Moab, and the attendant confusion and dismay. Yes; flee, save your lives, if ye can; for your confidences have proved untrustworthy; there is no hope left. Jeremiah 48:1 Against Moab; rather, concerning Moab. Nebo! Not, of course, the mountain range referred to in Deuteronomy 32:49 and Deuteronomy 32:34. I as that from which Hoses viewed the land destined for Israel, but a town in the neighbourhood, deriving its name, not from the mountain,but from the same old Semitic (and not merely Babylonian) deity. Kiriathaim. "The double city." A place of uncertain situation, but probably in the same district as Nebo; mentioned in Genesis 14:5, as the abode of the "terrible" aboriginal tribe called the Emim. Is confounded; rather, is brought to shame (as Jeremiah 46:24). Misgab; rather, the fortress. The connection shows that some definite fortress is intended, but it is difficult to say which. Graf thinks of Kir-heres (verses 31, 36) or Kir-hareseth (another form of the same name; comp. Isaiah 16:7; 2 Kings 3:25), generally identified with Kir-Moab, the chief fortified town of the Moabites. Jeremiah 48:2 There shall be no more praise of Moab; rather, Moab’s glory (or, glorying) is no more (comp. Jeremiah 48:29). In Heshbon they have devised evil, etc. There is a word play in the Hebrew, which may be reproduced thus: "In Plot-house they plot evil against it" (so J. F. Smith’s Ewald). Against it (literally, her) means "against Moab." Heshbon was at the time an Ammonitish town (it had in days gone by been Amoritish, Numbers 21:26); see Jeremiah 49:3; but was on the border of Moab. O Madmen. There seems to be again a word play, which has been to some extent reproduced thus: "Thou shalt become still, O Still house." The name Madmen does not occur again, though an allusion to it has been fancied in Isaiah 25:10, where the Hebrew for "dunghill" is madmenah. Jeremiah 48:3 Horonaim. This Moabite town was probably on the borders of Edom; hence, perhaps, "Sanballat the Horonite." Jeremiah 48:4 Moab is destroyed. The mention of Moab in the midst of towns is certainly surprising. We should expect Ar-Moab. Her little ones. The received text, as it stands, is untranslatable, and our choice lies between the correction suggested by the vowel points, and the reading of the Septuagint and a few of the extant Hebrew manuscripts, "unto Zoar." In favour of the latter, which is adopted by Ewald and Graf, it may he urged that Zoar and Horenaim are mentioned together, not only in Jeremiah 48:34, but also in Isaiah 15:5, which has evidently been imitated in the following verse. It is not quite clear what "her little ones" in the first mentioned correction mean. Some think, the children; others, the poor; Hitzig prefers the small towns of Moab. On the site of "Zoar," see Smith’s ’Dictionary of the Bible,’ but compare Canon Tristram in ’The Land of Moab.’ Jeremiah 48:5 For in the going up of Luhith, etc. The verse is substantially taken from Isaiah (Isaiah 15:5), but with variations peculiar to this chapter. The most peculiar of these is that in the first verse half, which is literally, weeping goeth up (not, shall go up) with weeping, which is explained by Dr. Payne Smith to mean "one set of weeping fugitives pressing close upon another." To the present commentator (as also to Delitzsch—see his note on Isaiah 15:5) there seems no reasonable doubt that b’ki, the word rendered "weeping," should rather be bo, "upon it," so that the passage will run, as in Isaiah, "for the going up of Luhith with weeping doth one go up if," Hitzig (whom for once we find agreeing with Delitzsch) remarks that the miswriting b’ki for bo may be easily accounted for by the fact that ki, "for," is the word which follows next. We have no right to ascribe to Jeremiah such an artificial and un-Hebraic an expression as that of the received text. Small as the matter may be in itself, it is not unimportant as suggesting to the Old Testament student a caution against the too unreserved adoption of the canon Lectioni faciliori praestat ardua. In the going down of Horonaim. An interesting variation from Isaiah. The older poet, less attentive to minutiae, had said vaguely, "in the road to Horonaim;" by a slight change of expression, the younger and more reflective writer produces a striking antithesis between the ascent to the hill-town, and the descent to the hollow in which Horonaim ("double cavern") appears to have been situated. It is possible, however, that Jeremiah has preserved the original reading, and that "the road" in Isaiah, l.c; is due to the carelessness of a scribe. The enemies have heard a cry of destruction. But why this reference to the enemies? The rendering, however, is ungrammatical. The text is, literally, the enemies of the cry of destruction have they heard. The prophecy in Isaiah omits "the enemies of," and has a different verb for "have they heard." Can the inserted words be an intrusion from the margin? The later scribes were accustomed to insert glosses in the margin on occasions where we should have thought them entirely unnecessary for the purpose of explanation. But then why "the enemies of"? It is an insoluble enigma. Jeremiah 48:6 Flee, save your lives; literally, your souls. The prophet’s human feeling prompts him to this counsel; but he knows full well that a life of abject misery is the utmost that can be hoped for. And be like the heath in the wilderness; literally, and (your souls) shall be like destitute ones in the wilderness. Imagine the ease of one who has been robbed of everything, and left alone in the desert; not less miserable is that of the Moabite fugitives. The word rendered "the heath" (‛arō‛ēr) is either miswritten for ‛ar‛ar, which occurs in the sense of "destitute" in Jeremiah 17:6 (see note), or also a rare plural form of the same word. The sense remains the same. It is tempting to see an allusion to one of the towns called Aroer (as in Isaiah 17:2). But the only Aroer the prophet could be thinking of is that on the Amen (Deuteronomy 2:36), which could not be described as "in the wilderness." Jeremiah 48:7 In thy works; i.e. either "in thy evil deeds" (comp. Isaiah 28:15) or "in thy idols" (frequently called "the work of men’s hands," e.g. Deuteronomy 4:28, and sometimes simply "works," e.g. Isaiah 41:29; Isaiah 57:12; comp. Isaiah 1:31). Chemoah. In Numbers 21:29 Moab is called "people of Chemosh," the patron-god being the king and lord of his people. In accordance with the strictly localizing theory of the nature of deity, current among primitive nations, Chemosh is said to go into captivity together with his worshippers (comp. Jeremiah 49:3; Amos 1:15). This helps us to understand the idolatry into which the Jews fell during the Exile (Isaiah 42:17); they imagined that Jehovah himself was "in captivity," and restrained from putting forth his power on behalf of his worshippers. The text reading is not Chemosh, but Chemish; the latter form does not occur elsewhere, but has been thought to illustrate the name of the Hittite city Carchemish, i.e. "castle of Chemosh." Jeremiah 48:8 The valley … the plain. The latter (Hebrew, mishor) is the upland region which extends from the Jordan eastward of Jericho into the Arabian desert; in Numbers 21:20 it is called the "field" (i.e. "open country") of Moab. The former means that part of the Jordan valley which borders on this upland "plain" towards the west. Jeremiah 48:9-16 So sudden is the blow that Moab stands in need of wings to make good his escape. Were the human instrument to delay, the curse meant for Moab would come upon himself. Is a reason demanded? It is that Moab has long been in a state of morally perilous security, and requires to be thoroughly shaken and aroused, in order that he may discover the inability of Chemosh to help his worshippers. Jeremiah 48:9 Give wings, etc. Comp. Jeremiah 48:28; also Isaiah 16:2, where the fugitive Moabites are likened to "wandering birds." Jeremiah 48:10 Deceitfully; rather, slackly, negligently. Jeremiah 48:11 Moab hath been at ease from his youth. The "youth" of Moab dates from its subjugation of the aboriginal Emim (Deuteronomy 2:10)’ Since that event, though often at war, sometimes tributary and sometimes expelled from a part of the territory claimed by them (see the inscription on the Moabite Stone), yet they had never been disturbed in their ancestral homes to the south of the river Amen. He hath settled on his less. It was the custom to leave wine for a time on its lees or sediment, in order to heighten its strength and flavour (comp. Isaiah 25:6). Emptied from vessel to vessel. Thevenot, an old traveller in Persia, remarks of the Shiraz wine that, after it is separated from the lees, it is apt to grow sour. "The wine is put into large earthen jars, each holding from ten or twelve to fourteen carabas; but when a jar has been opened, it must be emptied as soon as possible, and the wine put into bottles or carabas, otherwise it spoils and becomes sour" (’Voyages,’ 2.245, quoted by Lowth on Isaiah 25:6). In the application of the figure, the "taste" of Moab means obviously the national character. Jeremiah 48:12 Wanderers, that shall cause him to wander; rather, taters, and they shall tilt him. The earthen jars of which Thevenot speaks were doubtless similar to those of the Israelites. They would be tilted on one side, that the wine might run off clear from the dregs. Their bottles; rather, flagons or pitchers (of earthenware). The confusion of numbers and pronouns is remarkable. First, Moab collectively is spoken of as a wine jar; then the Moabites individually as Moab’s jars; last of all, the Moabites are spoken of as possessing "jars" (i.e. all the institutions, public and private, of the state and of society). Jeremiah 48:13 Ashamed of Bethel; i.e. of the golden calf or bull at Bethel, set up by Jeroboam I. as a symbol of the strong God, Jehovah. This idolatry was odious to the prophetic teachers of a nobler and more spiritual form of religion. They saw that the deity and the symbol were too much confounded, and that such a religion would not save its adherents from captivity and ruin (comp. Hosea 10:15; Amos 3:14; Amos 5:5, Amos 5:6). Jeremiah 48:14 We are mighty; rather, we are heroes. The Hebrew is gibborim, the name of David’s select warriors (2 Samuel 23:8). The exclamation is designed to represent vividly to the mind the sinful vain glory specially characteristic of Moab. Jeremiah 48:15 Moab is spoiled, and gone up out of her cities. The latter part of this clause in the Hebrew is extremely difficult; the Authorized Version is indefensible. It is even doubtful whether it can be translated at all consistently with grammar, though Hitzig, a good grammarian, has adopted the suggestion of Grotius, rendering, "and her cities have gone up," viz. in smoke, i.e. they have been burnt; comp. Judges 20:40, the end of which verso ought to run thus: "The whole city went up to heaven." But even if the verb in third masc. sing. be allowable after the plural noun, it is very harsh to give it such an interpretation, when the context says nothing about fire or smoke. J.D. Michaelis and Ewald, therefore, propose to change the vowel points of the first word, rendering, "The spoiler of Moab and of her cities is gone up;" and Dr. Payne Smith inclines to follow them. We thus obtain a striking antithesis; the enemy has "gone up," and Moab’s young men are gone down, i.e. are felled by murderous hands (comp. Isaiah 34:1-17:71 Jeremiah 48:16 The calamity of Moab, etc. The form of the verse reminds us of Deu 32:35; Isaiah 13:22. Jeremiah 48:17-25 How lamentable that such a glorious sceptre should be broken! But there is no remedy. Even Dibon, that highly honoured town, is disgraced. There is no hiding the sad fate of the Moabites; the crowds of fugitives sufficiently proclaim it. Judgment has been passed upon all the cities of Moab, a long roll of whose names is recited. Jeremiah 48:17 All ye that are about him; i.e. the neighbouring nations (setup. on Jeremiah 46:14). The invitation to condolence is not ironical, but in the deepest spirit of human sympathy, as in the parallel prophecy in Isaiah (see on Isaiah 15:5). The strong staff; i.e. the sceptre as an image of royal authority (comp. Ezekiel 19:11-14). Rod; as in Psalms 110:2. Jeremiah 48:18 Dibon; now Diban, one of the chief towns of Moab, on two adjacent hills, now covered with ruins (Tristram), in the plain of Medeba (Joshua 13:9), north of Aroer and the Amen. Here the famous Moabite Stone (on which see Dr. Ginsburg’s exhaustive monograph), with the inscription of King Mesha (2 Kings 3:4), was found, which, after having been broke up and pieced together, has now found a resting place in the Louvre. It is difficult to say to which Israelitish tribe Dibon was, strictly speaking, attached; for while in Joshua 13:17 it is given to Reuben, in Numbers 32:34 and in the Moabite Stone (line 10) it is assigned to Gad, Apparently the Israelitish population fluctuated. Sometimes Gad was the most adventurous in Occupying Moabitish territory, sometimes Reuben. On the phrase, the daughter, etc; see note on Jeremiah 46:19. The form of the first verse haft is modelled on Isaiah 47:1. Sit in thirst. The expression is unexampled, and it is possible that we should alter one of the vowel points (which constitute no part of the Massoretic text), rendering, "sit in thirsty (ground)," i.e. the dust (comp. the parallel passage; Isaiah 47:1). Or there may be a less used collateral form of the Hebrew for "thirsty" (came). Canon Tristram speaks of the "waterless plain" of Diban. Thy strongholds. It appears from the Moabite Stone that Diben was the centre of a district which was reckoned as belonging to it; so at least we may account for the phrase, "all Dibon was submissive" (line 28). Compare the phrase in Numbers 21:25, "Heshbon, and all the villages thereof" (comp. on Jeremiah 49:2). Jeremiah 48:19 The inhabitants of Aroer will come out in eager expectation to meet the fugitives, and ask, What hath happened? (so the question should be rendered). There were several Aroers (one belonged to the Ammonites, Joshua 13:25), but as the enemy is driving the Moabites southward, the Aroer here intended can only be the town by the Arnon, which separated Moab proper first of all from the kingdom of the Amorites (Deuteronomy 4:48; Joshua 12:2), and afterwards from the territory of the Israelites (Deuteronomy 2:36; Deuteronomy 3:12). The picture drawn in this verse is singularly appropriate to the site of Arnon, "just by the edge of the arterial highway of Moab," and commanding a complete view of the pass of the Arnon. There is the same variety of statement as to the Israetitish tribe to which Aroer belonged as in the case of Dibon (see Jeremiah 48:18). Joshua 13:16 speaks in favour of Reuben; Numbers 32:34 in favour of Gad. Jeremiah 48:20 The answer of the fugitives begins in the latter part of this verse, and, continues to Jeremiah 48:24. Confounded ought, as usual, to be brought to shame. The address, howl and cry, which is in the feminine, refers to Moab, which has just before been spoken of in the feminine ("It is broken down," or rather, "she is dismayed," refers to Moab, not to Dibon). In Arnon; i.e. in the region of the Amen; better, beside Arnon (comp. Jeremiah 13:5, "by Euphrates"). Jeremiah 48:21 The plain country. The mishor (see on Jeremiah 48:8). Holon is not known from other sources. Jahazah (called Jahaz in Jeremiah 48:34), according to Eusebius, still existed in his days, and lay between Medeba and Dibon. Like Heshbon and Dibon, it was claimed by the Reubenites (Joshua 13:18), and Mesha, in the famous inscription, states that the then King of Israel (Jehoram) "fortified Jahaz and dwelt in it, when he fought against me" (lines 18, 19). This was a great but only a temporary success, for Mesha adds that "Chemosh drove him out before me" (line 19). Mephaath was apparently near Jahaz, since it is always mentioned with that town (Joshua 13:18; Joshua 21:37; 1 Chronicles 6:79). Jeremiah 48:22 Dibon (see on Jeremiah 48:18). Nebo (see on Jeremiah 48:1). Beth-diblathaim. Mentioned here only. There is an Almondiblathaim in Numbers 33:46, mentioned in connection with Dibon. Jeremiah 48:23 Kiriathaim (see on Jeremiah 48:1). Beth-gamul. Nowhere else mentioned. Beth-meon. Called Baal-meon, Numbers 32:38; Beth-baal-meon, Joshua 13:17. The extensive ruins of Ma’in are a short distance south of Heshbon. Jeremiah 48:24 Kerioth. Perhaps a synonym of Ar, the old capital of Moab (Isaiah 15:1). Hence in Amos 2:2, "I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kerioth." Bozrah. The capital at one time of the Edomites (see Jeremiah 49:13). The ownership of particular cities varied from. time to time in this contested region. Far or near; i.e. towards the frontier or inland. Jeremiah 48:26-35 And what is Moab’s crime? At an earlier point the prophet said that it was the callousness produced by long prosperity (Jeremiah 48:11); but here another sin is mentioned—Moab’s haughty contempt of Jehovah. "For this it deserves that its contempt should be thrown back upon itself, by its being made, like a drunken man, the scorn of all" (Ewald). The figure is, no doubt, a coarse one, but not unnatural in the oratory (we must put aside inspiration, which leaves the forms of speech untouched) of a rude people like the Jews. It occurs not unfrequently elsewhere; see especially Isaiah 19:14; Habakkuk 2:15, Habakkuk 2:16; and, for milder examples of the figure, Jeremiah 13:13 and Jeremiah 13:25. Jeremiah 48:26 Make ye him drunken. The command is issued to the agents of the Divine wrath (comp. Jeremiah 48:10, Jeremiah 48:21). He magnified himself against the Lord. Offences against Israel being also offences against Israel’s God (see Jephthah’s striking words in Judges 11:23, Judges 11:24). Shall wallow; rather, shall fall heavily (literally, shall clap—a pregnant expression). Jeremiah 48:27 Was he found among thieves? for, etc.; rather,… that, as often as thou speakest of him, thou waggest thy head. What giveth thee the right to show such scorn and insolent triumph towards Israel, as if he were one who had been arrested in the very act of robbery (comp. Jeremiah 2:26)? Jeremiah 48:28 Dwell in the rook. Jeremiah probably thinks of the rocky defiles of the Amen, so splendidly adapted for fugitives (see Consul Wetzstein’s excursus to the third edition of Delitzsch’s ’Jesaja;’ he speaks of perpendicular walls of rock). Like the dove (i.e. the wild dove); comp. ’Iliad,’ 21:493; ’AEneid,’ 5:213. Jeremiah 48:29, Jeremiah 48:30 These verses are an expansion of Isa 16:6. The boastfulness of Moab seems to have much impressed its Israelitish neighbours (comp. Isaiah 16:14, 27). It has been thought to be illustrated by the inscription on the Moabite Stone; but we must remember that all national monuments of this sort have a tendency to exaggeration. Jeremiah 48:29 We have heard; viz. the prophet and his countrymen. Jeremiah 48:30 But it shall not be so, etc. This is a case in which the accentuation must most decidedly be deviated from; it implies a faulty view of the word rendered in the Authorized Version, "his lies." But the rendering of our version is neither in itself tenable nor is it that intended by the accentuation. The rendering suggested by the latter is "his praters" (i.e. soothsayers), as the word, no doubt, must be taken in Jeremiah 1:1-19:36; Isaiah 44:25. But it is much more natural to render thus: "And the untruth of his pratings [i.e. of his boastings]; the untruth that they have wrought." In his words and in his works (and a word is equal to a work before the Divine Judge) Mesh was essentially "untrue." Truth, in the Biblical sense, is to know and serve the true God. Jeremiah 48:31 Based upon Isaiah 16:7. Therefore. Moab cannot escape the catastrophe, for his moral basis is utterly insecure. "Therefore," etc. Will I howl. It is at first sight strange that the prophet should speak thus sympathetically after the strong language in verse 26. But the fact is that an inspired prophet has, as it were, a double personality. Sometimes his human feelings seem quite lost in the consciousness of his message; sometimes (and especially in Jeremiah) the natural, emotional life refuses to be thus restrained, and will have itself expressed. All Moab; i.e. Moab in all its districts, both north and south of the Amen, or, at any rate, the fugitive populations. Mine heart shall mourn. The Authorized Version effaces one of the points of difference between Jeremiah and his original. The former leaves the subject indefinite—one shall mourn. For the men of Kir-heres. Isaiah 16:7 has "for the raisin cakes of Kir-heres" (i.e. for the cakes of pressed grapes, for which Kir-heres was specially famous)—a much more expressive phrase. Jeremiah, or his scribe, has changed ashishe into anshe, and the Targum and Septuagint have adopted this weak reading in Isaiah, l.c. Jeremiah 48:32 Shortened from Isaiah 16:8, Isaiah 16:9. With the weeping of Jaser; rather, more than the weeping of Jazer. This may mean either "more than I weep for Jazer" (which is favoured by the insertion of "for thee") or more than Jazer weeps" (for the devastated vineyards of Sibmah); comp. Isaiah, l.c. The site of Jazer is placed by Seetzen between Ramoth (Salt) and Heshbon, where some ruins called Sir are now found. "Sibmah," according to St. Jerome, was not more than half a mile from Heshbon. King Mesha is thought to refer to it under the form Seran, miswritten for Seban (Sebam—so the form should be read—is an Old Testament version of the name; see Numbers 32:3); see inscription on Moabite Stone, line 13. It appears to have been famous for its vineyards; and Seetzen tolls us that grapes and raisins of specially good quality are still carried from the neighbouring Salt to Jerusalem. Thy plants are gone over the sea; rather, thy shoots passed over the sea. The prophet here describes the extensive range of these vines. The northern limit of their culture was Jazer, its southern or western file further shore of "the sea," i.e. the Dead Sea. By a touch of poetic hyperbole the prophet traces the excellence of vines such as those of En-gedi (on the western bank of the Dead Sea) to a Moabitish origin. The reference to the sea of Jazer throws the whole passage into confusion. There is no lake or large pool at present to be found at Jazer, and the simplest explanation is that a scribe repeated the word "sea" by mistake. The true text will then be simply," they reached unto Jazer." The spoiler. Isaiah 16:9 has the more picturesque expression, "the shouting," i.e. the wild battlecry. Jeremiah 48:33 Nearly identical with Isaiah 16:10. The plentiful field; rather, the garden land; i.e. land planted with "noble" plants, especially vines and olives. Wine. Here clearly sweet and unfermented wine (comp. Amos 9:13, Amos 9:14). None shall tread with shouting. This involves a very harsh construction of the Hebrew, and it is better (considering the numerous other errors of the same kind in the received text) to correct in accordance with Isaiah 16:10," the treader shall not tread." Their shouting shall be no shouting. "Shouting" (Hebrew, hedad) may be taken in two senses: (1) the cheerful, musical cry with which "the treaders" pressed out the juice of the grapes (comp. Jeremiah 25:30); (2) the wild cry (Jeremiah 51:14) with which the enemy "fell upon the summer fruits and upon the vintage" (verse 32), reducing the inhabitants to abject misery. In Isaiah 16:9, Isaiah 16:10 an allusion is made to this double meaning, and so, perhaps, it may be here ("There shall be shouting, but not that of the peaceful vintagers at their work"). Or, as others, we may explain "no shouting" as equivalent to "the opposite of shouting," i.e. either silence or lamentation (comp. Isaiah 10:15, "not wood" equivalent to "that which is specifically different from wood;" and Isaiah 31:3, "not God," equivalent to "the very opposite of Divine"). Jeremiah 48:34 Based on Isaiah 15:4-6. The cry of one town echoes to another, and is taken up afresh by its terrified inhabitants. Heshbon and Elealeh lay on eminences but a short distance apart, so that the shrill cry of lamentation would be heard far away in the southeast at Jahaz. Zoar and Horonaim both lay in the southern half of Moah (see on Isaiah 15:3, Isaiah 15:4). An heifer of three years old. If this is the right rendering, the phrase is descriptive of Horonaim, which may, in the time of Jeremiah, have been a "virgin fortress." But the phrase, thus understood, comes in very oddly, and in the parallel passage in Isaiah it stands, not after Horonaim, hut after Zoar; it hardly seems likely that there were two Gibraltars in Moab. Another rendering (Ewald, Keil) is, "(to) the third Eglath." This involves an allusion to the fact that there were other places in Moab called Egiath or Eglah, which has been rendered highly probable by Gesenius. The waters also of Nimrhn. Canon Tristram speaks of the "plenteous brooks gushing from the lofty hills into the Ghor-en-Numeira." Consul Wetzstein, however, says that nature appears there under so unspeakably gloomy an aspect, that the identification is impossible. He proposes a site in the Wady So’eb, about fourteen miles east of the Jordan, which with its luxuriant meadows, covered with the flocks of the Bedouin, is probably suitable to the passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah. So also Seetzen, who remarks that the lower part of this wady is still called Nahr Nimrin. In Joshua 13:27 a place called Beth—nimrah is mentioned as situated in the valley (i.e. the Jordan valley); no doubt this was in the wady referred to by the prophets. "The valley" seems to have been sometimes used in a wider signification, so as to include lateral valleys like that of Nimrim. The antiquity of the name is shown by its occurrence in the Annals of Thothmos III; who penetrated into the heart of Palestine, and, in the temple of Karnak, enumerates the cities which he conquered. From before B.C. 1600 to nearly A.D. 1900 this secluded valley has borne precisely the same name! Jeremiah 48:35 Him that offereth in the high places; rather, him that goeth up to a high place. Apparently a reminiscence of Isa 15:2 and Isaiah 16:12. As Dr. Payne Smith well remarks, "The last stage of natural ruin is reached, when thus the rites of religion entirely cease." Jeremiah 48:36-42 The description of Moab’s lamentations continued. Jeremiah 48:36 Based on Isaiah 16:11; Isaiah 15:7. Like pipes. Isaiah has, "like the harp [or, ’lute’]." The pipe, or flute, was specially used at funeral ceremonies (Matthew 9:23; Luke 7:32), and therefore, perhaps, seemed to Jeremiah more appropriate. Because the riches, etc. This is, no doubt, what we should have expected, but this is not what Jeremiah wrote; "because" should rather be therefore. Jeremiah simply transferred a clause (substantially at least) from his original, Isaiah 15:7, but into a context where it stands rather less naturally. The meaning of the words in Isaiah is that, the desolation being so great, the Moabites shall carry away as much of their goods as they can. In this new context, however, we can only explain this unexpected "therefore" by referring to a habit of the Israelitish mind by which that which contributed to a result was regarded as worked purposely for that result. Good instances of this habit are Genesis 18:5; Psalms 45:3; Psalms 51:6; comp. Winer’s ’New Testament Grammar’ (Clark), pp. 573, 574, especially note 1 on p. 574, though the idiom also occurs in Old Testament passages in which the religious view of life is hardly traceable. Jeremiah 48:37, Jeremiah 48:38 (first part).—Based on Isaiah 15:2 (latter part), 3 (first part). On the primitive Arabic, Egyptian, and Hebrew custom of cutting off the hair, see on Jeremiah 16:6, and comp. Herod; 2.36. Clipped. The difference from the word in Isaiah is so slight that it may easily have arisen from a copyist. The meaning is virtually the same. Cuttings. So of Philistia (Jeremiah 47:5); see on Jeremiah 16:6. Jeremiah 48:38 Lamentation generally; literally, all of it is lamentation; i.e. nothing else is to be heard. Like a vessel, etc. For this figure, see on Jeremiah 22:28 (Jeremiah repeats himself). Jeremiah 48:39 They shall howl, saying etc.; rather, How is it dismayed! (how) they wail! How hath Moab turned the back ashamed! Yea, Moab becometh, etc. Jeremiah 48:40, Jeremiah 48:41 The Septuagint has a shorter form (see introduction to chapter). Jeremiah 48:40 He shall fly as an eagle; rather, he shall swoop (same word and figure in Deuteronomy 28:49). The subject is not named, but (as in Jeremiah 46:18) is Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah 48:41 Kerioth is taken. Kerioth has been already mentioned in Jeremiah 48:24 (see note). Another possible rendering is, The cities are taken, and this certainly agrees better with the parallel line. But a plural of kiryah, a city, does not occur elsewhere. If the identification of Kerioth with Ar-moab, the capital of Moab, be accepted (see on Jeremiah 48:24), the equalization of Kerioth and "the strongholds" seems to be a stumbling block. Strongholds; or, mountain fastnesses (Jeremiah 51:30). Jeremiah 48:43-47 Hence, as the final result, escape is absolutely impossible, for one can get succeeds another in an endless series The last and greatest danger besots those who seek refuge behind the strong fortifications of Heshbon, It is from this very city that the hottest fire of the enemy breaks forth. Chemosh has not saved his people; and yet there is hope for Moab in the future. Jeremiah 48:43 Fear, and the pit, and the snare. An alliteration in the Hebrew, which occurs again in Isaiah 24:17. In German it can be represented better than in English—e.g. by Hitzig’s "grauen, graben, garn." All primitive poetry delights in such alliterations. Jeremiah 48:45 Apparently quoted from memory from Numbers 21:28; Numbers 24:17, except the first clause; the application, however, is peculiar to this passage. They that fled, etc.; rather, The fugitives stand without strength in the shadow of Heshbon. There is a difficulty here, for, according to Numbers 24:2, the hostile raid into Moab started from Heshbon. Surely the fugitives would not think of escaping northwards, much less would they be able to elude the vigilance of the foe and reach Heshbon. But it is not surprising that the author of so long a poem should now and then make a slip; the author of the Book of Job is sometimes inconsistent with the Prologue, and verse 2 is as far away from the passage before us as the Prologue of Job is from Job 19:18. Nor can we be absolutely certain that our prophecy is exactly as Jeremiah wrote it. Shall come forth; rather, hath come forth (or, cometh forth). From the midst of Sihon. Sihon being, perhaps, regarded as the leader and representative of his warriors. The corner of Moab; rather, the sides (literally, side, used collectively) of Moab. The tumultuous ones; literally, sons of tumult, a poetical phrase for warriors. The prophet has substituted the more common word shaon for its synonym sheth. Jeremiah 48:46 Based on Numbers 21:29. The chief difference is in the second half of the verse, in which the bold expression of Chemosh "giving his sons and his daughters into captivity" is changed for a mere ordinary and prosaic phrase. Jeremiah 48:47 On the phraseology of this verse, see on Jeremiah 29:14; Jeremiah 23:20, and on the brighter prospect held out for Moab, see the analogies given in note on Jeremiah 46:26. Thus far is the judgment of Moab is clearly an editor’s note (comp. Jeremiah 51:64). "Judgment" as in Jeremiah 46:21. Jeremiah 48:1-47 The judgment of Moab. As the prophet’s "eye in a fine frenzy rolling" sees the flood of the Chaldean invasion sweeping over one after another of the nations, his words flash out in pictures full of energy and fire. If this world’s calamities are thus terrible, how shall the awful realities of eternity be contemplated? Why should some of us be so shocked at the strong language of preachers? Strange and fanatical as it may appear, the fury of a Knox is more consonant with much of life and revelation than the complacent mildness of an Addison. Visions of judgment are no topics for graceful moral essays. Nevertheless, however hot the language may be, it must not descend to mere wild, whirling words; it must be characteristic and truthful. The succession of pictures of approaching judgment which Jeremiah draws are not monotonous repetitions of the same description. They are definite and distinctively applicable to the respective subjects of them. Let us observe the special features of the judgment of Moab. I. THE OF THE PEOPLE. The grounds of the judgment are given in the revelation of the sins of Moab. The head and front of her offence is pride (e.g. verse 29). Other characteristics are closely related, viz.: (1) trust in wealth and material resources (verse 7); (2) self-indulgent ease (verse 11); (3) boastfulness (verse 14); (4) scorn (verse 27); (5) defiance of Heaven (verse 26). Such a catalogue of offences is peculiarly hateful to God. Sins of appetite and passion are partly the result of weakness. The culpability of them is less than that of the intellectual and spiritual sins by all the weight of temptations which arise out of the natural constitution of man. For such sins as those of Moab there is no excuse. They are nearest to the most diabolical wickedness. Adam fell by a sin of appetite; Satan by a sin of spiritual pride. II. THE NATURE OF THEIR DOOM. 1. Destruction. (Verse 4.) The general doom of all the nations. This is the leading form of the evil fruits of sin. 2. Shame and humiliation. (Verse 13.) "Moab also shall wallow in his vomit" (verse 26). What a terrible anticlimax from the pride and haughtiness which are the chief characteristics of this people! 3. Derision. Moab had mocked at Israel, now "he also shall be in derision" (verse 26). Thus scorn is rebuked with scorn, and the mocker is mocked. 4. Gloom and grief. (Verse 33.) The ease and self-complacency which had characterized Moab are exchanged for their opposites. 5. Poverty. "The riches that he hath gotten are perished" (verse 36). Moab had trusted in wealth. His punishment will consist in part in the loss of this. Finally, to Moab, as to other nations, there is promised an ultimate restoration. "Yet will I restore the prosperity of Moab in the latter days, saith the Lord" (verse 47). Most beautifully does this one verse close the terrible vision of judgment, like one ray of light breaking through the dense black thunderclouds and promising the dawn of a new day of life and gladness. Even to a heathen people the promise is made, and by the mouth of a Hebrew prophet. Who, then, shall dare to set limits to the future restoring power of the grace of God? The dangers of riches. Riches are not evil things in themselves. The gifts of God in nature, or the fruits of man’s industry, they are valuable just because they have in them some serviceableness for human wants. Money is not the root of all evil, but the love of it (1 Timothy 6:10). It is they who trust in riches who find it impossible to enter into the kingdom of God (Mark 10:24). But riches are snares, and the possessor of them had need beware of the dangers they necessarily bring. When the servant becomes a god the degraded worshipper is on the road to ruin. Let us consider some of the dangers of riches. I. A DANGER OF TRUST. The wealthy man is likely to think his riches will do more for him than it is in their power to do. He finds that money brings a number and variety of comforts and helps him out of many a difficulty. He is in danger of looking upon it as omnipotent. But money will not buy the choicest blessings. It will not purchase friends, nor peace of mind, nor spiritual blessedness here, nor the heavenly inheritance hereafter. To trust to riches for these things is to miss them. Yet they are the truest treasures. The poor man who seeks them aright, not being allured by the rich man’s peculiar temptations, may step in first; and so Dives may come to envy Lazarus. II. A DANGER OF . Rich Moab lives at her ease (Jeremiah 48:11). A wealthy man is tempted to be satisfied with his possessions. The earth is very fair to him. Possibly he is in the land of the lotus eaters, "where it is always afternoon." He is thus in danger of caring only for this world, and making no provision for the better world. For he may value his earthly jewels so much as not to care to search after the pearl of great price, or to be unwilling to make any sacrifice in order to purchase it. He tends to become so engrossed with material things as to lose all appetite for and all perception of spiritual things. His treasure is on earth, and his heart is there also. Thus he loses the solid, lasting possessions of eternity while grasping at the shadowy treasures of time. III. A DANGER OF PRIDE. Rich Moab is proud. The wealthy man is tempted to transfer his high estimation of his possessions to himself. Because he has much he is induced to think that he is much, and the world too often urges him to this mistake by its despicable sycophancy to mere money. When will people learn to value men by their characters and not by their purses? If pride has any valid excuse for existence, this must be found in the true nature of a man and his own personal excellences. Before God we are judged solely by what we are. Our possessions will only aggravate our guilt if they have been abused, for they will be regarded as talents to be accounted for, never as merits to secure us any reward. Therefore the pride of the rich man may be his ruin. Slack service. "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord slackly." These words refer immediately to the terrible work of destruction. We shudder at hearing so fearful a curse; but we should remember that, if the slaughter were believed to be in accordance with God’s will, and therefore also believed to be right and necessary, there could be no excuse for neglecting it. We may derive from this extreme instance most forcible argument against slack service. If such slackness could appear cursed to the Jew under the most trying circumstances, when pity and all humane instincts cried out against the work, how much more guilty is it in the Christian work of love! I. OF SLACK SERVICE. 1. Negative goodness. Great care to avoid all forms of impurity may be found together with a reluctance to make any sacrifice or put forth any exertion. 2. Conventionatism. A man follows in the rut of his predecessors, evinces no originality, has no device with which to meet an emergency, never inquires into the suitability of his work to its end, never thinks of improving it, sticks to old ways when the old objects of them are obsolete, cannot break up new ground though new requirements call him to it. 3. Working at half power. What service is rendered does not come up to the level of requirement nor to the measure of ability. It is done in a slow, dreamy style. 4. Failure before difficulty. The molehill is magnified into a mountain. The opposition, which is the spur to enthusiasm, puts a complete stop to slack service. II. CAUSES OF SLACK SERVICE. 1. Worldliness. The clay of selfishness is mingled with the strong metal of devotion. A man would serve God and mammon. He tries to do the work of God with one hand, while he advances his own interest with the other. But no work for God is acceptable which is not done with both hands. 2. Unbelief. This paralyzes much of our work—more, I am persuaded, than we are ready to admit. The God served is a shadowy Being, and no wonder the service is faint and feeble. 3. Want of devotion. The service of the hands is given without the love of the heart. This mechanical work is a poor, spiritless thing. It is love and love only that can inspire a service of unwearying energy. 4. Cowardice. There is a fear to do difficult and dangerous work. We pity this for its weakness. We should condemn it as wicked. Should not the servant of Christ be willing to suffer all torments and die for his Lord who suffered and died for him? "Be thou faithful unto death." 5. Mere indolence. Indolence may be partly constitutional, as in persons of lethargic temperament. Some men are habitually tardy and dilatory. They should learn to resist these tendencies as temptations to fatal unfaithfulness. III. EVILS OF SLACK SERVICE. It is no slight failure to be gently rebuked. The curse of God lies upon it. "Cursed be he," etc. 1. It is very wicked. We are God’s servants, and bound by ties of nature and of gratitude. 2. It is likely to be fruitless. Negligence in work may imperil the whole results of it. If the ship is carelessly steered it may be wrecked. 3. It injures the man who works negligently. Our manner of work reacts upon ourselves. Indifferent service produces a low tone of life, coldness, lethargy, unspirituality. IV. CALLS TO BETTER SERVICE. 1. From the curse of slack service. This curse is a solemn warning. The evils that necessitate it should terrify us from incurring it. 2. From the obligations of duty. "We are not our own; we are bought with a price." When we do our best we are unprofitable servants. Solemn voices of time and eternity bid us "work while it is day." "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." 3. From the need of the world. Our Christian service is no profitless treadmill drudgery. It is for the good of mankind. The call in the text was to execute wrath; ours is to do deeds of mercy. The world in its darkness, its misery, its sin, cries loud for the Christian mission of consolation and redemption. Can we sleep while such calls pierce our ears? 4. From the constraining love of Christ. He died for us; he only asks that we shall live for him. But the least we can do is to live faithfully, earnestly, and devotedly, serving the Saviour with all earnest zeal. 5. From the heavenly reward (Hebrews 12:1, Hebrews 12:2). Wine on the lees. This is a figure of a people left for ages in a condition of ease. They are like wine settled on its lees, unchanged and unpurified. I. IT IS BAD FOE A PEOPLE TO REMAIN LONG IN A OF EASE. 1. Evil is not purged out. The wine is still on its lees. In times of quiet we settle down contented with ourselves as well as with our surrounding. We say—Why disturb the air with cries for change while all is still and calm and dreamy as a summer noon? The old ruin stands unshaken in the fair weather. But presently the tempest rises, the wind howls, and the broken walls tremble to their foundations. Then we see that repairs must be executed or a new building erected. 2. Progress in good is stayed. Wine should improve with keeping. But of this wine it is said, "His taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed." Progress needs the stimulus of conflict. Trouble promotes reflection and urges to improved action in the future. "Woe unto you when all men shall speak welt of you!" (Luke 6:26). 3. Corruption and decay are induced. Ease means stagnation, and stagnation decomposition. If the vital functions are arrested, the body will not remain like a marble statue. Very soon other actions are set up, and the quiet of death gives place to a horrible scene of rapid corruption. The stagnant soul becomes the dead soul, and this a mass of moral rottenness. II. THE EVILS OF A OF EASE BELONG TO ALL CLASSES OF LIFE. 1. The nation. Moab had lived for ages amongst her hills and fertile fields beyond the surging tide of the world’s restless changes which swept along the western side of the Jordan between Egypt and the northern nations. She was not the better for this isolation. Wars, invasions, revolutions, turn out to be ultimately serviceable to the cause of human progress. 2. The Church. The Middle Ages, when the Church was all-powerful and at ease, were the dark ages of Christendom. The disturbance of the Reformation was a new birth to the Church, in the good of which even the Roman Catholics shared by the stimulus it brought to zeal and the check it put on the paganizing spirit prevalent in Italy in the fifteenth century. 3. The individual Christian. In times of ease we tend to become worldly, and our devotion cools. Trouble drives us to prayer and wakens the deeper instincts of the soul (Hebrews 12:11). Pride. With accumulated phrases emphasis is laid upon this leading sin of Moab, a sin which is condemned throughout Scripture as one of great wickedness. I. THE NATURE OF PRIDE. Pride is a passion rising out of an inordinate opinion of our own worthiness. It is to be distinguished from vanity. Vanity is eager for the admiration of others, though, perhaps, in its own heart conscious of possessing hut little to deserve it. But pride is inwardly elated with the feeling of self-importance, and may be quite indifferent to the opinion of the world. Indeed, the height of pride is to scorn the admiration as much as the hatred of other men, to look down upon the "dim multitude" as in all respects beneath contempt. Vanity craves social position; pride is essentially lonely. Vanity smiles with the desire of pleasing; pride frowns in haughty independence. It is possible, however, for a man to have a very high opinion of his own powers, importance, etc; without much pride. For pride is not a mere conviction of the great worth of one’s self, it is an emotion, a passion, a disposition to dwell on one’s own merits and make idols of them. II. THE OF PRIDE. Why is this so strongly condemned in Scripture? so hateful to God? Consider how it must appear in his sight. We are all his helpless children; "we have erred and strayed from his ways like lost sheep;" before him we are foul with sin, humiliated with failure; our best works are poor and imperfect; in free grace he spares, endures, pardons. Where, then, is there ground for pride? Pride is the denial of guilt, the assumption that the good we receive from God is deserved; it is, therefore, a gross presumption, an evidence of base ingratitude, a proof of self-will that refuses to humble itself before the good and holy Father. III. THE EFFECTS OF PRIDE. 1. It blinds us to our own danger. It assumes that all must be well But the assumption does. not alter facts. It only aggravates the danger by preventing us from taking precautions against it. Moab was not saved in the general overthrow of the nations for all her pride. Humility sees the stumbling block in the path, but pride holds its head so high as never to observe it, and so fells over it (Proverbs 16:18). 2. It prevents us from securing our own highest good. This can only be given by the mercy of God, and he can only bestow it on the humble, the contrite, the submissive. The proud man bars his own heart against the incoming of the grace of God. 3. It hinders the good work of life. It is directly opposed to charity; it is incongruous with that spirit of mutual concession and cooperation which is required in the service of life. Thus pride often wastes those very powers on the existence of which it stands. To conquer pride let us look at our lives in the light of the life of the meek and humble Jesus of Nazareth. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 48:11-13 The ease of Moab. A figure: wine casks long undisturbed, whose contents improve and mellow in their taste, at length tilted by the coopers so that the wine is spilled. I. WORLDLY IS OFTEN VERY GREAT AND . 1. Frequently remarked. Heathen nations, whose very backwardness and barbarism have isolated them from the disturbing stream of the world’s life; and empires that seem to be based upon irreligion and wrong, and that are nevertheless in the van of civilization. The men who make the colossal fortunes of modern times are not, as a rule, distinguished for their religious virtues. Sins that immediately destroy some are committed with impunity by others. Many of the most ancient and lucrative vested interests of the world are owned by persons without moral character, and are prostituted to the basest purposes. 2. The moral perplexity of this. When wealth and influence almost phenomenally great are thus acquired and used, they cannot fail to trouble the minds of good men. The difficulties of a moral and religious life are so great that such a spectacle tempts and saddens. Israel had been afflicted from her youth (Psalms 129:1-3), whilst Moab was at ease. David was envious when he saw the prosperity of the wicked (Psalms 73:3). II. SINNERS ARE THEREBY IN THEIR EVIL HABITS AND BELIEFS. The material wealth and secular position of Moab were doubtless greatly advanced by this long security, and a kind of prestige attached to him amongst neighbouring nations. His customs gradually acquired a fixed and immovable authority. The national character, with all its inherent vices, developed a strong individuality: "His taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed." One trait of this character, for which Moab was notorious and intolerable, was his pride (Jeremiah 48:29). His attachment to idolatry was also intense; his inhabitants were the "people of Chemosh" (Jeremiah 48:46). To add to the cup of his transgression, he "magnified himself against the Lord" (Jeremiah 48:42.). All this is in strict analogy with what may be observed anywhere under similar circumstances. National pride grows with impunity and conquest; and prejudice strengthens itself in the apparent success of its policy of life and the blessing that seems to attach to its religious observances. Israel was a derision to Moab (Jeremiah 48:27). III. BUT THEIR IS , AND , THOUGH DELAYED, WILL BE THE MORE CERTAIN AND . The uncertainty of worldly prosperity is represented frequently and under many figures in Holy Writ. It is "that which moth and rust corrupt, and thieves steal;" it "takes to itself wings and flies away;" the whole life of which it is the material embodiment, is "even as a vapour, which appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (James 4:14). Here the metaphor is that of a tilted vessel. There will come a day when the cup of a nation’s or individual s iniquity will be full; then will they be as Sodom and Gomorrah, whose cry was great and their sin very grievous (Genesis 19:20). It is just this confidence, born of long impunity, that becomes intolerable to God and provokes his wrath. The rich fool (Luke 12:16-21).—M. Betrayed by their gods. This statement, as it is more especially from the religious standpoint, is a generalization of the cause of Moab’s ruin, full of spiritual insight and sagacity. It is in such directions as these we are to seek for the reasons of human success or failure; everything else is but superficial. I. THE TRUE CAUSES OF HUMAN SUCCESS OR FAILURE, OR MISERY, ARE OF A MORAL OR KIND. We do not know the exact nature of the Chemosh worship of Moab, but it is evident that, like other idolatries, it favoured materialism and the gratification of passion (Jeremiah 48:7). The idol was the centre and representative of the whole life of the people. 1. Material circumstances are in themselves indifferent towards the achievement of national or individual greatness, but trust in material circumstances is an invariable precursor of ruin. It is the virtues that are the true bulwarks of a people. "If all the historians who record the ultimate extinction of nations were inspired of God to give the true reasons of their fall, we should often meet this testimony: ’Perished of national pride, producing contempt of God and of fundamental morality’" (Cowles); Proverbs 14:34. 2. The chief object of desire to any one is his ruler and destiny. The god is the embodiment of all the sentiments and passions associated with its worship; the leading desire attracts towards itself and assimilates all others. It gradually but inevitably becomes his god. His whole life will henceforth take its complexion and direction from it. He conceives it to be the best and to be able to secure for him all that is desirable. From this we see: (1) The peril of idolatry. Pandering to the worst and most selfish passions, it blinds and infatuates its votaries and leads them eventually to their ruin. (2) Their importance of a true worship. It cultures the nature according to its essential principles, and secures the supremacy of the moral and spiritual. And all true guidance, help, and comfort are afforded in answer to believing prayer.—M. BY S. CONWAY The heath in the wilderness. Such will the sinner be; for, like it, he will be: 1. Barren. No rich, strength-sustaining fruit does the heath bear. A mere hard berry. The camel and the ass may browse thereupon, but it is no food for man. "Can men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" And thus barren of good is the sinner. 2. Unlovely. There is no form nor beauty about the heath; a stunted, misshapen shrub. Its wood can be used for no manufacture. It is fit only to be burned. And when our eyes are opened to see things as they are, sin and the sinner will appear in all moral unloveliness; all present outward charm gone, and only their evil deformity seen. 3. Alone. Surrounded by drear expanse of sand; no companion trees to form it into a grove or a verdant mass of plant life. And so will the sinner be one day. Christ goes with the believer down the dark valley, but the sinner goes forth alone. He stands at the bar of God with no advocate. None of all his old companions can redeem his soul or give to God a ransom for him. Alone; helpless. 4. The gracious influences of Heaven do him no good. The dew and the rain, the sun’s warmth, come upon it; but it remains the unlovely, solitary, barren thing it ever was. So the impenitent man is visited by the influences of Heaven, the pleading of the Spirit, the varied means of grace; but they avail him not. 5. Soon to perish. The driving sand, the scorching heat, the browsing camel, the encampment fire, all threaten its life, and by one or other of them it soon perishes. And they who are like to it are never safe. "How are they destroyed as in a moment!" Conclusion. But the godly are not so. "He shall be like a tree planted by," etc. (Psalms 1:1-6.).—C. Doing the work of the Lord deceitfully. We observe— I. THE WORK OF THE LORD IS OF VARIED KINDS. Here it has reference to the vengeance to be taken on Moab, and denounces a curse on that soldier who failed to do his duty in the most thorough and terrible manner. No pity, no motive of any kind, was to lead them to spare the doomed nation. But whilst such dread work may be at times the work of the Lord, the expression more commonly points to that which is spiritual, and tends to man’s highest good. In the apostolic Epistles we have constant reference to the work of the Lord in this happier sense. II. BUT THERE IS PERIL, THE WORK BE, OF DOING IT . Now, the work of the Lord is done deceitfully: 1. When it is not done thoroughly. When we shirk our work; do no more than we can help; get away from it as fast as we can. And how much of the "work" is thus done! Alas that it should be so! Evidently counted a drudgery rather than a delight. Do we not all know that there is danger of our thus working? 2. When it is not done sincerely. How varied and how questionable often the motive which leads men to engage in the work of the Lord!—custom, ostentation, fear of reproach, sting of conscience, hope of gain, fashion, etc. These and such as these may crowd out the only right and sincere motive—the love of Christ. All others make us more or less hypocrites, and can find no acceptance of the Lord in the great day. But is there no peril from such motives? We know there is. 3. When it is not done earnestly. When our heart is not in our work. When it is laid hold of not, as it should be, "with both hands earnestly," but, as it were, with one of the fingers. Some thus work; others as with one hand; others, indeed, with both hands, but slowly, loosely, not earnestly. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." Only such as obey that Word are sincere workers. 4. When it is done hypocritically. In the days of sore persecution there was but little peril of this; but when and where religion goes, as it is. said, in silver slippers, there is real peril of men taking up with the Lord’s work in order to further, not the work of the Lord, but their own poor worldly well being. What they do is all a pretence, a kind of deception. God keep us all therefrom! For note— III. THE WITH WHICH THE LORD LOOKS UPON HIS WORK DONE . "Cursed be he," etc. (Jeremiah 48:10). Now, wherefore this severity? 1. It is an insult to God. It is as good as saying to him that his work does not deserve true labour; that it is of so little importance that anything will do for it—the parings of your time, your energy, your thought, your means, your strength. What could be a greater affront to God? 2. The work is so great and urgent that it is traitorous thus to engage in it. What do we say of the watchman sleeping at his post (cf. Ezekiel 33:1-33.)? of all who betray their trust or neglect it? 3. Such deceitfulness is contagious. How many a young servant of Christ is checked and chilled by the evil influence of professed servants of Christ like himself, but older, less fervent, and who are guilty of that which is here denounced! Such demoralize many in the army of the Lord. 4. It renders the work itself far more difficult. For the world sees clearly and judges keenly those who say they do the work of the Lord. They know what that work is, what it professes to aim at, what the interests involved in it. But they who do that work deceitfully cause men to laugh at all such work, to disbelieve all its claims, and to decline more stoutly than ever to surrender their hearts to it. 5. Such deceivers harden their own hearts, and steep themselves in a fatal slumber, from which there is no waking. Never has Satan a firmer hold on a man than when he can get him to do the work of the Lord deceitfully. The man is fully persuaded that he is all right, and dies with a lie in his right hand, and is not undeceived till, to his awful amazement, he hears the Lord say to him and to all such, "I never knew you; depart from me." That thus it may not be with us, note— IV. OUR AGAINST SUCH SIN. 1. Solemn recollection and pondering of God’s severe anger against it. 2. And chiefly by continually seeking and Cherishing in your hearts that love of Christ which the Holy Spirit creates and maintains there, and which alone, but ever, makes all our work sincere, acceptable, effectual, and true.—C. Much ease, much peril. "There is a reference here to wine, or to the process by which it is prepared and finished. It is first expressed from the grape, when it is a thick discoloured fluid or juice. It is then fermented, passing through a process that separates the impurities and settles them as lees at the bottom. Standing thus upon its lees or dregs in some large tub or vat, it is not further improved. A gross and coarse flavour remains, and the scent of the feculent matter stays by and becomes fastened, as it were, in the body of the wine itself. To separate this and so to soften or refine the quality, it is now decantered or drawn off into separate jars or skins. After a while this is done again and then again; and so, being emptied from vessel to vessel, the last remains of the lees or sediment are finally cleared, the crude flavours are reduced, the scent itself is refined by ventilation, and the perfect character is attained." Now, the prophet affirms here that Moab had been at ease from his youth. It is difficult in the face of the somewhat checkered history of Moab to see the exact meaning of this. Probably he refers to the long lapse of time since their great and awful defeat told of in 2 Kings 3:21. Some two centuries and a half had rolled away since that dread day, and in that interval Moab regained all, and more than all, of its former prosperity. For the land was beautiful and rich in the extreme. Its pastures were covered over with sheep and its valleys with corn. The very name "Moab" is thought to mean the land of desire, that is, the desirable land. Now, during these long periods, the description here given is applicable. They had enjoyed much ease, and the natural evils engendered by their cruel idolatrous system had become more fixed and settled; "their scent had not changed." The truth, therefore, which is here taught is that prolonged and abundant ease, however coveted by men, is full of peril to their higher nature, and tends continually to the deterioration of character and the hardening of the habit of evil. Now, we note that— I. GOD IS EVER US THIS TRUTH. 1. In his Word. Cf. Psalms 55:19, "Because they have no changes," etc. Cf. also Hebrews 12:1-29; where the writer urges the acceptance of the Divine chastisements on the ground that no child of God is without them. "For what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?" And as we go over the roll of names of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, saints, and above all the Son of God—not one was without chastisement. Of Christ it is said, "The chastisement of our peace was upon him" (Isaiah 53:1-12.). And so in the history of the chosen people. How they were moved from vessel to vessel! What changes and adversities, what agitation and tossing about by wars, rebellions, invasions, captivities, etc; they had to endure! And so of the history of the Church! What a checkered and often tumultuous and much tried career was allotted to her! All these illustrations from God’s Word, showing the determination of God that his people should not suffer the peril of overmuch ease and become as Moab, and as they who because they have no changes, therefore, etc. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ On Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazer, and Elam. Jeremiah 49:1-3 The violence of the Ammonites shall be severely punished. Jeremiah 49:1 Hath Israel no sons! The violent seizure, perpetrated before his eyes, of parts of the sacred territory, forces the indignant question from the prophet, "How can these things be?" It was so on a former occasion (see Jeremiah 2:14), and it is so again, now that the Ammonites are occupying the land of the Gadites. True, the present generation has lost its property, but the next is the heir to all its rights and privileges. Their king; rather, their King—their Melech or Moloch; it is the heavenly, not the earthly king who is referred to (so in Amos 1:15; Zephaniah 1:5). The Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Vulgate, however, read Milcom, which was the name of the Ammonite deity; this is only a different vocalizing of the consonants of the text. The actual vowel points give "malcam." This reading may, of course, be interpreted of the earthly king of the Ammonites. But this view ignores the obvious parallelism of Jer 48:7, "Chemosh shall go forth into captivity." Inherit. The primary meaning of the word is "to take possession of, especially by force, 1 Kings 21:6" (Gesenius, ad voc.), and this is the sense evidently required here (comp. Jeremiah 8:10). Jeremiah 49:2 The punishment of Ammon. Its capital, Rabbah (see 2 Samuel 12:26, 2 Samuel 12:27), and the "daughter" cities, shall be laid waste. The alarm of war ("alarm" equivalent to "shout"), as in Jeremiah 4:19. A desolate heap. Fortified towns were built on "heaps, or slight elevations (comp. on Jeremiah 30:18), the Hebrew name for which (in the singular) is tel. The "heap" and the ruins of the town together are aptly called a "heap of desolation." Then shall Israel be heir, etc.; rather, then shall Israel dispossess those who dispossessed him (comp. Jeremiah 4:1). The form of the phrase reminds us of Isa 14:2. Jeremiah 49:3 Heshbon. Here mentioned as de jure a Gadite, but de facto an Ammonitish, town; in Numbers 21:26 it appears as "the city of Sihon" the Amorite. In Isaiah 15:4 and Isaiah 16:9 it is reckoned to the Moabites. There was a continual warfare between the neigh-bouring tribes of Reuben and Gad on the one hand, and the Moabites and Ammonites on the other. Let Heshbon lament, because Ai is spoiled. The introduction of At, which is only known to us as a Canaanitish town, near Bethel, on the wrong side of the Jordan for Moab, is startling. It is replied that we have no list of the Ammonitish cities, and that there may have been another town named At. The reply is valid; but loaves a second difficulty untouched, viz. that the mention of a third place destroys the continuity of thought. First, we are made acquainted with the fall of Rabbah; then Heshbon (probably the second place in the country) is called upon to wail because x has been taken by storm; then the populations of the "daughter" cities are summoned to join in the lamentation over Rabbah;—is it not reasonable to conclude that the subject of the mourning is one and the same? Now, it is well known that the received text abounds in small errors arising from the confusion of similar Hebrew letters, and that among the letters most easily confounded are yod and resh. Is it not an obvious conclusion that for Ai we should rather read Ar ("the city"), a name as suitable for the capital of Ammon as for that of Moab? It is true that we have no example elsewhere of Rabbah being called by the name of Ar; but in 2 Samuel 10:3, 2 Samuel 10:14 it is described as "the city," and we have to be on our guard against the argument a silentio—that favourite weapon of destructive criticism! Since a conjecture must be made, it is more respectful to the prophet to choose the one which is most suitable to the context. Daughters of Rabbah; i.e. unwalled towns (as in 2 Samuel 10:2). Run to and fro by the hedges; rather, by the enclosures; i.e. wander about in the open country, seeking a lodging place in the enclosures of the sheepfolds (so Numbers 32:24, Hebrew) or the vineyards (so Numbers 22:24, Hebrew). Their king; or, Milcom (see on 2 Samuel 10:1). Jeremiah 49:4 The valleys; i.e. long extended plains, such as were suitable for cornfields (Isaiah 17:5; Psalms 65:14), and such as characterized the territory of the Ammonites. Thy flowing valley. "Flowing;" that is, abounding with rich crops. The meaning of the phrase, however, is only probable. Jeremiah 49:5 The Ammonitish community dissolved; every one earing for himself. Every man right forth; i.e. straight before him, in a wild panic which expels every thought but that of self-preservation. Him that wandereth. Collectively for "the wanderers," i.e. the fugitives. So it is said of the Babylonians, that they are "like sheep with none to gather them." Jeremiah 49:6 Revival of the Ammonites (see on Jeremiah 48:47). Jeremiah 49:7-10 A startling picture of the judgment impending over Edom, the severity of which is to be inferred from the behaviour of the sufferers. Observe, no allusion is made by Jeremiah to any special bitter feeling of the Edomites towards the Israelites, such as is implied in Isaiah 34:1-17; Ezekiel 35:1-15, and other passages. With regard to the fulfilment of the prophecy, we may fairly quote in the first place Malachi 1:2-4. The agents in the desolation there referred to (still fresh in Malachi’s recollection) are probably the Nabathaeans (an Arab race, though writing Aramaic), who, after occupying Edom, dropped their nomad habits, devoted themselves to commerce, and founded the kingdom of Arabia Petraea. Meantime the Edomites maintained an independent existence in the midst of the Jewish colonists, till John Hyrcanus compelled them to accept circumcision about B.C. 130. In spite of this enforced religious and political union, the Edomites remained perfectly conscious of their nationality, and we find them mentioned as a distinct factor in the community in Josephus’ account of the great Jewish war. They pass away from history after the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70. Jeremiah 49:7 Teman was celebrated for its "wisdom," i.e. for a practical moral philosophy, similar to that which we find in the less distinctly religions portions of the Book of Proverbs. It was this "wisdom" which formed the common element in the higher culture of the Semitic peoples, and of which the sacred narrator speaks when he says that "Solomon’s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country" (1 Kings 4:30). One of Job’s friends, Eliphaz, was a Temanite (Job 2:11). From verse 20, however, it appears that Teman is here used for Edom in general, of which it formed a part. "Wisdom" was doubtless cultivated throughout Idumaea (Obadiah 1:8), the "land of Uz," in which Job dwelt, was probably in the east of Edom (see on Jeremiah 25:20). Is their wisdom vanished? The Hebrew, with its characteristic love for material symbols, has, "Is their wisdom poured out?" So in Jeremiah 19:7, "I will pour out [a different word, however, is used] the counsel of Judah." The body being regarded as a vessel, it was natural to represent the principle of life, both physical (Isaiah 53:12) and intellectual (as here), under the symbol of a liquid. Jeremiah 49:8 Turn back. The grammatical form is peculiar (literally, be made to turn back). If the punctuation is not an oversight the object is to suggest the compulsiveness of the change of route of the Dedanites. Dwell deep; i.e. tarry in the deepest recesses ye can find, so as to avoid the calamities of the Edomites. The Dedanites, it will be remembered, were a tribe devoted to commerce (see on Jeremiah 25:23). Isaiah had already, on an earlier occasion, given the same advice as Jeremiah, viz. to leave the beaten track and take refuge in a less exposed part of the desert, where shrubs and thorn bushes ("the forest," or rather, "the thickets") would secure them to some extent from observation (Isaiah 21:13). See, however, verse 10. Jeremiah 49:9 If grape gatherers, etc. Jeremiah modifies his original in Obadiah 1:5; the interrogative clauses here become affirmative. Render, If vintagers come to thee, they will not leave any gleanings: if thieves by night, they destroy what is sufficient for them. Jeremiah 49:10 But, etc.; rather, for. The verse gives the reason why the destruction is so complete. "It is I, Jehovah, who made Esau bare," etc. "Esau," i.e. Edom (Genesis 25:30). His seed; i.e. the Edomites. His brethren, or kinsmen; i.e. the Amalekites (Genesis 36:12). His neighbours; i.e. the tribes of Dedan, Terns, and Buz (Jeremiah 25:23). Jeremiah 49:11-13 A merciful mitigation of the prophet’s stern threat. The true God will provide for the widows and orphans, if Edom will but commit them to him. And let not Edom think it strange that he is punished; for even Israel, the chosen people, has drunk of the bitter cup. Yea, Jehovah has sworn "by himself" that all Edom’s cities shall be laid waste. Jeremiah 49:11 Leave thy fatherless children, etc. The invitation means more than might be supposed. It is equivalent to a promise of the revival of the Edomitish people (comp. on Jeremiah 46:26; Jeremiah 48:47). Jeremiah 49:12 Whose judgment was not, etc.; rather, to whom it was not due, etc. Jehovah condescends to speak from a human point of view. ’So, in Isaiah 28:21, the punishment of Jerusalem is celled his "strange work." Have assuredly drunken; rather, shall surely drink. Jeremiah 49:13 Bozrah. This seems to have been at one time the capital of Edom (see Amos 1:12; Isaiah 34:6; Isaiah 63:1). It was a hill city (comp. on Jeremiah 49:16); a village called Busaira (i.e. little Bozrah) now stands among its ruins. Perpetual wastes. A phrase characteristic of Jeremiah (see also Jeremiah 25:9) and of the second part of Isaiah (Isaiah 58:12; Isaiah 61:4). Jeremiah 49:14-18 Based at first on the older prophecy (see Obadiah 1:1-4); then follow two verses in Jeremiah’s peculiar manner. As yet Edom feels himself secure in his rocky home. But a Divine impulse already stirs the nation, through whom Jehovah wills to humble the proud. Edom shall become a second Sodom. Jeremiah 49:14 I have heard a rumour. In Obadiah it is "we have heard," i.e. the company of prophets (comp. Isaiah 53:1, "Who hath believed our report?" according to one interpretation). Jeremiah, to justify his adoption of the outward form of his prophecy, declares that he is personally responsible for its substance. "Rumour," or as the word is elsewhere rendered, "report," is a technical term for a prophetic revelation (Obadiah 1:1; Isaiah 28:9, Isaiah 28:19; Isaiah 53:1; comp. Isaiah 21:10; Isaiah 28:22); and it is from this Old Testament usage that ἀκοή acquires its special meaning in Romans 10:16, Romans 10:17. In fact, ἀκοή, or bearing, is a more exact equivalent of the original. A prophet is one who has "listened in the council of God" (Job 15:8, corrected version; comp. Amos 3:7), and "when the Lord Jehovah hath spoken, who can but prophesy?" (Amos 3:8). Prophetic perception of Divine truth is so exceptional a thing that it can only be expressed approximately in terms of everyday life. One while it may be called a "hearing," a "report," another while a "vision" or "intuition." He who makes to hear or see is, of course, Jehovah, through the objective influence of his Spirit. It is important to study the Biblical phraseology, which has a depth of meaning too often overlooked, owing to the blunter edge which time has given to our modern speech. An ambassador; rather, a herald. Unto the heathen; rather, unto the nations. There is no religious idea involved; the word goyim literally means "nations," and there is no reason for deviating from the primary sense. In the next verse it is even more necessary to make this correction. Jeremiah 49:16 Thy terribleness. This is certainly the best rendering of this ἅπαξλεγόμενον. The "terribleness" of Edom consisted in the fact that the other nations shrank from disturbing her in her rocky fastness. In the clefts of the rock. Probably with an allusion to the rock city Sela, or Petra ("rock"); as perhaps in "the height of the hill" to the situation of Bozrah; see on Jeremiah 49:13 (Graf). As the eagle. Not any eagle is meant, but the griffon (Gypsfulvus), or great vulture (Tristram). Jeremiah 49:17 A desolation; rather, an astonishment. The word is from the same root as the following verb. The phrase is characteristic of Jeremiah, who has no scruple in repeating a forcible expression, and so enforcing an important truth (comp. Jeremiah 25:11, Jeremiah 25:38; Jeremiah 1:1-19:23; Jeremiah 51:43). What so "astonishing" as the reverses of once flourishing kingdoms! For the Bible knows nothing of the "necessity" of the decay and death of nations. The "covenant" which Jehovah offers contains the pledge of indestructibility. Everyone that goeth by it, etc. Another self-reminiscence (see Jeremiah 19:8). Jeremiah 49:18 As in the overthrow, etc.; comp. Deuteronomy 29:2, which explains the reference in "the neighbour cities" (Admah and Zeboim). The verse is repeated in Jeremiah 50:40; It does not, of course, mean that rite and brimstone should be the agents of destruction (nor is even Isaiah 34:9 to be understood literally), but that the desolate appearance of Edom should remind of that of the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea (comp. Isaiah 13:19; Amos 4:11). Jeremiah 49:19-22 Figures descriptive of the unique physical qualities of the destined conqueror of Edom. Both figures have been used before (see Jeremiah 4:7; Jeremiah 48:40). Jeremiah 49:19 He shall some. The subject is withheld, as in Jeremiah 46:18 (see note); Jeremiah 48:40. The swelling of Jordan; rather, the pride of Jordan; i.e. the luxuriant thickets on its banks. See on Jeremiah 12:5, where the phrase first occurs. Against the habitation of the strong; rather, to the evergreen pasture. The word rendered "evergreen" is one of those which are the despair of interpreters, from their fulness of meaning. The root-meaning is simply "continuance," whether it be continuance of strength (comp. Micah 6:2, Hebrew) or of the flow of a stream (Deuteronomy 21:4; Amos 5:24), or, as here, of the perennial verdure of a well watered pasturage. But I will suddenly make him run away from her. Make whom? The lion? Such is the natural inference from the Authorized Version, but the context absolutely forbids it. It seems useless to mention the crowd of explanations which have been offered of this "obscure and much-vexed passage," as old Matthew Poole calls it, since in Jeremiah 50:44 we have precisely the same phrase, but with another suffix, which clears up the meaning. We may, therefore, either read, "For I will suddenly make them run away from it" (viz. the pasture), or keep the old reading "him" for "them," and explain "him" as meaning the Edomites. The expression used for "suddenly" is very forcible; we might render, with Ewald, "in the twinkling of an eye." And who is a chosen man, etc.? A still more difficult clause. If the text is correct, which cannot be assumed as certain, we should probably render, with Ewald, "and will appoint over it [i.e. the land of Edom] him who is chosen," viz. Nebuchadnezzar. Who will appoint me the time? The same phrase is rendered in Job 9:19, "Who shall set me a time to plead?" (comp. the Latin phrase dicur dicere). To drag a defendant before the tribunal implies equality of rank. One might venture to do this with Nebuchadnezzar, if he were not the representative of One still mightier. Finally, Who is that shepherd that will stand before me? The land of Edom has been likened to a pasture; it is natural that the ruler should be now described as a shepherd (comp. Jeremiah 29:1-32:34) Jeremiah 49:20 The counsel of the Lord. At first sight this appears to detract from the perfection of Jehovah. But another prophet declares that the Divine "counsels" are "framed" from eternity (Isaiah 22:11; Isaiah 37:26). Surely the least, etc.; rather, Surely they shall drag them along, the weak ones of the flock; surely their pasture shall be appalled at them. Such is the sad fate of the sheep, now that the resistance of their shepherd has been overpowered. "The weak ones of the flock" is a phrase quite in Jeremiah’s manner; its opposite is "the noble ones of the flock" (Jeremiah 25:34). Jeremiah 49:21 Is moved; rather, quaketh (as Jeremiah 8:16). It is a pity that the Authorized Version has not preserved the present tense throughout the verse. The prophet seems to see his prediction realized before him. In the Red Sea; rather, beside the Bed Sea; comp. 1 Kings 9:26, "Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom." Jeremiah 49:22 Behold, he shall come up … Bozrah. Repeated from Jeremiah 48:40, with the substitution of "Bozrah" for "Moab," and the addition of "and he shall come up" from Jeremiah 48:19. For "Bozrah," see on Jeremiah 48:13. And at that day. Repeated from Jeremiah 48:41 (latter half), with the exception that "Edom" stands for "Moab." Jeremiah 49:23-27 The heading Concerning Damascus is too limited (like that of the partly parallel prophecy in Isaiah 17:1-11); for the prophecy relates, not only to Damascus, the capital of the kingdom of southeastern Aram (or Syria), but to Hamath, the capital of the northern kingdom. (The third of the Aramaean kingdoms, that of Zobah, had ceased to exist.) Damascus had already been threatened by Amos (Amos 1:3-5), and by Isaiah (Isaiah 17:1-11). We may infer from the prophecy that Damascus had provoked the hostility of Nebuchadnezzar, but we have as yet no monumental evidence as to the facts. Jeremiah 49:23 Hamath. Still an important city under the name of Hamah, situated to the north of Hums (Emesa), on the Orontes. It formed nominally the boundary of the kingdom of Israel (Numbers 34:8; Joshua 13:5), was actually a part of the empire of Solomon (2 Chronicles 8:4), and was conquered for a short time by Jeroboam II. (2 Kings 14:25). Under Sargon it was fully incorporated into the Assyrian empire (comp. Isaiah 10:9); rebellious populations were repeatedly transplanted into the territory of Hamath. Arpad. Always mentioned together with Hamath, whose fate it appears to have shared (Isaiah 10:9). A tell, or hill, with ruins, about three (German) miles from Aleppo, still bears the name Erfad (Zeitschrift of the German Oriental Society, 25:655). There is sorrow on the sea, etc.; i.e. even the sea participates in the agitation of that troublous time: somewhat as in Habakkuk 3:10 the sea is represented as sympathizing in the terror produced by a Divine manifestation. But by the slightest possible emendation (viz. of caph into beth) we obtain a more natural sense—"with an unrest as of the sea, which cannot be quiet." In Isaiah 57:20 we read, "For the ungodly are like the troubled sea, for it cannot be quiet;" and it can hardly be doubted that Jeremiah is alluding to this passage. If he altered it at all, it would be in the direction of greater smoothness rather than the reverse. Not a few manuscripts of Jeremiah actually have this corrected reading, which should probably be adopted. Jeremiah 49:25 Hew is the city of praise not left, etc.! A difficult passage. The construction, indeed, is plain. "How is not," etc. I can only mean "How is it that the city of praise is not," etc.?. The difficulty lies in the word rendered "left." The ordinary meaning of the verb, when applied to cities, is certainly "to leave without inhabitants;" e.g. Jeremiah 4:29; Isaiah 7:16; Isaiah 32:14. This, however, does not suit the context, which shows that "the daughter of Damascus" personified is the speaker, so that verse 25 ought rather to mean, "How is it that the city of praise is [not, ’is not’] forsaken?" Either, then, we must suppose that "not" has been inserted by mistake—a too arbitrary step, seeing that there is no negative in the context to account for the insertion (the case is different, therefore, from Job 21:30; Job 27:15, where such an insertion is at any rate justifiable); or else we must give ‛uzzebhah the sense of "let go free" (comp. Exodus 23:5; Deuteronomy 32:36; Job 10:1). It is the obstinate incredulity of love which refuses to admit the possibility of the destruction of the loved object. The city of praise. The city which is my "praise," or boast. Few cities, in fact, have had so long and brilliant an existence as Damascus. Jeremiah 49:27 And I will kindly, etc. A combination of clauses from Amos 1:14 and Amos 1:4. Three several kings of Damascus bore the name of Ben-hadad: one the contemporary of King Baasha of Samaria; another, of Ahab; a third, of Joash. Jeremiah 49:28-33 Against the nomad and partly settled Arabs—the former described under the name Kedar (see on Jeremiah 2:10), the latter under that of Hazor (connected with hazer, an unwalled village; comp. Le Jeremiah 25:31). This use of Hazer is remarkable; elsewhere the name denotes towns in Palestine (Joshua 11:1; Joshua 15:23; Nehemiah 11:33). There are two plainly marked strophes, Jeremiah 49:28-30 and Jeremiah 49:31-33, both beginning with a summons to the foe to take the field. Jeremiah 49:28 Hazer (i.e. the settled Arabs) is said to have kingdoms. "King" is used in Hebrew in a wider sense than we are accustomed to (comp. Jeremiah 25:24, "All the kings of Arabia"). The "kings" of Hazer would be mere sheikhs or emirs. Shall smite; rather, smote. There is no justification whatever for the future. The statement is obviously a later addition, to show that the prophecy was fulfilled. On the form "Nebuchadrezzar," see on Jeremiah 21:2. The men of the east. A general designation of the inhabitants of all the countries in the east of Palestine (Genesis 29:1; Judges 6:3; Job 1:3). Jeremiah 49:29 All the possessions of the nomad are here mentioned—first his tents and his flocks; then the hangings of which the tent is composed (Jeremiah 4:20; Jeremiah 10:20), and the vessels which it contains; and finally the camels which the Arab rides, not to mention their other uses. All this shall be ruthlessly appropriated by the Chaldean invaders. Fear is on every side. Again Jeremiah’s motto recurs (see on Jeremiah 6:25). It expresses here, not the war cry itself, but the result produced by it. Jeremiah 49:30 The prophet turns to the Arabs in villages who have still more to tempt the cupidity of plunderers, and urges them to flee while there is still time. Dwell deep (see on Jeremiah 49:8). Against you. This is the reading of the Septuagint (Alex. MS.), the Targum, the Vulgate, and many extant Hebrew manuscripts. The received text, however, has "against them." Such alternations of person have met us again and again, and there is no occasion to doubt the ordinary reading. Jeremiah 49:31 How easy is the expedition to which the Chaldean army is invited!—it is a mere holiday march. Resistance is impossible, for an enemy has never been dreamed of. The tribes of Hazer are not, indeed, a wealthy nation, for they have but little wealth to tempt either the conqueror or the merchant; they "live alone;" they are an uncommercial and unwarlike, but a profoundly "tranquil, nation, that dwelleth securely [or, ’confidently’]"—a description reminding us of Jdg 8:7; Ezekiel 38:11. In their idyllic, patriarchal state they feel no need of walls with their accompanying double gates (the gates of ancient cities were so large that they were divided) and bars. Like Israel in the prophetic vision (Numbers 23:9), "they dwell alone." Jeremiah 49:32 Them that are in the utmost corners. Another of Jeremiah’s characteristic phrases, which should rather be tendered, the corner clipped (i.e. having the hair cut off about the ears and temples; see on Jeremiah 9:26). From all sides. "Nebuchadnezzar will so arrange his troops that the Bedaween [but the people of Hazer were not Bedaween, i.e. desert Arabs] will be surrounded on all sides, and, being thus unable to escape in a body, will be scattered to ’all the winds,’ to the four quarters of the earth" (Dr. Payne Smith). Jeremiah 49:33 The same fate predicted for Hazor as for Edom (Jeremiah 49:18). Dragons; rather, jackals (see on Jeremiah 10:22). Jeremiah 49:34-39 Concerning Elam. The title places this prophecy later than these in Jeremiah 48:1-49:33; viz. at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah. From this filet, and from the absence of any reference to Nebuchadnezzar as the instrument of Elam’s humiliation, Ewald conjectures that the Elamites had been concerned in the events which led to the dethronement and captivity of Jehoiachin. Dr. Payne Smith is inclined to accept this hypothesis, remarking that the Elamites "appear perpetually as the allies of Merodach-baladan and his sons in their struggles for independence." We are not yet, however, in possession of information as to the relations of Elam to the great Babylonian empire which rose upon the ruins of the Assyrian. Ewald’s conjecture is a possibility, and no more. And what was Elam? One of the most ancient kingdoms in the world (see Genesis 14:1-24.). Geographically it was the tract of country; partly mountainous, partly lowland, lying south of Assyria and east of Persia proper, to which Herodotus gives the name of Cissia, and the classical geographers that of Tusis or Tusiaua. This is clear, says Sehrader, from the Persian text of the Behistun inscription of Darius. It is fro-quently mentioned under the name "Ilam," or "Ilamti," in the Assyrian inscriptions, especially in those of Sargon, Sennacherib, and Assurbauipal. In B.C 721 Sargon states that he annexed a district or province of Elam (and hence, perhaps, we must explain the mention of the Elamites in the Assyrian army in Isaiah 22:6), which was, doubtless, one cause of the embittered feeling towards Assyria of the portion which remained independent. The annals of the heroic struggle of Merodach-baladan contain repeated reference to the King of Elam. Assurbanipal made no less than three invasions of Elam, and the singular pretext for the third is, curiously enough, associated with the remarkable fourteenth chapter of Genesis. It was this—that the Elamite king had refused to deliver up an image of the goddess Nana, which Kudur-nankhundi, an ancient Elamite monarch, had carried oft, and which had remained 1635 or (perhaps) 1535 years in Elam. ‹je-4› This king has been plausibly conjectured to be a member of the same dynasty as "Chedorlaomer [= Kudur-Lagamar] King of Elam." This time it was all over with Elam; Shushan itself was plundered and destroyed, and far and wide the country was laid waste. That so restless and courageous a people should have become famous among the surrounding nations was only to be expected; and it is a striking proof of this that Ezekiel, in describing the companions whom fallen Egypt would meet with in Hades, mentions "Elam and all her multitude" (Ezekiel 32:24). The fact that the Septuagint has the heading twice over—first very briefly (in Jeremiah 25:14, where it is followed by this prophecy), and then at full length (in Jeremiah 26:1, at the end of the prophecy of Elam)—has been variously explained. It is, at any rate, clear that there is some confusion in the present text of this translation. In connection with this prediction it is interesting to notice one of the results of a new cuneiform discovery among some tablets acquired in 1878 by the British Museum. At the very time when Nebuchadnezzar was taking an oath of allegiance from Zedekiah, he was also engaged in hostilities against Elam. "We do not know," says Mr. Pinches, "what brought the Babylonians into hostilities with the Elamites, but the result of the expedition was to bring the whole kingdom of Elam within the boundaries of the Babylonian monarchy" (Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, 7.214). Jeremiah 49:35 The bow of Elam. So Isaiah in prophetic vision, "And Elam bare the quiver" (Isaiah 22:6). Jeremiah 49:36 An emblem of the utter hopelessness of escape. The four winds (figuratively spoken of by Zechariah (Zechariah 6:5) as "presenting themselves" before God, to receive his commissions) shall combine their forces to scatter the doomed nation. The outcasts of Elam. This is the marginal reading in the Hebrew Bible; the text has, "the perpetual outcasts." No philological eye can doubt that the correction should be admitted (a yod for a vav). Jeremiah 49:38 I will set my throne; i.e. my tribunal (as Jeremiah 43:10). The king and the princes; rather, king and princes. The threat is not merely that the reigning king shall be dethroned, but that Elam shall lose its native rulers altogether. Jeremiah 49:39 But … in the latter days; i.e. presumably in the Messianic age. Into the fulfilment of this promise we need not inquire in too prosaic a spirit. It is true that "Elamites" are mentioned among the persons present on the great "day of Pentecost" (Acts 2:9). But this would be a meagre fulfilment indeed. The fact is that, both in the narrative in the Acts and in this prophecy, the Elamites are chiefly mentioned as representatives of the distant and less civilized Gentile nations, and the fulfilment is granted whenever a similar people to the Elamites is brought to the knowledge of the true religion. Israel’s heirs. "Hath he no heir?" Most wonderful is the preservation of the Jews as a distinct race amid the strangest vicissitudes of fortune and through centuries of exile—surviving the devastating deluge of the successive Oriental monarchies, the captivity in Babylon, the cruelties of Antiochus Epiphanes, the sweep of Roman conquest, the persecution of the Middle Ages, and the cosmopolitan citizenship of our own day. Yet, much as Israel has contributed to the philosophy and trade of the modern world, and great as her future mission may yet be, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that her lonely glory of religions preeminence has passed away. Others have entered into this proud inheritance. I. THE . 1. The knowledge of the true God. This, and not the land flowing with milk and honey, was the chief treasure of Israel’s inheritance. When all neighbouring nations were following polytheism, idol worship, and immoral rites, Israel was led by prophetic voices to look to one God—a spiritual presence who could only be in the beauty of holiness. That people, therefore, which has the highest worshipped knowledge of God, and the purest religious life and worship, wilt be the true heir of this part of the ancient possession of the Jews. 2. The mission to enlighten the heathen. The Jew was not called to his privileged position wholly for his own sake. He was an elect people that he might be an apostle to the world; that in him there might be developed the revelation of truth which was for the healing of all the nations; that he might cultivate, preserve, transmit, and disseminate this abroad. His was the proud mission of the torch bearer to the nations that sat in darkness, that through his light they might see their light and life. This mission was often ignored, and it was never perfectly developed in Old Testament times; but the work of Jonah and Daniel, and the prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah concerning the heathen, are partial accomplishments of it. It waited till Christ came for its full exercise. Then the Jew became the missionary of the gospel. The faith of the new age was given to the world by Jew apostles. II. THE arms. If the Jew has lost his proud religious pre-eminence, who has become his heir? 1. The Christian is the heir of the Jew’s knowledge of the true God. He and he alone, whether he be of the stock of Shem, of Ham, or of Japheth, is the true Israelite, the "royal priesthood," etc. For Christianity is the fulfilment and perfection of the Jewish faith (Matthew 5:17-20). In the New Testament we see a higher knowledge of God, a more spiritual worship, a more devoted service. If this be true, to reject it and rest contented with the lower faith of the Old Testament must be to give way in the race. 2. The most Christian missionary is the truest heir to Israel’s mission to evangelize the world. If there be any one race upon whom the mantle of Israel has fallen, may we not think that this is the great English-speaking peoples of Britain and America? Such an inheritance is not to be made out by ingenious arguments about the fate of the lost ten tribes. If we were the descendants of those apostate Israelites, we should be none the better for the fact, nor are we under any disadvantage because the hypothesis of an Israelite origin proves to be groundless. To make much of such a point is to go back to the lower conceptions of Judaism, and to disregard the higher spiritual conditions of Christianity. The true heir of Israel is the possessor of Israel’s faith in its full development. It is not our birth and descent, but our personal religion, that can secure the inheritance to us. The failure of wisdom. Edom, the country of Job, the haunt of ancient lore, is to find that her learning and science will prove no safeguard against the deluge of destruction that is about to burst over the nations. The disaster which fell upon ancient "wise men" of the East may be a warning to the higher intelligences of all ages. The failure of wisdom is twofold—negative and positive. I. ; THERE ARE EVILS WITH WHICH WISDOM CANNOT COPE. 1. Physical. Science can do much to avoid troubles into which ignorance falls, to mitigate inevitable disasters, and to devise means of escape from those which are already present. Sanitary science will help to prevent disease, and medical science to cure it. Military science will put a country in a certain state of security; economical science will check dangers of poverty. But how many of the worst things in life are beyond the power of science! The philosopher cannot arrest the hand of the invader. The most terrible diseases are the most fatal. Men have long since given up the vain search for the elixir of life. Science is powerless before death. 2. Moral. Still less can science "minister to the mind diseased" What consolation is a knowledge of the processes of a malady to the mourner, the light of whose eyes is darkened forever by its fatal work? What comfort can science whisper to the widow and the orphan? The great burden of the world’s sorrow, and the weariness of the unceasing cares of life, it does not so much as touch. The deeper evil of sin flows in a foul, black stream, unchecked by science. The mission of science is great and glorious, and we should be profoundly thankful that we live in an age when its bright torch confers many a boon and relieves many a trouble. But we must not ignore the fact that the greatest ills that flesh is heir to are just those which it cannot cure. II. : THERE ARE EVILS WHICH WISDOM INVOKES UPON ITS OWN HEAD. Knowledge is good and Divine, and in itself a blessing of the first order. Yet it brings a snare, and the abuse of it terrible disasters. 1. The knowledge of inevitable evil only increases distress. "Where ignorance is bliss," etc. 2. Superior wisdom may engender pride. Hence arises a false sense of security which only increases danger. The wise man is slow to tread those lowly paths which lead to true rest. It is difficult for him to become as a little child, that he may enter into the kingdom of heaven. 3. Wisdom may come to be trusted to for help that it cannot afford. Men make an idol of science, as though it were a new evangel. The ultimate disappointment must correspond to the grossness of the delusion. We must learn, therefore, while avoiding a foolish depreciation of science and philosophy, to look still for our safety and blessedness to that higher wisdom of God, that gospel of the Crucified, which is still to some as foolishness. A promise for orphans and widows. I. GOD BRINGS SOME TO THE . The merciful assurance of care for the helpless sufferers occurs in the midst of a stern denunciation of doom upon Edom, as a strange and startling relief to the terrible words that follow and precede. Here is a rift in the cloud through which a sunbeam of Divine love falls upon the dark scene of judgment. The thunderstorm of God’s wrath never so covers the whole heavens that no ray of mercy can penetrate to the wretched sufferers. Behind the stern frown there is always the melting heart of Divine pity. God’s anger is the anger of love, not that of hatred. Wherever it is possible to give relief he will do so. II. WHEN GOD SENDS TROUBLE HE ALSO SENDS A . Possibly the trouble is beyond escape; for a season it must be endured; but in the end there is a Divine salvation for those who will seek it aright. Repeatedly denunciations of woe against some guilty nation are followed by the promise that "in the latter day" God "will bring again the captivity" of it (e.g. Jeremiah 46:26; Jeremiah 48:47; Jeremiah 48:39). The promise to Edom of the preservation of the children implies a future for the race. The widows and children are helpless sufferers, and it is for these alone that the deliverance is promised. God has peculiar pity on the most needy. III. ORPHANS AND WIDOWS HAVE SPECIAL TO LOOK FOR HELP FROM GOD. If such a merciful promise as that of our text is made to a heathen nation, how much more assurance may the people of God feel! and if it is given to the families of the wicked and in the midst of the sentence of punishment, how much more must it apply to the families of true Christians! God is "a Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of widows" (Psalms 68:5); "He relieveth the fatherless and widows" (Psalms 146:9); "He will establish the border of the widow" (Proverbs 15:25). If God numbers the hairs of our head, will he neglect our children? If they who are desolate indeed cry unto him, can the All-merciful neglect their prayer? IV. GOD’S FOR ORPHANS AND WIDOWS SHOULD FAITH IN HIM. 1. The father should trust his children to God. That is a terrible moment when the strong man feels the sentence of death within him, and bows his head, knowing that he must leave his helpless ones behind. Yes, must leave them. Then let him leave them to God. Here is a call to resignation and to trust. The promise is in a measure conditioned by it. If the dying man would have his little ones cared for when they are set adrift on the cold, homeless world, let him entrust them to God. Such a trust will never be broken. But if he refuse to do this, he cannot complain should they suffer harm after he has gone. 2. The widow must trust for herself. "Let thy widows trust in me." The children may be too young to seek refuge in God. Their father must do this for them. But the widow must exercise her own faith. Her husband’s faith will not avail for her. Let her trust, and then, but not till then, she shall find her consolation in the great Comforter. A people deceived by its own terribleness. I. THEY WHO ARE A TERROR TO ALL HUMAN FOES MUST TREMBLE BEFORE FOES. Edom was to fall before Babylon, in spite of her terrible aspect. Much more must the fierce, proud sinner succumb to the unseen angel of Divine judgment. The rocks that keep back an army cannot retard the onrush of the heavenly host. II. THEY WHO NOW STAND HIGHEST IN PRIDE AND POWER WILL FALL LOWEST AT THE FINAL . Rank, social position, honour, influence, will then count for nothing. Pride may have sat high as the eagle in its eyrie, but "every one that exalteth himself shall be abased;" "The first shall be last." III. THEY WHO POSSESS EARTHLY ARE IN DANGER OF WITH AN TRUST IN IT. Such cities as the rock-hewn Petra, and Bozrah seated on her lofty bill, would seem by natural position impregnable. Consequently their inhabitants would grow insolent and proud, and thus deserve the more that fate which their natural resources could not avert, and their self-confidence would prevent them from mitigating. Worldly resources are dangers when they lead us to forsake the true Refuge in order to trust in them. The rich and great are not the more secure for their privileges, and they will be the less safe if they lean upon them when without them they would seek help in God. Fear on every side. This is a sadly familiar phrase of Jeremiah’s. It is frequently applicable. The causes of alarm are numerous; so are the sufferers. I. FEAR IS AN EVIL. It is not only the shadow of future calamity; it is evil itself—evil even if it is not justified by the event. 1. It is distressing. 2. It is degrading—debasing the mind, crushing out all that is noble and unselfish. 3. It is paralyzing. Under the influence of fear we are confused and helpless; all energy is gone. II. THERE ARE MANY OF FEAR. Jeremiah frequently exclaims, "Fear on every side!" We know not how many dangers surround us—political, social, domestic, personal; dangers to property, family, health, and life. The wonder is that they who have no refuge above themselves are so complacent. Such unwarrantable calmness must be traced to moral dulness rather than to true courage. For how truly terrible is the condition of the sinner! The laws of the universe are against him. If he flees from this life new horrors await him in the dread unknown land. III. THE DEEPEST SOURCE OF FEAR IS OUR OWN SIN. 1. This brings the greatest danger upon us—the penalty of outraged justice and broken law. 2. This awakens the feeling of terror. Conscience makes cowards of us all. IV. IN GOD IS THE REFUGE FROM FEAR. Men fear God in their guilt. Yet it is he who alone can deliver them from fear, (1) by removing the evil feared; (2) or by strengthening them to endure it; and also (3) by calming the troubled sold as one whom his mother comforteth. It is well that we should feel fear on every side if it leads us to cry, "What must we do to be saved?" and then to hear and follow the gospel answer, "Trust to the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 49:1, Jeremiah 49:2 The paradox of Israel’s inheritance. The fittingness of this prediction is very striking. It is Ammon, the appropriator of Gad, who is the special subject of it. I. ITS . At the time the prediction was uttered appearances were completely against it. The original promise seemed doomed to failure. The flower and hope of Israel was in exile, and the land lay desolate. Interlopers reaped the benefit of their misfortunes, and seized upon portions of the unoccupied land. In the history of Christianity there may be perceived remarkable correspondences. Vast spaces of the civilized world have lost the spiritual traditions of the gospel in which once they gloried, and vaster regions still amongst the heathen are occupied by ancient faiths that offer a steady and powerful opposition to the missionary efforts of the Church. Yet the whole earth has been promised to the Church of Christ. The utmost zeal, devotion, and watchfulness are needed in order to prevent the inroads of worldliness and unbelief. At times the despairing cry may be heard, "Where is the hope of his coming? II. THE METHOD OF ITS . It is well to ponder these facts in the light of God’s Word, for it suggests an escape from the perplexity they occasion. Where the induction of the natural reason fails to render a hopeful explanation, the Spirit of God sheds an unthought of light. Jeremiah’s interpretation, viz. that present dispossession need not mean utter disinheritance, is full of spiritual light and comfort. This impression is deepened and confirmed when he seals it with prophetic certainty and declares that Israel shall be heir to his heirs. But still remains the mystery to be solved: 1. How this will take place. Israel seems all but annihilated, or in danger of absorption into heathen nations, and his land is unoccupied. But according to promise (1) a seed shall be preserved and shall be restored; and (2) through the "seed of David," viz. Christ, a new Israel will be created, in spiritual succession to the ancient people of God, and destined to redeem from heathenism not only Palestine but the whole earth. 2. What will this involve? It will involve (1) the judgment and overthrow of Israel’s neighbours, especially such as Ammon, the traditional "land thief" of his border; (2) the purification and discipline of Israel as the heir of the kingdom of God; and (3) the conversion of many "out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation" (Revelation 5:9). In this sense also will God "bring again the captivity" of Moab, of Elam, and even of Ammon. 3. The following lessons are clearly taught by this prophecy, viz.:— (1) A unity of purpose pervades the vicissitudes of Israel’s and the world’s history: (2) human affairs are governed by a strict and never failing justice; and (3) a happy future awaits the children of faith—the spiritual Israel—even on earth.—M. (cf. Obadiah 1:8; Isaiah 19:11; Isaiah 33:18).— Where is the wise? Edom, celebrated for its wisdom from of old (Obadiah 1:8; Job 11:11; Baruch 3:22, 23), had secured itself in inaccessible fastnesses of the mountains, dwelling in rock-hewn cities. Eliphaz was a Temanite. It was chiefly in international relations that the skill or subtlety of the Idumaeans displayed itself. Their diplomacy was full of craft and falsehood, and could not be relied upon. Their wisdom was essentially of this world—cold, calculating, and unscrupulous. Of this it is predicted by Jeremiah that it shall be brought to nought. How did his prophecy fulfil itself? In relation to the kingdom of God. I. IT FAILED TO IT. The Edomites watched the signs of the times, and sided with what promised to be the strongest power, and in the last resort trusted to their own inaccessible position. Their ambassadors were amongst those of neighbouring nations who came to Zedekiah to advise united resistance to Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 27:3); yet they triumphed over the prostrate city when it was captured by the Chaldeans (Lamentations 4:2; Ezekiel 35:15; Ezekiel 36:5; Psalms 137:7). Their country had been tributary to Israel under David, but, taking advantage of the Chaldean invasion, they appropriated much of the territory of Israel proper, and extended their territory to the Mediterranean. The same spirit seems to have actuated its remote descendants, the Idumaean princes of the Herodian line. Herod the Great "slaughtered the innocents" in hope of destroying the Christ, but was circumvented by the providence of God; and his son Antipas was the Herod before whom Christ appeared by arrangement with Pilate (Luke 23:12). In the later years of Christ’s ministry the Herodians were constantly opposed to him, and plotted with the Pharisees against him. So God has defeated the continual antagonism of worldly men, guarding the residue of his Church, and evolving new generations of faith and fresh conquests of truth from the apparent failures and ruins of the past. II. IT FAILED TO SECURE TO ITSELF. The prophet declares that it was to drink of the same cup as Israel, but it is not certain as to whether Nebuchadnezzar, or Alexander the Great, or other conquerors are alluded to. 1. The movement westward of the Idumaean power, during the Babylonian exile, was the occasion of its overthrow. The Nabethaean Arabs, ruling a large part of Arabia, seized upon Petraea, and settled down as its occupants. These were in turn conquered by the Romans. In time the country fell under Mohammedan misrule, and lapsed into permanent desolation early in the Christian era. The rock cities of Petraea are amongst the most striking monuments of fulfilled prophecy. 2. The same fate has overtaken all the empires that set themselves against the kingdom of God. Their history is series of dissolving views. Failing to overthrow it, they have themselves been overthrown. And the wisdom which could not subvert has equally shown itself unable to assimilate the "wisdom that cometh from above." The reason for all this is contained in the crowning proof of its folly, viz. that— III. IT HAS FAILED TO IT. Had the Idumaeans known the might of a spiritual religion, they would not have leagued against Israel. Had the Herodians known the wisdom of God, "they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Corinthians 2:8; Acts 3:17; Acts 7:51). Had Rome known the power of the truth, it would never have corrupted the religion of the cross, and thus prepared for its own disintegration and decay in the Middle Ages, and the manifold complications of worldly religion in modern times. The whole conception of God’s kingdom—its spirituality, other worldliness, and purity—is still a strange thing to the wise men of the world. But it continues to grow and to realize itself amongst men; and it is destined to fill the whole earth, absorbing and assimilating its ancient antagonists; for "he must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet" (1 Corinthians 15:25).—M. (cf. Jeremiah 25:29; Proverbs 11:31; 1 Peter 4:18; and, for original, Obadiah 1:16). Israel’s judgment an argument for Edom’s. I. AN OF THE OF GOD. 1. Proving his strict righteousness. There is no respect of persons. His love for righteousness and hatred of wrong are such that even his chosen people do not escape punishment. Salvation will not, therefore, be by favour or independent of character. The least sin will be judged. Individual saints shared in the general calamity. 2. His unfailing faithfulness. It was predicted particularly concerning Israel, and was declared as the law of his kingdom. Its fulfilment, therefore, vindicates the Divine veracity. II. AN BASED UPON IT. If such a God reigns amongst men, can any transgressor escape? To such sinners, then, as the Edomites, the heathen or worldly enemies of godliness and the truth: 1. Punishment would be certain. Their present immunity was only as the lull before the storm. Conscience gathers no comfort from apparent prosperity. Israel’s punishment is a certain guarantee of Edom’s. 2. Punishment will be proportional to the sin. In such cases as that of Edom—an open, flagrant, and conscious foe to the kingdom of God—it would be far more severe. There is no promise of "bringing again their captivity." It was to be "as if it bad not been." Where the heathen, on the other hand, have not sinned so clearly against light, there will be condoning circumstances which will be taken into account.—M. The unrest of the wicked. Isaiah (Isaiah 17:12, Isaiah 17:13; cf. Isaiah 57:20, Isaiah 57:21) uses the same figure of Damascus, and Jeremiah must, therefore, have either borrowed it from him or from some common source. It is possible that the figure was a common expression amongst the Jews of the time. The neighbourhood of Damascus and its associated cities was always a populous one, with a varied nationality and conflicting interests and affinities. From its character there was no religious unity, and its position exposed it to dangers on every hand, especially from Babylon and Egypt. It was a motley people, with vast commercial relations and strong tendency to pleasure, but no religious earnestness or capacity of moral influence or initiation. This is another of those phases of the world spirit which Jeremiah paints in his panorama of the nations’ judgment. I. THE UNREST OF WORLD LIFE IS LIKENED TO THAT OF THE SEA. 1. Continual. 2. Vast and tumultuous. 3. Not to be stilled. 4. Sad and ruinous in its effects. II. BECAUSE THE WORLDLY ARE LIKE THE SEA. 1. Unstable. How easily ruffled! Uncertain, irresolute (James 1:6), subject to sudden panics. This is moral and spiritual. 2. With no central controlling power. The very constitution of the sea renders storms sudden and terrible. So it is with the sinner’s character. There is no central controlling influence; no moral principle or spiritual power. True calm comes from within. He of the Galilean sea can alone tranquillize the troubled nation or the alarmed sinner.—M. BY S. CONWAY Might not right. Ammon had taken possession of the territory of Israel (cf. chapter). Had done so as if it were his right, as if they were the lawful heirs of the land. Because of this judgment is denounced against them. They are to learn that might is not right. I. THERE MAY BE RIGHT WITHOUT MIGHT. It was so with Israel at this time. Is so with the trite Church of God. "All things are yours"—so we are told, but it is only de jure, not de facto. But— II. THERE MAY BE MIGHT WITHOUT RIGHT. In the case here given. And it is common enough. Perfect justice is not attainable in this life. Even in the little world of the home, the school, the Church, injustices will occur. And, painful as they are to witness and to bear, they have to be borne. It is hard sometimes to see the justice of the Divine ways; how much more, then, of human ways! Nevertheless— III. MIGHT MAY BE RIGHT. "La carriere aux talents," said Napoleon—that was to be the law of his empire. "The tools to him who can use them"—such is our common maxim. The "king," the ruler, the lord paramount of the state, what is he but—if the etymology be correct—the "can"-ning man, the man who can, the able man? And so not seldom when we see might, we see right too. In the colonization of lands inhabited by savages who are letting the capabilities of glorious territories lie unimproved or running to waste, such colonization is not wrong. Might is right. "The tools," etc. It is a stern law to the incapable, but a just and beneficent one for the human race. "Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him that hath ten talents" (Matthew 25:28); what is this but the sanction of this combination? "To him that hath shall be given." There we have it once more. But— IV. GOD’S WILL IS, AND OURS SHOULD BE, TO GIVE MIGHT TO RIGHT. Right one day shall be might as well as right. 1. This is the burden of the promises of God in his Word. "Thy kingdom come; thy will be done"—the will that is ever righteous—"on earth," etc. 2. The constitution of human nature is in favour of it (cf. Butler’s ’Analogy’). 3. Conscience ever takes the side of right, whatever our conduct may do or be. 4. And God’s providence is slowly working to this end. 5. "Faith" is simply the giving ourselves up to the righteous One, to be "his faithful servant and soldier, and to fight manfully under his banner until our lives shall end." . Let us seek to be on the side of right always, let the cost be what it may.—C. Desirable habitations: a new year’s sermon. "Dwell deep, O inhabitants of Dedan." The prophet is foretelling the calamities that are to come on the different heathen nations who dwelt around the land of God’s people, and from whom they, at various times, had received sore wrong and harm. The Edomites—the descendants of Esau—were the traditional foes of Israel, and it is they who in all probability are referred to. The country they inhabited was full of rocks, cliffs, deep gorges in the sides of which were many all but inaccessible caves. The rocky dwellings of Edom have been often told of—how they served as an almost impenetrable fortress for the robber bands which mostly inhabited them. But now vengeance was to come on these people, and the prophet is bidding them betake themselves in flight to the far off desert, or to hide themselves in the deep recesses of their rocky caves, and there, if possible, safely dwell. "Dwell deep … Dedan" (cf. also Jeremiah 49:30). For disaster was threatening Hazer also. The ruthless King of Babylon would fall on them in his march westwards to Egypt, and well would it be for them if the forests and caverns, the lofty rocks and the deep valleys of their rugged land should provide them with secure retreat. It was in such hidden caves that David, during much of his fugitive life when hunted by Saul "like a partridge upon the mountains," so often found refuge. And this fact he is forever commemorating in his psalms by calling God his Rock, his Refuge, his Hiding place, his Fortress, his Secret Place. And the history of these lands tells once and again of the devices of military commanders to dislodge the inhabitants of these almost inaccessible retreats. Herod, so Josephus tells, caused a number of huge timber boxes to be made, in which stood armed soldiers, and these were lowered down the precipitous sides of the cliffs in which the robber caverns were until they reached the cavern mouths. Then, rushing in, they would massacre the inhabitants, or else by huge hooks drag them forth and then hurl them down to the dread depths beneath. But generally these hidden habitations proved secure refuges for those who dwelt in them, and it is to this fact that the prophet refers. He is bidding them betake themselves thither, for danger was at hand—a relentless foe was threatening them. Now, the like exhortation may be addressed to us; for for us there are provided strong habitations unto which we may continually resort, sure refuges in which we may safely hide, Divine retreats in the deep recesses of which we may securely dwell. Therefore we would say— I. DWELL DEEP IN THE LOVE OF GOD. For the firm faith of the love that God hath toward us will be found to be a shelter, a solace, and a strength, such as nought else can render. St. John says concerning that love, "We know and have believed the love that God hath towards us." Yes; sometimes we can clearly see it, we know and feel it. God’s providence, God’s grace, God’s Word, are all filled and flooded with it. But there are other times when we cannot say we know, but only that we believe the love that, etc.—when providence seems adverse, when our path is rough and beset with thorns, when those you trusted prove treacherous and your own friends turn against you, when your home is left desolate and dark clouds of anxiety gather heavy and thick over you. But those times are made far less fearful for us if we will but dwell, dwell deep, in the love of God. It was through this ever cherished home of his soul that our Lord was able to endure so calmly and to meet with such meek majesty and Divine dignity the unspeakable sorrow of his earthly lot. Often did the tempter seek to drag him forth from that secure retreat by his mocking suggestion, "If thou be the Son of God," etc. But he tried in vain. Dwelling deep in the love of God, that inaccessible refuge, that sure retreat, he looked forth upon the path he had to tread and the cross he had to bear, and he could endure the one and despise the other in the might of that love in which he ever abode. And it is well that we should dwell where he dwelt, and so be blest as he was blest. And not a few of his people have done so—Abraham, David, Daniel, Paul, and myriads more, as God grant we may likewise. II. DWELL DEEP IN THE OF HOLY . For no surer aid to our obeying the former exhortation can be given than our obedience to this. And yet there are few books of importance that are neglected as the Scriptures are, notwithstanding the invaluable help which such knowledge has imparted and must ever impart. What is the hundred and nineteenth psalm but one long panegyric on the blessedness of this knowledge of the Word of God? And he who knows what the Word of God can do for his soul will deem no praise too extravagant, no admiration and love too enthusiastic. Oh to be mighty in the Scriptures! for that is to be mighty through them, capable and ready for all God’s will. The dark problems of life cease to dismay; the mysteries which meet us on every side cannot shake our faith; we become open eyed to signs and tokens of God’s love which otherwise we should not see. Integrity and uprightness preserve us, and we run the way of God’s commandments, because God, by means of them, hath enlarged our heart. It is this prayerful habitual study of God’s Word which is dwelling deep therein, and which is so fruitful of good to all that will ,so dwell. III. DWELL DEEP IN THE OF CHRIST. Cherish and guard with a holy care that communion with him which is the joy and strength of our souls. A sure test of the value of any spiritual aid is given us in the intensity of the opposition which Satan offers to our use of such aid. Now, measured by this standard it is difficult to over-estimate the value of this communion with Christ in which we say, "Dwell deep." This is not easy to do. For persistent indeed are the endeavours which Satan makes to destroy this communion. Who that kneels in prayer is ignorant of these endeavours?—thoughts wandering; desires earth bound; faith feeble; love cold. Hence many neglect prayer, or they become formal in it. But there can be no real communion with Christ without this. Therefore we must rouse ourselves to earnestness. Pray that we may pray. Kneel down again and pray once more our as yet unprayed prayer. Let us resolve we will not be conquered. Encourage Ourselves by remembering that the very difficulties we meet are evidences of the truth of true prayer. And that such difficulties can be overcome; for they have been. And not only by prayer, but by walking with Christ in obedience and sympathy and love.—C. Consolation for a father’s dying bed. Perhaps there is no greater sorrow than is suggested here—the husband and father leaving widow and helpless children apparently without a friend to support or aid them. If it were not for the beatific vision of God, the perfect persuasion of his wisdom and power and love, which the blessed dead enjoy, they would be entreating God piteously to allow them to return hither once more, and to shelter their loved ones from the cruel hardships of this pitiless world. We wonder, sometimes, how it is possible for a loving mother who was wont to lavish her heart’s deepest, tenderest affection upon her children, to find joy and to be happy in heaven, whither she has been suddenly translated, leaving her husband and children heart broken at losing her. Here she could never be happy without her children. How can she be happy there and they yet here? Because she is at the fountain of all love, from which all her love was but a rill; she is with God, who is Love, and who she knows will deal only in the best of ways—ways far better than she herself could have devised, for those who are now weeping over her grave, and missing and mourning her every hour of the day. Now, of those told of in this verse we note— I. THAT TO LEAVE THEM TO GOD IS ALL WE CAN DO. We may and we ought to make provision for them to the best of our power. That is but a spurious and miserable travesty of faith in God which would neglect all such aids as life insurance and the like, on the ground that making such provision shows distrust and unbelief in God. Some speak thus, but they speak foolishly. Might we not as well refuse to work for our daily bread, on the ground that it is written, "My God shall supply all your need"? But who does not know that God’s way of supplying our need is by giving us strength to work and minds to think, enduing us with the means of gaining our bread? And is it not so in this case also? Would not a man be most wrong who, because of what is here said, neglected to make all due provision in his power? But having done this, like Jacob and Joseph, we may safely leave our children, as they did, to the care of God, confident that he will care for them according to his word. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Jeremiah 50:1-46. AND 51. ON BABYLON. We have now reached a point at which some reference is necessary to the centre versies of the so called "higher criticism." An attempt must be made to put the reader in possession of the data which are so variously estimated by critics of different schools. Theological considerations need not, and therefore ought not, to be admitted; like every other critical question, that which we are now approaching can be argued out on purely literary grounds. At first sight, indeed, it would appear not to require a long debate, seeing that in Jeremiah 1:1 and Jeremiah 51:60 the prophecy is expressly attributed to Jeremiah. But, on the other hand, it must be observed that the authorship of the heading in Jeremiah 1:1 is altogether obscure; very possibly, like those of so many of the psalms, the heading may be incorrect. And as to Jeremiah 51:60, can we be absolutely certain that the expression, "all these words," was intended to refer to the prophecy which now precedes Jeremiah 51:59-64? No doubt Jeremiah did write a prophecy against Babylon, and give it to Seraish with the charge described in Jeremiah 51:61-64. But how do we know that this prophecy has come down to us in the form in which it was written? This attitude of reserve is not assumed without substantial grounds, derived from two sources—the epilogue (Jeremiah 51:59-64) and the prophecy itself. First, as to the epilogue. It is clear that the words, "and they shall be weary," are out of place in Jeremiah 51:64, and that they are wrongly repeated from Jeremiah 51:58. But how came they to be repeated? Because, originally, the declaration, "Thus far are the words of Jeremiah," stood at the end of verse 58. When the short narrative in verses 59-64 (ending at "I will bring upon her") was combined with Jeremiah 1:1-51:58, the declaration in question was removed from Jeremiah 51:58 to Jeremiah 51:64, and, by accident, the preceding word (in the Hebrew) was removed with it. This leaves it open to us to doubt whether the present prophecy on Babylon is really the one referred to in Jeremiah 51:60, supposing, that is, there are other reasons, derived from the prophecy itself, for questioning its Jeremianic authorship. The reasons which have been adduced for doing so are analogous to those which lead so many students to doubt the Isaianic authorship of Isa 40:1-31:46. ‹je-5› I. The author of the latter prophecy (or the greater part thereof) writes as if he were living at the close of the Babylonian exile. So does the author of Isa 1:1-31 and Isaiah 51:1-23. "Yet a little while," he says (Jeremiah 51:33), "and the time of her harvest shall come" the time, that is, of that judicial interposition which (comp. Isaiah 17:5, Isaiah 17:11; Matthew 13:39) is the heavenly antitype of harvest. He urges his fellow countrymen to flee, while there is still time, from the doomed city (Jeremiah 51:6, Jeremiah 51:45). He mentions, as the instruments of the Divine vengeance, the Medes (Jeremiah 51:11, Jeremiah 51:28), and, as it would seem, refers, though obscurely, to Cyrus (Jeremiah 51:20-23). 2. Although the above statement is literally true of most of Isa 40:1-31:66; yet there are some passages which are much more suggestive of a Palestinian origin than of a Babylonian (see Cheyne’s ’Prophecies of Isaiah,’ 2:202). Precisely so in Isaiah 50:1-11 and Isaiah 51:1-23; at least according to one prevalent interpretation of Jer 50:5; Jeremiah 51:50 (which are thought to imply a residence in Jerusalem); Jeremiah 50:28; Jeremiah 51:11, Jeremiah 51:35, Jeremiah 51:51 (suggestive, perhaps, of the continuance of Jerusalem and the temple); Jeremiah 1:17; Jeremiah 51:34 (implying, as some think, that Nebuchadnezzar was still alive). Still, there is so much doubt respecting the soundness of the inferences, that it is hardly safe to rely too confidently upon them. The case of Jer 1:1-19, and Jeremiah 51:1-64. is, therefore, in so far rather less favourable to Jeremiah’s authorship than that of Isaiah 40-66, is to that of Isaiah. 3. Amongst much that is new and strange in the style of phraseology of Isaiah 40-66; there is not a little that reminds one forcibly of the old Isaiah. Similarly with Isaiah 50:1-11 and Isaiah 51:1-23, as compared with Jeremiah, "Every impartial judge," says Kuenen (who will not be suspected of a prejudice for tradition), "must admit that the number of parallel passages is very large, and that the author of Jer 50:1-46 and Jeremiah 51:1-64. agrees with no one more than with Jeremiah." For instance, the formula, "Thus saith Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel" (Jeremiah 1:18; Jeremiah 51:33), also occurs in Jeremiah 7:3; Jeremiah 9:15, and some twenty-six other passages; comp. also Jeremiah 1:3 with Jeremiah 9:9; Jeremiah 1:5 with Jeremiah 32:40; Jeremiah 1:7 with Jeremiah 2:3, Jeremiah 14:18, Jeremiah 17:13; and see other passages referred to in the Exposition. The probability would, therefore, appear to be that, whatever solution we adopt for the literary problems of Isaiah 40-66; an analogous solution must be adopted for Isaiah 50:1-11 and Isaiah 51:1-23. The whole question is so large, and connects itself with so many other problems, that the present writer declines to pronounce upon it here. Only it should be observed (1) that both subject and tone remind us of Isaiah 40-66, and the kindred prophecies scattered about in the first part of the Book of Isaiah, and more especially of Isa 13:1-22. and the closely related prophecy, Isaiah 34:1-17; (2) that these two chapters, Isaiah 50:1-11 and Isaiah 51:1-23; present some striking points of contact with Ezekiel, who, though contemporary with Jeremiah, was still a later contemporary, and allusions to whom (since Ezekiel was a literary rather than an oratorical prophet) imply that his prophetic book was already in circulation—in other words, suggest a date well on in the Exile for the prophet who alludes to him; (3) that, though there are many Jeremianic allusions in Jeremiah 50:1-46 and Jeremiah 51:1-64; there are also several passages copied almost verbally from prophecies of Jeremiah, and applied to Babylon and its assailants (it seems difficult to believe that Jeremiah should have been such a good economizer of his literary work). It deserves to be added (4) that, though Jeremiah is a great student of the earlier prophetic writings, and makes numerous allusions to them (see especially ch. 46-49.), nothing approaching to the mosaic work in Jeremiah 50:1-46 and Jeremiah 51:1-64. can be pointed to in the undoubted prophecies of Jeremiah. In fact, the Exposition will show that the author of these two chapters has borrowed almost the whole of their contents from other prophets—his own property, so to speak, being too insignificant to be worth mentioning. Here, in justification of (1) is a list of points of contact between Jeremiah 50:1-46 and Jeremiah 51:1-64. and Isaiah 13:1-22.:— (a) "To consecrate [or, ’sanctify’]," used of persons, Jeremiah 51:27; Isaiah 13:3. Here only (elsewhere with "war" following). (b) "Lift ye up a banner," Jeremiah 50:2; Jeremiah 51:27; also Isaiah 13:2. (c) Comp. Jeremiah 50:16 with Isaiah 13:14; close phraseological agreement. (d) Comp. Jeremiah 50:6, Jeremiah 50:17 with first part of Jer 13:14; agreement as to sense. (e) "Behold, I will stir up against Babylon," Jeremiah 51:1 (comp. Jeremiah 50:9); so Isaiah 13:17. Comp. also, however, Isaiah 41:25; Joe 3:1-21. (Hebrew, 4.) 7-9. (f) Comp. Jeremiah 51:3 (Jeremiah 50:14, Jeremiah 50:29) with Isaiah 13:18; agreement as to sense. (g) Comp. Jeremiah 51:11, Jeremiah 51:28 with Isaiah 13:17 (mention of the Medes). (h) Comp. Jeremiah 50:39, Jeremiah 50:40 with Isaiah 13:19-22. This last parallel may, perhaps, be questioned. At first sight it may appear that both Jeremiah 50:40 and Isaiah 13:19 are based upon Jeremiah 49:18 (which see), but when we inspect Isaiah 13:19 more closely in the Hebrew, we shall find reason to conclude that the original, both of this passage and of Jer 50:40, is Amos 4:11. We must, therefore, put Jeremiah 49:18 out of the question, and learn to be on our guard against plausible inferences. The only point which remains to be decided is the relation between Jeremiah 50:40 and Isaiah 13:19; which passage is the original? One important element in our decision will be the naturalness in the mode of reference to Sodom and Gomorrah; to the present writer this seems to determine the question against Isaiah 50:1-11 and Isaiah 51:1-23. and in favour of Isa 13:1-22. (The imitation is limited to Isaiah 13:1-22. because Isaiah 14:1-32. passes on to another though a related subject.) And here, in justification of (2) are points of contact between Isaiah 50:1-11 and Isaiah 51:1-23. and the Prophet Ezekiel. (a) Ideas and "motives." (α) Figure of scattered flock, Jeremiah 50:6, Jeremiah 50:7 (Ezekiel 34:1-31.). (β) Effects of the avenging Sword of Jehovah, Jeremiah 5:1-31:35-38 (Ezekiel 21:1-32:80; Ezekiel 33:1-6). (b) Words and phrases (α) No word is more distinctly peculiar to Ezekiel than gillulim, idol blocks, which occurs no less than thirty-nine times in his book, and elsewhere only once in Leviticus, once in Deuteronomy, six times in Kings, and once in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 50:2). (β) Anaq, to groan, occurs thrice in Ezekiel, once in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 51:52), and nowhere else. It is remarkable that in the latter passage we find not only a word but a phrase of Ezekiel’s (see Ezekiel 26:13). (γ) Pekod, the name of a Chaldean district, occurs in Jeremiah 50:21; also Ezekiel 23:23. (δ) The striking combination, pakhoth useghanim, occurs in Jeremiah 51:28, Jeremiah 51:57; also Ezekiel 23:6, Ezekiel 23:12, Ezekiel 23:23. (ε) Kasdim for "Chaldea" (properly the Chaldeans), Jeremiah 51:10; Jeremiah 51:24, Jeremiah 51:35; also Ezekiel 16:29; Ezekiel 23:16. (ζ) Ch. 51:25, 26 seems to allude to Ezekiel 35:3-5, Ezekiel 35:9 (see the Hebrew, and verify the statement by the Hebrew concordance). (c) General characteristics of style. Granting that the style of ch. 50. and It. approaches nearest on the whole to that of Jeremiah, it must be admitted, in the words of the latest German critic, Budde, that it "frequently enough declines from the simple, plain, and rather loose style of Jeremiah, to the flowery and turgid manner of speech of Ezekiel;" also that the points of contact are such as imply the originality of Ezekiel and the dependence upon him of ch. 50 and 51. Jeremiah 50:1 Against; rather, concerning. Jeremiah 50:2-10 Babylon’s fall and Israel’s deliverance. Jeremiah 50:2, Jeremiah 50:3 The prophet, with the eye of faith, sees his revelation accomplished. Babylon (like Moab) is taken; her idols are destroyed. In his exuberant joy, he calls on the bystanders to proclaim the good news to the sympathetic nations, and to set up (or rather, lift up) a standard (as Jeremiah 4:6), to call the attention of those who might not be within hearing of the proclamation. The idols have been convicted of false pretensions; they are ashamed and dismayed (so we should render rather than confounded and broken in pieces) at the terrible result to their worshippers. Bel and Merodach are not different deifies, but merely different names of one of the two principal gods of the later Babylonian empire. Bel, it is true, was originally distinct from Merodach, but ultimately identified with him. Merodach was the tutelary god of Babylon, and Nebuchadnezzar seems to have been specially addicted to his worship, though, indeed, he mentions Nebo also with hardly less honour. This is the beginning of an inscription of this king’s, preserved at the India House:—"Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, glorious prince, worshipper of Marduk, adorer of the lofty one, glorifier of Nabu, the exalted, the possessor of intelligence" (Mr. Rodwell’s translation, ’Records of the Past,’ 5:113). Elsewhere Nebuchadnezzar speaks of Marduk as "the god my maker," "the chief of the gods," and of himself as "his (Marduk’s) eldest son, the chosen of his heart." Her images. It is a very peculiar word (gillulim), specially frequent in Ezekiel, and also found in a chapter of Leviticus with which Ezekiel has affinities (Leviticus 26:30). It evidently involves a sore disparagement of idol worship. The etymological meaning is "things rolled," which may be variously interpreted as "idol blocks" (Gesenius), or "doll images" (Ewald). Jeremiah 50:3 Out of the north. There was a peculiar mystery attaching to the north in the Hebrew mind, as, in fact, the word very for "north" in Hebrew (literally, the hidden) indicates. The burnt offering was to be sacrificed on the north side of the altar (Le Jeremiah 1:11), and the four cherubim, in the vision of Ezekiel, are described as coming from the north (Ezekiel 1:4). The horror with which Babylon was regarded was intensified, apparently, by its northern position (Jeremiah 1:14), and now the "hidden" north again pours forth its swarms of warriors against Babylon herself. They shall remove, they shall depart; rather, they are fled, they are gone; almost the same clause occurs in Jeremiah 9:10. The prediction is realized as past. Jeremiah 50:4 In those days, etc. The destruction of Babylon is immediately followed by the deliverance of Israel. But the description of the latter is a remarkable one. We are by no means to regard it as an idealized picture of the return of the Jews under Zerubbabel, any more than we can suppose the glowing promises in the second part of Isaiah to have their sole fulfilment in that disappointing event. No; it is the characteristic of Messianic prophecy that, with "foreshortened perspective," the prophets represent as equally near events which are really separated by ages. In the Book of Isaiah, for instance, preliminary judgments are repeatedly described in terms which, properly speaking, only apply to the great final judgment. In fact, each great political revolution is a stage in the Divine drama of judgment, which will reach its close in the final cataclysm. And so too here (as well as in Isaiah 40-46.) the promise of mercy to Israel, which began to be fulfilled in the edict of Cyrus, is represented as if the still future conversion of the people of Israel were actually accomplished. The description reminds us of Jer 3:18-21. Notice the penitence of the returning exiles, and the reunion of Israel and Judah (see on Jeremiah 3:18). Going and weeping; they shall go; rather, they shall go, weeping as they go. Jeremiah 50:5 Thitherward; rather, hitherward: The prophet is evidently writing from Jerusalem (comp. Jeremiah 51:50). Let us join ourselves. A conjectural emendation (nilveh for nilvu, a difficult reading, meaning, perhaps, "join yourselves"). A perpetual covenant. The same phrase occurs in Jeremiah 32:40. The addition, "that shall not be forgotten," reminds us of "the ark of the covenant," which was "not to be remembered" (Jeremiah 3:16). Jeremiah 50:6 Lost sheep. Not merely with reference to the scattering of the Captivity (as in Isaiah 27:13, where the Authorized Version has "ready to perish"), but to the transgressions of the Law of God, of which the Jews had been constantly guilty (comp. Psalms 119:176; Isaiah 53:6). Their shepherds … mountains. This is the marginal correction in the Hebrew Bible; the text has, "Their shepherds have caused them to go astray upon the seducing mountains"—a strange expression, which is, however, defended by Naegelsbach on the ground of Jer 2:20; Jeremiah 3:2, Jeremiah 3:23; Jeremiah 17:2. Their resting place; literally, their couching place; i.e. their pasture, Jehovah, at once their Pasture (Jeremiah 17:7) and their true Shepherd (Psalms 23:1). Jeremiah 50:7 We offend not; rather, we incur no guilt. As long as Israel lived a life consecrated to Jehovah, "all that devoured him incurred guilt" (Jeremiah 2:3). But now that he had wandered from Jehovah, and so forfeited his protection, his adversaries denied that they could be brought to account. Habitation of justice; strictly, pasture of righteousness. The same title is applied in Jeremiah 31:23 to Jerusalem. But Jerusalem’s spiritual efficacy is only derivative; rest and life flow from Jehovah alone, who is, therefore, the true Pasture of his people. In the Hebrew, "Jehovah" is placed emphatically at the end of the verse. The hope of their fathers (comp. Psalms 22:4). To forsake Jehovah was an act of treason to the former generations. Jeremiah 50:8 The prophet returns to the fate of Babylon. He exhorts the captive Israelites to flee in time, before the hostile army reaches the city (comp. Isaiah 48:20). Be as the he goats before the flocks; rather, as the rams, whose example is followed unhesitatingly by the flock. The "flocks" in this case are the strangers in Babylon (Jeremiah 50:16). Jeremiah 50:9 I will raise; literally, I will stir up (or, awaken); comp. Jeremiah 6:22; Isaiah 13:17. An assembly of great nations. So in a parallel prophecy, "the kingdoms of nations gathered together" (Isaiah 13:4). Callias in Ebers’ learned story, ’The Egyptian Princess,’ speaks of "an empire so casually heaped together, and consisting of seventy populations of different tongues and customs, as that of Persia." From thence; i.e. from the headquarters of the array of nations. As of a mighty expert man; rather, as of an expert warrior (or, mighty man). The marginal rendering of the Authorized Version represents a various reading of the Hebrew found in three old editions, and presupposed in the Targum and Vulgate, "one making childless," i.e. "a destroyer." The received reading, however, is self-evidently right. None shall return in vain. It seems doubtful whether this refers to the arrow or to the mighty man. The arrow may be said to "return [or, ’turn’] in vain" when it misses its aim or strikes the mark without piercing it; the mighty man when he retires from the field defeated. This wider use of the phrase is sanctioned by Isaiah 55:11. Jeremiah 50:11-20 Babylon’s desolation and Israel’s glorification. Jeremiah 50:11, Jeremiah 50:12 Because ye were glad, etc.; rather, Truly ye may be glad; truly ye may rejoice, ye spoilers of mine heritage; truly ye may leap as a heifer at grass, and neigh as steeds; yet your mother, etc. Your triumph shall be of short duration; disgrace follows closely upon its heels. "Your mother" is a term for the nation regarded as a whole (comp. Isaiah 51:1; Hosea 2:2; Hosea 4:5). "At grass" is the reading adopted by the Septuagint and Vulgate; the pointed text has (the vowels alone are different), "(a heifer) that thresheth," i.e. allowed to eat its fill of corn, agreeably to the direction in Deuteronomy 25:4. It is not clear why the Authorized Version deserted the received pointing. Behold, the hindermost of the nations shall be a wilderness; rather, Behold, the hindermost of the nations! a wilderness, etc. The subject understood in the first part is obviously the people, in the second the land, of Babylon. Jeremiah 50:13 All but the first clause of this verse is taken from Jeremiah 19:8; Jeremiah 49:17. Jeremiah 50:14 Put yourselves in array, etc. The Authorized Version, guided, perhaps, by considerations of rhythm, has misplaced the first stop, which ought to be after "bow." The Medes are referred to in a parallel prophecy as great archers (Isaiah 13:18). Jeremiah 50:15 Shout against her; i.e. raise the battle cry (comp. Joshua 6:16; Isaiah 42:13). She hath given her hand. This action is generally mentioned as a pledge of friendship or a ratification of a promise (2 Kings 10:15; Ezekiel 17:18; Ezra 10:19); but the notion of surrender or submission would naturally follow (so in 1 Chronicles 29:24; 2 Chronicles 30:8). Dr. Payne Smith well quotes the words of Turnus, when begging his life of AEneas, "Vicisti, et victum tendere palmas Ausonii videre" (’AEneid,’ 12.936). Her foundations. The word is difficult, but a comparison with the Syriac suggests the rendering, her walls. "Foundations" is obviously wrong. Jeremiah 50:16 Cut off the sower, etc. "Babylon" here probably means Babylonia, for it is clear from Jeremiah 50:12 that the curse belongs to the country as well as the city of Babylon; indeed, "Babylon" in Jeremiah 50:13 seems to be used in the wider sense. Others think of the open spaces within the walls of Babylon, in which it is said that crops were raised to provision the city in case of a siege (see Rawlinson, ’Ancient Monarchies,’ 2:518); but this is less natural. They shall turn, etc. The subject is, not the husbandmen, but the strangers in Babylonia; comp. the parallel passage, Isaiah 13:14, on which this passage is based. AEsehylus (’Pers.,’ 53) speaks of the Πάμμικτοςὄχλος in Babylon. Whether brought by force from their homes, like the Jews, or voluntary residents for the sake of commerce, all should hurry from the doomed city. Jeremiah 50:17 Israel is a scattered sheep, etc. Here a pause in the discourse occurs. The prophet returns to the present condition of Israel, who is likened to a sheep scared away from its fold by lions. The ruin wrought by the lions is described first as "devouring" and then as "breaking the bones" of Israel—in either case it is complete destruction, but the completeness is more emphasized by the second figure. In fact, when the "ten tribes" were carried captive, the elements of the theocracy still remained in the southern kingdom. Jeremiah 50:19 The flock restored. His habitation is an unfortunate rendering, which obscures the beautiful figure; read, his pasture (as in Jeremiah 50:7). The places mentioned were all famous for their rich pasturage (comp. Jeremiah 22:6; Isaiah 33:9; Micah 7:14 (especially); Ezekiel 34:13, Ezekiel 34:14; So Ezekiel 4:1). Jeremiah 50:20 In those days, etc. An evangelical promise, reminding us of Jer 31:34 and Jeremiah 33:8, and of the combination of spiritual with temporal blessings in the latter part of Isaiah. Jeremiah 50:21-28 The punishment of Babylon, corresponding to her crimes. Jeremiah 50:21 The land of Merathaim; i.e. of double rebellion. Probably enough an actual geographical name may lie at the root of this singular expression; but we are not able at present to say what it was. The prophet has, at any rate, modified it in such a way as to convey a definite meaning, symbolic of the character of Babylon (comp. on Jeremiah 50:31). What was this meaning? According to Gesenius, there is an allusion to the two great blows inflicted on Israel and Judah by Assyria and Babylon respectively; but as these two powers were but the instruments of a higher Hand, this explanation would seem to be inconsistent with the prophetic teaching. Dahler, De Wette, and Keil take the two rebellions to be the spiritual ones of idolatry and pride; and there is no obvious objection to this. But the dual may be simply intended to express intensity; comp. Jeremiah 17:18, "Destroy them with double destruction" (see note). The inhabitants of Pekod; i.e. of punishment. But here too a geographical name very probably lies underneath. The Taylor cylinder inscription of Sennacherib mentions a Pukudu (= Pekod), together with Havrann (Hauran) and Nabatu (Nabathaeans); but this was the name of a tribe. In Ezekiel 23:23 we read, "The Babylonians, and all the Chaldeans, Pekod, and Shoa, and Koa," etc.; and in ’Records of the Past,’ 11.92, we find a town Pikudu mentioned, lying to the south of Babylon, which may, perhaps, have given its name to a district, and to this district the prophet not improbably alludes. M. Halevy conjectures that the event which corresponds to the prophecy is the decisive battle which virtually terminated the Babylonian empire. According to the newly discovered Cyrus inscription, this battle was fought near a place called Rutu, which appears to have been situated in the neighbourhood of Pukudu (’Records,’ l.c.). About the symbolic meaning there can be no doubt: Pekod is a worthy pendant to Merathaim. Sin and punishment are so closely connected in the prophetic mind that one word sometimes covers both notions. It is doubtful, for instance, whether the better rendering of Isa 5:18 is "draw sin as with a cart rope" or "draw punishment." Jeremiah 50:23 The hammer of the whole earth. So in Isaiah (Isaiah 14:5), "Jehovah hath broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the rulers; which smote peoples in passion with an unceasing stroke." In the next chapter a similar title is conferred upon Israel, with the right to retaliate upon Babylon all the evil which Babylon had done to Zion (Jeremiah 51:20-24). Compare the epithet Martel, "The Hammer," given to Charles, Duke of the Franks, on account of his great victory over the Saraoens at Tours; it is tempting to add "Makkabi," the epithet of Judas (Maccabaeus), but the k is not the same letter as that in maqqab, hammer. Jeremiah 50:24 I have laid a snare for thee. It was very natural, as long as Cyrus’s own account of the capture of Babylon was unknown, to refer for a fulfilment to the stratagem which, as Herodotus relates, that king employed, viz. diverting the waters of the Euphrates into an already existing reservoir, and entering the city unexpectedly by the river channel (Herod; 1.191). But the cylinder inscription, translated by Sir H. Rawlinson in 1880, shows that Babylon opened its gates of its own accord, on hearing the defeat and capture of Nabonidus. There is no occasion to look for any further fulfilment of the prophecy than the surprise which must ever come upon the bystander when he sees a mighty empire suddenly pass into the hands of its enemies. The tenses in this verse are not very happily rendered. It would be better to translate, I laid a snare for thee, and thou wast taken, O Babylon, unawares; thou wast found, etc; because thou hadst striven against the Lord. Jeremiah 50:25 Hath opened his armoury. A truly grand figure. The north country (the "hidden" part of the earth, as it was called in Hebrew) is regarded by the prophet as a storehouse of young and "inexhaustible" nations, from which Jehovah can at any time "bring forth weapons of his indignation." The latter phrase, occurs again in the parallel prophecy (Isaiah 13:5), where it is evidently applied to the army of Medo-Persian invaders. For this is the work, etc.; rather, For the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, hath a work. Jeremiah 50:26 Come against her; rather, Come to her. Dr. Payne Smith infers that Babylon has already fallen, and that the persons addressed are not warriors only, but plunderers of every kind. This is almost too subtle. The prepositions "to" and "against’ (literally, upon) are so frequently interchanged (comp. Jeremiah 46:22; Jeremiah 49:9). From the utmost border; rather, all together; it is an idiom expressing universality. Those who are spoken of are regarded as a totality, "from the utmost end" of which its members come. Cast her up as heaps; rather, Cast it up as sheaves; i.e. ransack the repositories of Babylon’s wealth, and heap it up like corn; last of all, destroy her (rather, it) utterly. The verb is a very emphatic one. Its primary meaning is "to cut off, or shut off." Hence kherem, a devoted thing, is applied in the Law to that which is "tabooed," as it were, cut off from any but sacred uses. In Le Jeremiah 27:21 it is used of a field wholly appropriated to the sanctuary, and in 1 Samuel 15:21 and 1 Kings 20:42 to living beings doomed to destruction. Destruction is generally a part of the meaning; but it is not merely destruction, but an act of homage to the Divine justice. Jeremiah 50:27 In this verse we are told that the kherem, i.e. the Divine ban, falls upon the entire male population, as in the holy wars of Joshua (Joshua 6:21; Joshua 11:11, Joshua 11:20). All her bullocks. As in Jeremiah 51:40 and Isaiah 34:6, the doomed people is likened to sacrificial victims (comp. Jeremiah 46:10). The same fact is described without figure in Jeremiah 48:15. Go down to the slaughter; i.e. be forced down to the slaughtering trough. Jeremiah 50:28 The voice of them that flee, etc.; rather, Hark! those that flee, etc. A confused murmur indicates the approach of the fugitives with their great tidings. The vengeance of his temple; i.e. the punishment due to Babylon for burning the temple; comp. next verse, also Jeremiah 50:15, "The vengeance of the Lord," and Jeremiah 51:11. Jeremiah 50:29-40 The completeness of Babylon’s destruction. Jeremiah 50:29 Call together the archers, etc. A dramatic way of indicating that the siege is about to begin. Jeremiah 50:30 With the exception of "her" in the second clause, a repetition of Jer 49:26. Jeremiah 50:31 O thou most proud; rather, O Pride! Just as in Jeremiah 50:21 Babylon is called Merathaim, and as Egypt is, in Hebrew poetry, called Rahab, i.e. "boisterousness" or "arrogance" (Isaiah 30:7; Isaiah 51:9; Job 26:12; Psalms 87:4; Psalms 89:10). Jeremiah 50:32 The most proud; rather, Pride. Raise him up. For the sake of uniformity, "her" would be better; for it is Babylon who is spoken of. There is an inconsistency in the use of the persons in the original. Elsewhere in this description Babylon is feminine; here it is masculine, to agree with "Pride." Jeremiah 50:33 At the end of Jer 50:32 a pause occurs in the discourse. Then the prophet takes up the theme again with renewed emphasis. Were oppressed; rather, are oppressed. Because the oppression of Israel and Judah still continues, whereas Israel has by this time been amply punished ("received double," Isaiah 40:2) for her transgressions, Jehovah will himself interpose. He is, in fact, Israel’s Goel ("Redeemer"), i.e. charged, like the next of kin, with the duty of recovering thy rights and avenging thy wrongs (comp. Isaiah 41:14; Isaiah 47:4). On the Goel, see Le Jeremiah 25:25; Rth 4:6; Numbers 30:1-16:19. Jeremiah 50:34 That he may give rest to the land; rather, to the earth. Babylon was one of the great world empires; we can hardly dispense with this convenient Germanism. It was the wont of the Chaldeans, as Habakkuk puts it (Habakkuk 1:6), "to walk through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling places that were not theirs." Observe the striking contrast—"rest" to the world which has been too long deprived of it, and "disquiet" to those who have hitherto spread it far and wide (comp. Isaiah 14:2, Isaiah 14:3). Jeremiah 50:35-38 No human aid avails against so terrible a foe; therefore Jehovah calls upon his Sword (see on Jeremiah 47:6) to avenge the cause of his people. Jeremiah 50:35 A sword is, etc; should rather be, Sword upon the Chaldea, it is an exclamation equivalent to "Let the Sword come upon the Chaldeans"—that sword which never "returns empty." The wise men are, partly the astronomers and astrologers at the various observatories in Babylonia, whose duty it was to send in monthly reports of the appearances in the sky, which were regarded as having an occult political significance (comp. Isaiah 47:13). In the next verse they are called liars, or praters. In Isaiah 44:25 this word stands parallel to "diviners." Possibly "liars" may be a wider term than "wise men," and includes an inferior grade of pretenders to "wisdom." Jeremiah 50:37 The mingled people; rather, the foreign peoples. Even if in Jeremiah 25:20 the Hebrew ‛erebh is an ethnographical term reminding us of the Assyrian Urbi used of Bedouin tribes, ‹je-6› it is clear that no such explanation will suit here (see on Jeremiah 25:20). Jeremiah 50:38 A drought. The Maasoretic critics, in their prosaic realism, were unable to see how a "sword" could be "upon the waters;" hence they altered khereb into khoreb. But the sword is merely a symbol of the Divine vengeance, and may be interpreted differently according to the exigencies of the context. Render, Sword upon the waters. They are mad upon their idols; rather, through Terrors they befool themselves. "Terrors" is a synonym for the gods of the heathen, which inspired a feeling of awe rather than affection, unlike Jehovah as he revealed himself through the authors of the psalms and prophecies. Jeremiah 50:39 Parallel passages: Isaiah 34:14; Isaiah 13:20-22. The wild beasts of the desert; rather, wild cats. Wild beasts of the islands; rather, jackals. Owls; rather, ostriches. Jeremiah 50:40 A verbal copy of Jer 49:18. Jeremiah 50:41 Jeremiah 51:4.—The instruments of the judgment. The section is partly a cento from other prophecies. Thus Jeremiah 51:41-43 are a repetition of Jer 6:22-24, except that what is there said of Jerusalem is here applied to Babylon; and verses 44-46 of Jeremiah 49:19-21, the reference, however, being in the latter passage to Edom. In verse 46 At the noise of the taking of Babylon would be more literally rendered, At the cry, Babylon is taken. Jeremiah 50:2 The judgment of Babylon. The position and history of Babylon give a peculiar significance to the judgment against her. I. BABYLON HAD BEEN THE POWER OF HER TIME. 1. Earthly greatness is transitory. The supremacy of the world is an insecure position. Rivalries and hatreds inevitably spring up about it. 2. No might nor dignity can secure a people from the judgment of Heaven. The more talents are entrusted to a nation the heavier must its responsibility be. England will have to answer to God for her use of the vast resources on which she foolishly prides itself. The wealth and population of London are no defence against Divine judgments. II. BABYLON HAD BEEN THE MOST KINGDOM OF HER TIME. She had conquered in her wars with neighbouring nations. While they failed she had succeeded; fortune, frowning on them, had smiled upon her. Yet Babylon’s time came. No ground of confidence is more delusive than previous success. If success induces carelessness and self-indulgence, it is sure to prepare the way for future failure. The "fortunate man" has not the slightest reason for presuming that his good fortune will help him in the future life. If he can argue anything from it, he may conclude that, since he has had his good things in this life, the evils that fall to his share must await him in the next. III. BABYLON HAD OVER THE PEOPLE OF GOD. Some might have thought that this was a victory of her patron god over the Jehovah of the Jews. But now "Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces." For a season the evil powers of the world may triumph over the Church of Christ. But ultimately they must succumb. Persecution cannot finally crush the truth. Unbelief, proud and insolent as it may be for a while, must ultimately bow before the power of faith. For truth is great and eternal, and God is fighting on its side. IV. BABYLON HAD BEEN AN IN THE HANDS OF GOD. Jehovah speaks of Nebuchadnezzar as "my servant" (Jeremiah 27:6). Yet he must suffer. For he was not a deliberate, willing servant. If God overrules the action of a man for good, this result is no justification of his conduct. For he is judged by his aims and motives, and not at all by the unintentional and unforeseen results of his actions. The only service of God which renders the servant acceptable in his sight is conscious, willing, obedient service. We may be used by God for other service, and then be cast off and suffer for our sinful deeds as much as if no Divine ends had been fulfilled in in them. Thus the scourge is scourged. Jeremiah 50:4, Jeremiah 50:5 Returning penitents. This picture of the restoration of Israel is interesting for the prominence given to the spiritual reformation of the people. It would be vain for them to return to their land unless they also returned to their God. The spiritual recovery that thus forms the centre of the Messianic restoration is typical of the recovery of God’s wandering children as returning penitents. Consider the leading points of it. I. FOR THE PAST. The two elements of repentance are here indicated. 1. Sorrow for sin. The children of Israel are depicted as "weeping as they go." A due sense of sin will produce Sorrow. The penitent will feel himself a "miserable sinner." But to be genuine the sorrow of penitence must rise directly out of the conviction of sin. If it were induced by sympathy, by sensational influences, etc; it would be a vain and useless thing. Moreover, grief arising out of the fear of the painful consequences of sin is not the grief of repentance. This must be a sorrow of conscience directly produced by regret for the sin itself. 2. Change of conduct. The penitents are to "come" and "go," etc. The prodigal arises and goes to his father. Mere idle tears are not repentance. Real repentance is the turning round of the soul from darkness to light, the active desire to amend one’s ways. It is true that repentance is not regeneration. It is not a renewal of nature nor is it the realization of a better life. But it is the first step towards this, and it must grow out of an honest desire to attain it. II. IN THE PRESENT. 1. Inquiry. They "seek the Lord;" they "ask the way." The penitent becomes the seeker after light. Truth, which was once a matter of indifference, or a subject of abstract questions, is now felt to be of great practical importance. 2. A return to God. The sinner had feared the visitation of God, but the penitent new voluntarily seeks to enter his presence. There is awakened a desire to be reconciled to God and to enjoy close communion with him. 3. A revival of interest in public worship. The penitents are described with their faces turned Zionward. Love to God induces interest in the worship at his house, no doubt a far less important thing than the spiritual return to God, yet noteworthy as an evidence of this. One of the leading signs of a change of heart is a renewed interest in the ordinances of religion. 4. Brotherly companionship. The children of Israel and the children of Judah come together. The tears of repentance melt away the old barriers of jealousy and contention. When on our knees before God we are all brethren. The forgiveness of our sin by God is conditional on our mutual forgiveness of one another (Matthew 6:14, Matthew 6:15). Through union with the common Saviour all the redeemed become one family. III. A NEW FOR THE FUTURE. Repentance is but a beginning. The wicket gate is entered; now the pilgrimage must be followed. The soldier is enlisted; the warfare lies before him. The Christian must live in the future, not wasting his remaining days in idle grief for the misspent past, but "forgetting those things which are upon the new born fervour of the hour of penitence. We need a solid conviction, a firm resolution, a covenant. He who becomes a Christian enters a covenant. He receives blessings from Christ, but he binds himself to the service of Christ. In the course of years he may be tempted to forget it. He therefore needs constant prayer and watchfulness. God will not be satisfied with the fact that some one "great transaction" is "done." The transaction is the forming of a perpetual covenant. It brings the obligation of lifelong fidelity—faithfulness "unto death." Lost sheep. I. MEN ARE LIKE GOD’S SHEEP. In the Old Testament the Jews appear as the only flock, but Christ teaches us that all mankind is so regarded by God. 1. We are like sheep, because (1) we are foolish and prone to err; (2) we are weak and defenceless; and yet (3) of some value in the sight of God. 2. We are like God’s sheep, because (1) we are not our own masters, we belong to God; (2) he watches over us, guides, feeds, protects, and blesses us. II. SIN IS LIKE THE OF LOST SHEEP. 1. It is straying from God. The shepherd goes first; the way he chooses may be narrow, steep, rugged; it may seem to lead to pastureless deserts or to dangerous forests; but it is the duty of the flock simply to follow the shepherd wherever he goes. It is our one duty to follow God in Christ. To sin is to follow the devices and desires of our own heart instead of following his will. 2. It is straying from our own vocation. There is a path for the sheep. There is a path forevery man—a way of life into which he is called to walk. When he knows this, if he turn from his duty to any other way, no matter how pleasant and profitable it may be, he is failing in his mission, wandering from the right way. III. MEN ARE LED ASTRAY BY BAD . It is terrible to think of the fatal work of men of great talents who have spent them in deluding or debasing their fellows. What vast harm has been done by the evil genius of great men! Intellectual leaders, philosophers, religious teachers, poets, directly turn men astray when their teaching is false and corrupt. Political leaders bring nations into great criminal wars. Court influence is potent for evil when the court is corrupt. Nevertheless men cannot throw off their own guilt upon their leaders. For they act with their free will. IV. THE RESULT OF IS . 1. It is to be homeless. The sheep are lost on the mountains. God is the Home of his sheep. To be far from God is to be on the wild mountains, open to the tempest, at the mercy of the fiercest foes. 2. It is to be restless. The sheep "have forgotten their resting place." The fascination of liberty to roam over the mountains tempts the sheep to wander from their shepherd. They soon find that this very liberty becomes a curse, and the wandering a doom of wretchedness. What the soul wants is rest, and it can find no rest but in God. V. CHRIST THE SHEEP. The sheep could not find their way back to the fold, neither could men find their way back to God. Christ came to seek as well as to save. As the good Shepherd, he gave his life for the sheep. They who have wandered furthest are not beyond recovery by Christ. If but one sheep be still straying, he will not be satisfied till that one is brought back. If, then, we have wandered, our safety will be found in hearkening to the voice of the good Shepherd and following him back to our home in God. Perfect forgiveness. I. IN WHAT IT . When God forgives a man he pardons him completely, as Christ thoroughly cured all the sick persons whom he healed in any way. There is no middle course here. Either the forgiveness is total or it is not accorded at all. 1. This is more than the remission of penalties. Some consequences of sin must still remain, though these are no longer indications of God’s anger, but converted into merciful chastisements. But the essence of forgiveness lies deeper than any manipulation of external experience. It is inward, in the relation of God to the soul. 2. This spiritual forgiveness consists in the removal of all estrangement between God and the sinner. It is perfect reconciliation with no shadow cast upon it by old offences, Many men profess to forgive and yet bear a grudge, or say they will forgive but cannot forget, or forgive partially but retain a certain suspicion and coolness. God’s forgiveness goes further. He is said to remove our sin from us "as far as the east is from the west," to "cast it into the sea," to "remember it no more." He treats his guilty but penitent child as if the sin had never been committed. No record of guilt is preserved, none can be found, even if an enemy search for it. The prodigal is not made a hired servant; he is welcomed with joy. The Christian is not grudgingly received into the outer courts of God’s house; he is called to the presence of his Father and blessed with full privileges of sonship. If he is justified he is also glorified. Hence we may learn (1) that, after genuine repentance and faith, a man need not remain in a state of fear and sadness; he may rejoice with confidence. His sin is not to be found; then he need think no more of it. If God has forgotten it he also may forget it. The typical Christian is not a weeping Magdalene, but a happy, hopeful servant of Christ. We may also learn (2) to extend more charity and confidence to other men in their penitence. If God has forgiven them, who are we that we should treat them with contempt or anger? II. HOW IT IS . 1. Often after chastisement. The promise to Judah and Israel is forgiveness after the sufferings of the Captivity. This is not invariably the case; for (1) chastisement may fail in its work upon the soul, and then the forgiveness will not follow; or (2) God may bring the sinner to penitence by milder means. But it is the design of chastisement to lead us to the blessedness of reconciliation. 2. After repentance. The people are first depicted as "going, weeping as they go." Forgiveness is offered to the worst man who repents, but not to the mildest offender who remains impenitent. 3. Through the mercy of God. This forgiveness is part of the blessedness of the restoration which God promises to effect for his children. It is not earned by future good conduct nor by any sacrifice or penance. We now know that it is not cheap. The price is no less than the life of the Son of God. But to us it is a free gift of God’s love. The strong Redeemer. I. THE AND POWER OF THE . 1. God is the Redeemer. He is the Goel, the Friend, Advocate, Avenger, and Saviour of his children. (1) The goel was the next of kin (Le Jeremiah 25:25). No man is so nearly related to us as God is. (2) The goel was bound by law to redeem or avenge the sufferer. Human laws, in so far as they are just and good, are shadows of the Divine laws, i.e. of the ways of God’s procedure. If the Jewish law of redemption was inspired by God, it was made after the pattern of God’s manner of acting. In the New Testament we see this side of God’s work brought into leading prominence. Jesus Christ is the manifestation of God in the flesh, and Jesus Christ is pre-eminently "the Redeemer" (Ephesians 1:7). 2. The almightiness of God is our assurance of redemption. The massive strength of the rock makes it painful for us to fall upon it, and fearful and fatal for it to fall upon us; but this very characteristic renders it a blessing if we rest under its shadow, build on its foundation, or cling to it for support in the driving tempest. Men may well shrink from the might of God when they are opposed to it, and tremble and despair when it rises up, awful and irresistible, to crush them; but if they can turn to it with trust and know it is working their good, they will find in it a ground for solid assurance. How disastrous would it be for us to have a weak God, though he might have all other Divine perfections! His love might be infinite; but if he could only pity, and not effectually save us, his grace would be of little use. But our Redeemer is the Lord of hosts. If a host encamp against us, the Lord of hosts is on our side. The strength of the Redeemer is of importance, because (1) our foes are great—earthly trouble, sin, death; (2) our evil state is disastrous—we have fallen far into sin, some of us, perhaps, into deep wretchedness, only a strong hand can pull us out of so horrible a pit; (3) our own strength is slight. We are not able to cope with the dangers that beset us. In face of the great forces of evil we are like withered leaves before the autumn blast. Hence to us weaklings amid the strange and awful powers of time and eternity, what grand comfort lies in the thought that "our Redeemer is strong"! II. THE METHOD AND FRUITS OF HIS . 1. The method, "He shall throughly plead their cause." The case is intricate, many cross issues arise. The honour of God, justice, the maintenance of respect for law, the government of the universe, the highest good of all creatures, are concerned in the sin of man and its effects, and they must all be considered and fairly treated before redemption is possible. But we have no weak Advocate. God has gone through the whole labour and sacrifice. He has paid the price even the gift of his Son to die for us. 2. The fruits. (1) Rest. "That he may give rest to the land." This was the greatest blessing to people who had been harried by invasions and wearied with exile. Rest is what the world most wants in its war and confusion, its toil and its sorrow. "Peace on earth" is the gospel benediction. Rest is what the soul most needs—rest from sin, from self, from fear and doubt and wearing grief. Rest is the blessing Christ offers to those who will "come unto" him. Heaven is rest. (2) The overthrow of foes. Babylon, the troubler of the nations, will be disquieted. Christ, the Rock of salvation, is to his enemies "a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence." In the spiritual redemption of Christians the spiritual foes are vanquished; sin and death, the last enemies, are slain. We can only have rest to our souls in proportion as our sins are conquered. So the Redeemer who brings balm for our soul’s wounds brings a sword for its sins. BY A.F. MUIR Jeremiah 50:2-5 Israel’s deliverance. This is described as twofold—the historical circumstances and the correlative spiritual experience. Apart from its verification in the case of ancient Israel, it is true to the actual process of many an individual conversion. I. A EVENT. The outward circumstances of life are altered. External tyrannies are brought suddenly to an end, and the children of God are set free to serve God or not as they please. In every life there are some such occurrences. The spell of evil is broken and moral freedom rendered possible. And this is often brought about impressively, with the stamp of the supernatural upon it. Especially was it so with Israel’s escape from Babylon, because of the permanent influence that event was to have on the spiritual history of mankind. 1. It was of world wide import. Babylon was the central world power, holding in iron subjection many nations. As a universal empire it is to be broken in pieces, and its sentence is not only announced, but published abroad as an evangel to the nations. 2. Of evidently Divine authorship. The clear prophecies; the moral recompense involved in its fall, and so wonderfully corresponding to its deserts, and the vast spiritual consequences accruing therefrom, make this indubitable. And equally, we may be sure, was the hand of God visible to those who were the subjects of the deliverance (see Psalms 124:1-8.). II. A . This corresponds to the external circumstances and gives them their real significance and effect. 1. Sorrow for past offences. "Weeping"—tears of grief and shame. The marvellous grace of God has broken their hearts. Tears, too, of joy and gratitude. 2. Return to the true God. Idolatry was henceforth and forever forsaken. The sublimity and spirituality of God have taken possession of imagination and heart. Each step of the way to Palestine is a further removal from the sin which took them away. And it is not the carnal delights of the promised land which constitute its attraction. It is Zion they seek, the house of the Lord, that they may rebuild her ruins and restore her worship. This proves repentance real. 3. Renewal of the covenant. In this is repentance perfected. It is to be a new covenant—more spiritual, vital, and therefore eternal. The awful years of visitation have left an undying memory; but the interposition and grace of God have written his covenant upon their heart.—M. To Zion, with their faces thitherward. A picture of genuine repentance. The action and attitude suit the profession. The point of attraction is Zion, not Carmel or Bashan. Repentance is— I. UNREAL. When the outward behaviour contradicts the profession, or the conduct exhibited is only conventional or intended to deceive. It is either: 1. Half hearted, not having its root in deep conviction of sin, and unaccompanied by thorough separation from carnal interests. The looks of the heart are alternately attracted towards Zion and towards the world, whilst the feet go to and fro or stand still. Or: 2. Hypocritical When there is no conviction and the behaviour is a pretence. When worldly aims are cloaked by religions profession. II. REAL. "Their faces thitherward." The attitude and movement correspond with the profession. Every preparation is made to go away from "Babylon," and the journey is commenced at once. Grief and heavenly longing are the grand motives. 1. Genuine sorrow. "Weeping" as they go. 2. Pure aspiration. They seek Zion. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," etc. 3. Resolute endeavour. The return is at once made, notwithstanding its difficulties and dangers. Only in Palestine can the perfect theocracy, the spiritual future, be realized, i.e. in a true Church fellowship, which they hasten to realize. 4. Inward and eternal fidelity. Covenant relationship is renewed. A new spiritual covenant, whose provisions are written on their hearts, is entered into. They are no longer their own, but the servants of God, "bought with a price." 5. Perfect unanimity. Both Israel and Judah. A guarantee this of success and thoroughness. The lesson has been learnt by all, and united Israel is "holiness to the Lord."—M. Jeremiah 50:6, Jeremiah 50:7, Jeremiah 50:17-20 Israel as lost sheep. This is a favourite theocratic title of Israel—the sheep of God’s pasture. In itself an appeal to the traditional pastoral character of the nation, and to the marvellous guidance of their forefathers by Jehovah through the wilderness. He was the Shepherd of Israel. The extent of their apostasy is here described. I. IT WAS . 1. They had wandered. The allurements of idolatry had led them on and on, and they had at length yielded to them. They had sought other pastures and acquired preferences for other worship. It is an evil sign when men lose taste for the simple services of a spiritual religion. God should be sought alone and for his own sake. 2. They became alienated. A natural consequence. Step by step they went so far that they could not find their way back. Spiritual unfaithfulness produces confusion and spiritual darkness. They forgot their own fold. 3. They became degraded and morally odious. They bore the sign of their spiritual fall upon them. Their history, too, was the record of their shame to the neighbouring peoples. The backslider can never erase the past. He will bear his Cain mark to the end, and even the heathen and unbeliever will despise him. Their oppressors are so struck with the justice of their sentence that they justify themselves in even greater cruelties than were warranted. There is no corner of the world where the backslider can escape God’s curse or hide his shame. Do what he may, he will not be as other men. II. YET IT DID NOT BAFFLE THE OF GOD. 1. To avenge. The overdone punishment is not lost sight of; it will be duly recompensed. And the sacred character of the exiles will add to the guilt of those who used it as an excuse for their cruelties. God is the Judge of his lost ones even to the end. He commits his authority to no other. He who causes a child of God to go further astray, and delights in his degradation and ruin, will have to account terribly for this to his Father and Saviour. 2. To bring back. God’s arm is strong to destroy the detaining influences, and outstretched far enough to reach his wanderers, even to the extremities of transgression and ruin. And he can detect them in every hiding place and covert. He is the good Shepherd. No wilderness too wide, no mountain too high or rocky, for him to traverse. He will bring them back to righteousness and then to happiness and peace.—M. Divine forgiveness an absolute oblivion. The attribute of completeness characterizes God’s work of destruction (Jeremiah 50:14-16); equally does it pertain to his work of salvation (Jeremiah 50:19, Jeremiah 50:20). In both is manifested his righteousness in its elements of wrath and mercy. His forgiveness acts in perfect harmony with his severity. I. HOW IT ITSELF. 1. Retrospectively. Sins that are past are to be blotted out. A complete severance is to be effected between the era of apostasy and the new one upon which they are to enter. The strictest justice, the most jealous hostility, will fail to make out a valid indictment. 2. Prospectively. (1) In the character. It will be purified and confirmed in the righteousness of God. (2) In the conduct. There will be no more lapses or infidelities. Israel will be "a peculiar people, zealous of good works." It is for the sake of this new future that the guilty past has been cancelled; and it is the legitimate fruit of the experience of God’s pardoning grace that the "reserved" ones shall give themselves "with a glad heart and free" to his service and glory. II. TO WHAT IT IS DUE. Not to Divine goodness in conflict with Divine righteousness, but to the satisfaction of Divine righteousness. 1. In atonement. The sacrifice of Christ was anticipated, and for its sake the national tribulation through which Israel had passed was accounted a satisfaction for guilt incurred. In itself that tribulation could never effect such an end, nor in any sense as supplementary of the sufferings of Christ, but only symbolically and representatively, such as the lamb slain on the temple altar. The sinner is identified with the Saviour. 2. In making righteous. "Justice looking at the sinner, not simply as the fit subject of punishment, but as existing in a moral condition of unrighteousness, and so its own opposite, must desire that the sinner should cease to be in that condition; should cease to be unrighteous—should become righteous; righteousness in God craving for righteousness in man, with a craving which the realization of righteousness in man alone can satisfy. So of holiness." (Macleod Campbell.)—M. Jeremiah 50:21-23 The hammer broken. Babylon was to be crushed by Persia—one hammer by another. As universal world powers, the rise and fall of these had immense importance, and they illustrate the duties and responsibilities of power. I. ALL POWER IS A FROM GOD. The vast extent and influence of those empires, and the special mission divinely appointed them, cannot but impress one with a sense of special responsibility. There seems something supernatural in their very origin and continuance. And yet it is equally true that the humblest power is a responsibility. It might be said that a great deal of the influence of great nations arises unconsciously, mechanically, and as it were as the result of their own momentum; and also that the distribution of official duties divides, if it does not quite dissipate, individual responsibility. Yet each contributes his quota to the general result, and in the end each will have to account for his own influence. The nation as a whole will be judged, and in that judgment each will be apportioned his due share. How much more, therefore, may the individual be held responsible for the use of those powers belonging to his own nature and person, and which are under his own control or have been in great part created by his own cultivation. We are doubly responsible, viz. (1) for the acquisition, and (2) for the use of power. II. IT IS TO BE THE OF DIVINE JUSTICE AND YET BE GUILTY. Babylon was clearly and definitely "commanded" to perform its work of conquest and destruction. But it overdid its task through arrogance and unbelief. It was the land of "Double defiance" (Merathaim), inasmuch as it had first illegitimately acquired its position by revolt against Assyria, and secondly it had triumphed in a cruel and unseemly manner over Israel (Naegelsbach). For this it was brought to account, and, therefore, is again named "Visitation." This self-sufficiency and unbelief rendered it guilty ("Against Jehovah hast thou striven," Jeremiah 50:24), and yet the work it did, even in excess, was turned to account by God. We are responsible, not only for doing what God commands, but for doing it in the right spirit and manner. That God should overrule our evil for the good of others does not alter its character, which depends upon motives and dispositions. Especially in judging or punishing others ought we to keep watch over ourselves and examine our own hearts. National and official action will entail moral responsibility as much as personal, although, it may be, not so directly. III. THE ABUSE OF POWER WILL BE AVENGED. In the case of Babylon it involved it in complete destruction. The influence which had in part been a Divine creation rapidly degenerated into a merely human and sinful one. 1. Because the consciousness of power tempts to greater arrogance and depravity; and: 2. Because all power has. involved in it corresponding moral capacity. 3. It is the perversion and abuse of a gracious privilege.—M. BY S. CONWAY Godly sorrow. In these verses we have given us not a few of the characteristics of real repentance—that repentance which never needs to be repented of. Note some of these as seen in Israel and Judah. I. THEY SET OUT TO SEEK THE LORD. The time of thinking about it and talking of it was over. All indecision on the matter had ceased, and we see them arising and going on this blessed journey. II. TEARS. Had there not been the actual setting out, these tears might not have counted for much. But it is said they were "going and weeping." Too many are quite capable of the weeping, but the other and the far more important part they fail in altogether. But when the fruits go along with the signs of godly sorrow, then those signs are of real worth, telling as they do of the broken and contrite spirit with which God is ever well pleased. III. SINKING OF ALL AND OLD . Unity taking the place of strife. The old rivals, Israel and Judah, were united now. And the giving up of former grudges and grievances is a real sign of a genuine work of grace in the soul. IV. INQUIRY. This was an open and practical acknowledgment of their former wrong, a real confession like the "Father, I have sinned," of the returning prodigal. V. THE FACE. Jeremiah 50:5: "With their faces thitherward," it is said. There are many who talk about religion, but with their faces all the while world ward. What does our common talk, our every day life, our ordinary spirit and conduct, declare? They show which way our face really is, no matter what our tears or inquiries have been. VI. ONE ANOTHER UP TOWARDS THE GOOD WAY. "Come, and let us," etc. (Jeremiah 50:5). When we see men trying to win others for God, to lead men not away from him, as heretofore, but to him, we conclude that that man’s repentance is real. VII. SOLEMN WITH GOD. The value of such vows and covenants is that they render going back from God more difficult. They help to steady the will and confirm the wavering purpose. They commit us to the right side. It is a kind of breaking down the bridges behind us, a burning of the boats, so that the soldiers started on the enterprise may not be able to recross the river. Hence we urge such open and solemn avowal, consecration and covenanting with God. It tends to make your adhesion to God "perpetual," and your holy purpose to serve him far less likely to "be forgotten." Thus was it with Israel and Judah—never since have they fallen into idolatry, and though yet "the veil is before their faces," they are far other than what they were. And in our own Churches such consecration has again and again been greatly blessed.—C. Forgetting our Resting place. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ Jeremiah 51:1 Against them that dwell in the midst of them that rise up against me. The Hebrew has lēb-kāmai, which is Kasdim, or Chaldea, written in the cypher called Athbash (see on Jeremiah 25:26); just as Sheshach in Jeremiah 51:41 is equivalent to Babel. The question arises whether the prophet himself is responsible for this covert way of writing, or a scribe in later times (so Ewald). In favour of the former view it may be urged that Babylon and Chaldea receive symbolic names (though not in Athbash) in the connected chapter (Jeremiah 50:21, Jeremiah 50:31, Jeremiah 50:32); in favour of the latter, that the Septuagint has Χαλδαίους in Jeremiah 51:1, and does not express Sheshach in Jeremiah 51:41, also that the clause to which Sheshach belongs in Jeremiah 25:26 is of very dubious genuineness. A destroying wind; rather, the spirit (ruakh) of a destroyer (or perhaps, of destruction). The verb rendered in this verse "raise up," when used in connection with ruakh, always means "to excite the spirit of any one" (Jeremiah 25:11; Haggai 1:14; 1 Chronicles 5:26). Jeremiah 51:2 Farmers. This is supported by the Septuagint, Peshito, Targum, Vulgate, according to the Massoretic pointing, however, we should render "enemies." Possibly the prophet intended to suggest both meanings, a and o being so nearly related. Shall empty her land. The original has a much mere striking word, shall pour out (for the figures, comp. Jeremiah 48:12), which occurs again in similar contexts in Isaiah 24:1; Nahum 2:3 (Hebrew, 2). Jeremiah 51:3 Against him that bendeth, etc. There are two readings in the Hebrew Bible—one that given by the Authorized Version; the other, "Against him that bendeth (let) him that bendeth his bow (come)." The difficulty, however, is in the first two words of the clause, which are the same in either reading. It would be much simpler to alter a single point, and render, "Let not the archer bend his bow; and let him not lift himself up in his coat of mail" (for the old word "brigandine," see on Jeremiah 46:4); which might be explained of the Babylonians, on the analogy of Jer 46:6, "Let him not bend his bow, for it will be useless;" but then the second half of the verse hardly suits the first—the prohibitions seem clearly intended to run on in a connected order. On the other hand, the descriptions, "him that bendeth," and "him that lifteth himself up in his brigandine," seem hardly a natural way of putting "the Chaldean army." Jeremiah 51:4 In her streets; i.e. in the streets of Babylon. Jeremiah 51:5-14 The covenant between Jehovah and Israel is one reason why Babylon must fall; and Babylon’s own guilt is another. Hence pity is out of place. "Here liveth piety where pity ends; Can any man be guilty more than he Whose bias with the doom of God contends?" (Dante, ’Inferno,’ 20.28, Cayley.) Flee, therefore, lest ye be involved in Babylon’s ruin. For Jehovah’s purpose of vengeance cannot be reversed. Jeremiah 51:5 Hath not been forsaken. The Hebrew is much more forcible, "is not widowed"—alluding to the fundamental Old Testament idea of a mystic marriage between God and his people (comp. Isaiah 50:1; Isaiah 54:4-6; Hosea 2:1-23.). Was filled with sin; rather, with guilt (Hebrew, āshām). Jeremiah 51:7 Babylon, as the instrument used by God for his judicial purposes, is likened to a wine cup, which "made all the earth drunken" (comp. Jeremiah 25:15, Jeremiah 25:16); and, more than this, to a golden cup, such was the impression made upon the Jewish prophets, by Babylon’s unexampled splendour. So, in Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of the image, the head of the image is of gold (Daniel 2:32, Daniel 2:38). But neither her splendour nor her honourable position as God’s minister could save her from merited destruction. Jeremiah 51:8 Destroyed. The Hebrew, more forcibly, has "is broken." The Authorized Version wished, perhaps, to avoid the objection that a golden cup could not, properly speaking, be broken. But if we once begin to harmonize the language of Hebrew poetry, we shall have no end. It is not the cup which falls, but the state, considered as a house (the "breach" of God’s people is constantly referred to; e.g. Psalms 60:2; Isaiah 30:26). Howl for her. Sympathetic bystanders are dramatically appealed to. From the next verse it would seem that they are the various foreigners who, whether by choice or force, have been resident in Babylon, and who have acquired an interest in her fate. Hitzig thinks the foreign mercenaries (Jeremiah 50:37) or allies are specially referred to. Take balm for her pain (comp. Jeremiah 8:22; Jeremiah 46:11). The images of fracture and wound are combined, as in Isaiah 30:26. Jeremiah 51:9 We would have healed Babylon. Experience shows that it is useless to attempt to correct such inveterate evils. Everyone into his own country (as Jeremiah 50:16). Her judgment; i.e. her punishment. Perhaps there is an allusion to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, burned by fire from heaven. But we might also render "her crime" (comp. Deuteronomy 19:6, where "worthy of death" is more strictly "a capital crime"). Jeremiah 51:10 Our righteousness; literally, our righteousnesses; not in the sense of "righteous deeds "(as in Isaiah 64:6; Judges 5:11), but "those things which prove us to righteous; i.e. by punishing Babylon he hath justified us" (Payne Smith). Jeremiah 51:11 Make bright; rather, polish, so that the arrows may penetrate easily (comp. Isaiah 49:2, "a polished shaft"). Gather the shields; rather, fill the shields (viz. with your arms); i.e. take hold of them. Comp. the phrase, "to fill the hand with the bow" (2 Kings 9:24). The rendering" quivers" is wanting in philological authority, and seems to have been inferred from this passage, where, however, it is unnecessary. The kings of the Medes. The prophet speaks of the Medes and not the Persians (comp. Isaiah 13:17). "The reason, probably, is twofold: (1) that the name Madai became known to the Jews at an earlier period than Paras, ’Persia;’ and (2) that the generals of Cyrus were apparently Medes". The new Cyrus inscription throws light on the latter circumstance. Jeremiah 51:12 Upon the walls of Babylon; rather, toward the walls (as Jeremiah 4:6). The "standard" was carried before the army, to show the direction of the march. Make the watch strong. Not merely for the safety of the invaders, but to blockade the city. Comp. the phrase, "Watchers [a synonymous Hebrew word is used] came from a far country" (Jeremiah 4:16); i.e. besiegers. Prepare the ambushes. To press into the city when the besieged have made a sally (as Joshua 8:14-19; Judges 20:33, Judges 20:37). Jeremiah 51:13 Babylon is addressed as thou that dwellest upon many waters, with reference, not only to the Euphrates, but to the canals, dykes, and marshes which surrounded the city. The measure of thy covetousness. A strange expression, even when we have supplied (and have we a right to do so?) a suitable verb, such as "is full." "Measure" is, literally, ell, "covetousness" should rather be gain, or spoil. Another possible rendering is, "The ell measure of thy cutting off." In fact, the root meaning of the word rendered "gain," or "covetousness," is "to cut off;" and the figure of cutting off a man’s half-finished life, like a web from the loom, is familiar to us from the psalm of Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:12; comp. Job 6:9). Jeremiah 51:14 Surely I will fill thee, etc. This is the rendering of Hitzig and Graf; the enemies are compared to locusts, as in Jeremiah 46:23. But the expression, "to fill a city with men," is more naturally taken of the increase of the population of the city; and it is better to render, with Ewald and Keil, "Even though [or, ’Surely even though’] I have filled thee with men, as with locusts, they shall raise over thee the cheer of the vintage;" i.e. the millions of Babylon’s population will not save her from the most utter ruin. For the vintage cheer, see on Jeremiah 25:30; and for the figures, see especially, Isaiah 63:1-6. Jeremiah 51:15-19 Probably interpolated from Jeremiah 10:12-16 (the only verbal difference is in Jeremiah 10:19, where "Israel" is left out before "the rod of his inheritance"). But may not Jeremiah have quoted himself? Conceivably, yes; but he would surely not have quoted such a passage here, where it spoils the context. For granting that a point of contact with verse 14 may be found for verses 15, 16 (Jehovah who has sworn has also the power to accomplish), yet the passage on the idols stands quite by itself, and distracts the attention of the reader. Jeremiah 51:20-26 Israel is now to be Jehovah’s hammer, striking down everything, even the Chaldean colossus. But though Babylon may be as great and as destructive as a volcanic mountain, it shall soon be quite burnt out. Jeremiah 51:20 My battle axe; or, my mace. The mace (for a picture of which, see Rawlinson, ’Ancient Monarchies,’ 1.459) was a weapon constantly employed by the Assyrians and presumably by the Babylonian kings. The battle axe was much less frequently used. But who is addressed by this terrible title? The commentators are divided, some inclining to Babylon, (1) because Babylon was the last person addressed (see Jeremiah 51:14), and (2) because a similar title was given to Babylon in Jeremiah 50:23: others to Israel, on the ground that the tenses are the same throughout the passage (Jeremiah 50:20-24). The latter view is probably the best. How could Babylon be said to shatter her own "governors" and "viceroys" (for the prophet deliberately chooses the Babylonian official names)? The argument from the context is not very weighty; for it is clear that the connection of the parts of this prophecy is very loose. We may assume, then, that Jeremiah 50:20 begins a fresh paragraph, standing quite apart from that which precedes. The objection of Graf and Keil, is that Israel could not himself be styled a "mace," it being Israel’s destiny to be delivered by others. But is not a very similar statement made of Israel in Isaiah 41:15; Psalms 149:7-9? (Kuenen offers a third explanation—Cyrus.) The nations … kingdoms. First the great social organisms are mentioned; next comes the military power; next the population, according to sex, age, and class. Jeremiah 51:23 Captains; rather, governors. It is the Hebraized form (pekhah) of the official name of an Assyrian or Babylonian governor (pahhat). Rulers; rather, viceroys; Hebrew, segamin (plural). The singular, sagan, is Hebraized from the Assyrian sakun, Babylonian sagun. Jeremiah 51:25, Jeremiah 51:26 Another image for the destruction of Babylon. Jeremiah 51:25 O destroying mountain. The description evidently points to a volcano. (1) Jehovah says that he will roll the mountain down from the rocks, which can only be understood of the stones and lava hurled down from the crater; (2) that he will make it a "mountain of burning," i.e. either to a burning, or, more forcibly, a burnt out mountain; and (3) that, as a consequence of this, its stones shall be unsuitable for the purposes of the builder. Now, Palestine, it has been clearly made out, "lies almost in the centre of one great volcano region of the earth’s surface, that, namely, which includes the basin of the Mediterranean and the provinces of Western or Central Asia. Traces of that volcanic action are found in every direction. The black basaltic rock of the Hauran, the hot springs of Tiberius and Emmaus and Gadara, the naphtha fountains near the Dead Sea, the dykes of porphyry and other volcanic rooks that force their way through the limestone, the many eaves in the limestone rocks themselves,—all these show that we are treading on ground where the forces of the hidden fires of earth have been in times past in active operation. We are, that is, in a zone of earthquakes". There is a striking parallel to this prophetic description in Revelation 8:8, where the destruction of a great empire is likened to the submersion in the sea of a great burning mountain, (Vitringa has noticed the parallel.) Jeremiah 51:26 And they shall not take of thee, etc. "Of thee," i.e. "of the Babylonian power" personified—not "of Babylon," which was built of brick, not of stone. The figure of the mountain is still preserved. Jeremiah 51:27-37 A more detailed sketch of the conquest of Babylon; followed (somewhat out of the natural order) by a complaint on the part of Israel, and a promise of championship on that of Jehovah. Jeremiah 51:27 Prepare the nations; literally, consecrate the nations; viz. by religious rites. It is in an especial sense a religious war to which they are summoned (see on Jeremiah 6:4, and comp. Isaiah 13:3). Ararat. Ararat appears in the cuneiform inscriptions under the form "Urartu? In Isaiah 37:38 the Authorized Version renders correctly by "Armenia." The Assyrian kings, since Shalmaneser, were constantly at war with the Armenians; Assurbanipal reduced them to pay tribute. Minni. The Mannai of the cuneiform inscriptions. The locality of this tribe has been hitherto wrongly given as the mountain country about Lake Vau. But Professor Sayco has shown that they are rather to be looked for to the southwest of Lake Urumiyeh. A captain. The word (tifsar) is singular, but is probably to be understood collectively as equivalent to "captains," like the word (sus, "horse," equivalent to "horses") to which it is parallel. It is here used loosely of certain officials of the Armenians; but properly it is an Assyrian word (adopted from the Accadian or proto-Babylonian), meaning "tablet writer," and derived, according to Friedrich Delitzsch, from dip or dup, a tablet, and sat, to write (Accadian words). As the rough caterpillars. This is the third of the four kinds of locusts mentioned in Joe 1:4; or, to speak more precisely, it is the locust in its penultimate stage, when its wings are already visible, but enveloped in horn-like sheaths, which stand up upon its back. Hence the epithet "rough," or "bristling." Keil’s rendering, "as the dreadful (horrifying) locust," implies a faulty interpretation of Joe 1:4. It would be strange indeed if Joel had accumulated four synonymous terms for locust in such a peculiar context. Jeremiah 51:28 The captains … the rulers; rather, the governors … the viceroys (as Jeremiah 51:23). Thereof refers to the land of Medea; his dominion to the King of Medea, as the suzerain of the inferior chiefs. Jeremiah 51:29 Shall tremble and sorrow. The Hebrew has "trembled and sorrowed" (or, "quaked and writhed for pain"); and in the sequel, have stood (i.e. been ratified by the event, as Jeremiah 44:28). The prophet here, as so often, regards what is still future as past from the point of view of eternity. Jeremiah 51:30 Despair of the Babylonian warriors. Have forborne to fight should rather be have ceased to fight. In their holds. The word is used of hill or mountain fastnesses, and such presumably are referred to here. Their might; rather, their courage. They have burned, etc. The subject is "the enemies." Her bars; viz. those with which the city gates were secured (comp. Isaiah 45:2; Amos 1:5). Jeremiah 51:31 One post shall run to meet another, etc. The wall being broken through at various points, couriers would meet each other on their way to the royal palace. This was itself a fortress in the centre of the city, on the Euphrates. The newly discovered cylinder inscription, however, shows that Nabonidus, the last King of Babylon, was not actually in the city at the time of the capture. At one end; rather, from end to end (see on Jeremiah 50:26). Jeremiah 51:32 And that the passages are stopped; rather, are seized (as Jeremiah 48:41). Babylon, it should be remembered, was divided nearly in half by the Euphrates. It was guarded, says Professor Rawlinson, "by two walls of brick, which skirted them along their whole length. In each of these walls were twenty-five gates, corresponding to the number of the streets which gave upon the river; and outside each gate was a sloped landing place, by which you could descend to the water’s edge, if you had occasion to cross the river. Boats were kept ready at these landing places to convey passengers from side to side; while for those who disliked this method of conveyance, a bridge was provided of a somewhat peculiar construction" (’Ancient Monarchies,’ 2.514). The reeds they have burned with fire. This rendering is no doubt tenable, though it gives an unusual meaning to the first noun. The "reeds" would be those of the marshes in the neighbourhood of Babylon; and Kimchi suggests that these would be cut down to facilitate the entrance of the army into the city, Surely a very forced explanation. The natural meaning of the first noun is "pools" or "lakes," and, considering that Herodotus (1.185) speaks of a lake in connection with the defences of Babylon, it has been thought (e.g. by Vitringa) that the prophet may refer to something which was to happen to this and similar lakes; "burned with fire" is then regarded as a hyperbolical expression equivalent to "dried up" (comp. Jeremiah 51:36). This, however, is hardly less forced than the first interpretation; and we seem almost compelled to assume s corruption of the text, and to read (for ’agammı̄n) ’armōnı̄m, palaces. If "palaces" (i.e. lofty houses, for such is the etymological meaning) were not uncommon at Jerusalem (Isaiah 32:14), much more frequent must they have been at Babylon, Or perhaps the prophet refers to the two magnificent royal palaces, which, together with the temple of Bel, constituted the wonders of Babylon. They were on opposite sides of the river, and were guarded with triple enclosures, the circumference in the one case amounting to sixty stadia (nearly seven miles), and in the other to thirty (Rawlinson, ’Ancient Monarchies,’ 2.514, etc.). Jeremiah 51:33 It is time to thresh her; rather, at the time when it is trodden (i.e. made level by treading or trampling); comp. Isaiah 21:10; Micah 4:13. Jeremiah 51:34 The Jewish captives are introduced, describing the offences of Babylon. Hath devoured me; rather, hath devoured us, and so on. "My delicates" (delights), however, is correct. He hath made me; rather, he hath set us (down) as. Swallowed me up like a dragon; or, literally, like the dragon. Comparing this with Jeremiah 51:44, it is difficult not to see an allusion to the Babylonian myth of the Serpent, who in the fight with Marduk (Meredach) devoured the tempest, which rent asunder her belly. The cuneiform text is given in Transactions of Society of Biblical Archaeology, vol. 4. part 2, appendix plate 6. Part of it runs thus— 25. ip-te-ra pi-i-sa Ti-amtu a-na la-h-a-h-sa Opened also her mouth Tiamtu to swallow it. 26. rukhu limnu yus-te-ri-ba a-na la ca-par sap-ti-sa The evil wind he caused to enter into the uncovering of her lips [= into her lips before she could close them] 27. iz-zu-ti rukhi car-sa-sa i-tsa-mi-va violent (were) the winds (which) her belly filled; and 28. in-ni-kud lib-ba-sa va-pa-a-sa yus-pal-ki (?) she was pierced in her heart and her mouth it caused to divide.‹je-7› Readers of Smith’s ’Chaldean Genesis’ will remember Tiamtu the dragon, and the representations thereof given from the gems. In line 27 the word rendered "her belly" contains the Babylonian analogue of the word rendered in this verse "his belly" (kres). With my delicates, he hath cast me out; rather,… cast us out; or, from my delights he hath cast as out. For the variation of person, comp. Judges 11:19, "Let us pass, we pray thee, through thy land into my place;" and on the whole phrase, Micah 2:9, "… ye have cast out from their pleasant homes." Jeremiah 51:35 And to my flesh; rather, and my (eaten)flesh (comp. Micah 3:3). Inhabitant; rather, inhabitress; i.e. virgin inhabiting. Jeremiah 51:36 Her sea; i.e. the Euphrates (comp. Isaiah 21:1), or perhaps the lake dug by Nitocris to receive the waters of the Euphrates, Herod; 1.185 (Payne Smith). Comp. on "the reeds," Jeremiah 51:32. Her springs, rather, her reservoirs. There are no springs, remarks Dr. Payne Smith, in the flat alluvial soil of Babylonia. The Hebrew word makor is used here collectively for the whole system of canals and reservoirs for the storing of the water. Jeremiah 51:37 Heaps. "Vast ’heaps,’ or mounds, shapeless and unsightly, are scattered at intervals over the entire region where it is certain that Babylon anciently stood" (Rawlinson, ’Ancient Monarchies,’ 2:521). Dragons; rather, jackals. Jeremiah 51:38-49 Fall of Babylon; joy of the whole world. Jeremiah 51:38, Jeremiah 51:39 They shall roar …. In their heat; rather, They may roar … (yet) when they wax warm (with lust) I will prepare. The banquet which Jehovah will prepare is the "cup of bewilderment" spoken of in Psalms 60:3; comp. Isaiah 51:17 (i.e. a calamitous judgment). Jeremiah 51:40 I will bring them down, etc. (comp. Isaiah 34:6; Ezekiel 39:18). Jeremiah 51:41 How is Sheshach taken! The Septuagint omits "Sheshach" (see, on the name, Jeremiah 25:26), and very possibly rightly. Jeremiah 51:42 The sea is come up, etc. It is not clear whether this is to be taken literally or metaphorically (of the sea of nations, comp. Jeremiah 51:55). Probably it is meant literally. It is said that the annual inundations of the Euphrates at present render many parts of the ruins of Babylon inaccessible. Jeremiah 51:44 Bel; i.e. Merodach, the patron deity of Babylon (see on Jeremiah 50:2). Swallowed up. An allusion to the myth mentioned above (see Jeremiah 51:34). That which Bel, i.e. Babylon, has "swallowed up" is not only the spoil of the conquered nations, but those nations themselves. Yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall; literally, is fallen (is as good as fallen). The famous wall of Babylon (comp. Jeremiah 51:58) is described by Herodotus. From this clause down to the first half of Jer 51:49 is omitted in the Septuagint. Jeremiah 51:46 And lest your heart faint, etc.; rather, and (beware) lest, etc. A rumour shall both come; rather, for a rumour shall come. The war, then, will last some time, and all kinds of rumours will be in the air. Keil compares Matthew 24:6. Jeremiah 51:48 From the north. The same statement as in Jeremiah 50:3, Jeremiah 50:9, Jeremiah 50:41. Jeremiah 51:49 As Babylon hath caused, etc. The verse is very difficult. Ewald and others render thus: "Not only must Babylon fall, O ye slain ones of Israel, but slain ones of the whole earth have fallen because of Babylon." But why this address to the slain ones of Israel? Besides, the antithesis indicated in the Hebrew is thereby destroyed. Hell explains the antithesis thus: "Just as Babylon was intent on the fall of slain ones in Israel, so also there fall because of Babylonian slain ones of all the earth," viz. because there are to be found, in the capital of the empire, people from all quarters of the world, who are slain when Babylon is conquered. A better antithesis seems to be gained if we follow the Peshito, and read, at the end of the verse, "in the whole earth." It will then be asserted by the prophet that, just as Babylon was the cause of the slaying of Israelites, so (as a punishment) the Babylonian fugitives shall be slain wherever they may wander. Jeremiah 51:50-58 Conclusion of the prophecy. Jeremiah 51:50 Ye that have escaped the sword. Evidently Jews are the persons addressed. It is not, however, perfectly clear whether the escape is from the sword of Babylon or from that of Divine vengeance. The parallel of Isa 24:14 would suggest the latter; but in the following verses the fall of Babylon is described as still to come. Stand not still. Lest ye be overtaken by the judgment. Jeremiah 51:51 We are confounded. A reflection of the exiles, expressing their deep shame at the ignominy which has been their lot. Are come; or, came. Jeremiah 51:53 The height of her strength; i.e. her lofty walls and towers. Jeremiah 51:55 The great voice; rather, the loud sound; i.e. the tumult of the city. When her waves; rather, and her waves; i.e. the conquering hosts (comp. Jeremiah 46:7). Jeremiah 51:56 The Lord God of recompenses shall, etc.; rather, The Lord is a God of recompense; he will, etc. Jeremiah 51:57 Her captains, and her rulers (see on Jeremiah 51:23). Jeremiah 51:58 The broad walls of Babylon … and her high gates. See Herod; 1.179, 181, and the parallel accounts from other authors, cited by Duncker (’Hist. of Antiquity,’ 3.373, etc.), who taxes Herodotus with exaggeration, but admits as probable that the walls were not less than forty feet broad. Utterly broken; rather, destroyed even to the ground (literally, made bare). The people; rather, peoples. Jeremiah 51:59-64 Epilogue. The word, etc. (see Jeremiah 51:61). Seraiah. Apparently the brother of Baruch. With Zedekiah. The Septuagint has "from Zedekiah," which is referred by Bleek and Gratz. It would thus be an embassy, of which Seraiah was the head. According to the ordinary reading, Zedekiah went himself. A quiet prince. Not so. The Hebrew means probably, "in command over the resting place," i.e. he took charge of the royal caravan, and arranged the halting places. But the Targum and the Septuagint have a more probable reading (not, however, one involving a change in the consonants of the text, "in command over the gifts," i.e. the functionary who took charge of the presents made to the king. M. Lenormant speaks of an official called "magister largitionum" (bel tabti) in the Assyrian court. Jeremiah 51:61 (Comp. Jeremiah 50:3; Jeremiah 51:26.) And shalt see, and shalt read; rather, See that thou read. Jeremiah 51:64 And they shall be weary. Accidentally repeated from Jeremiah 51:59 (see introduction to Jeremiah 1:1-19.). Thus far, etc. Proving that the Book of Jeremiah once ended with Jeremiah 51:1-64. Suffering, but not forsaken. Israel is not forsaken because she is driven from her home. Babylon is not more favoured because she flourishes for a season as a "golden cup in the Lord’s hand." For the land of the Chaldeans is filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel. Thus the truth is quite contrary to appearances. I. WHEN GOD HIS PEOPLE HE MUST NOT BE THOUGHT TO HAVE THEM. The chastisement is for their own good. It is, therefore, a proof that God has not neglected them. Instead of being an indication of hatred or indifference, chastisement is a sign of God’s love. Moreover, when his people suffer God is peculiarly near to them. Those captives who hung their harps on the willows by the rivers of Babylon found God more present than he had been to the careless sinful Jews who assembled in the courts of his temple. It is to be remembered that God is near to us when we do not perceive him, and often nearest in those dark hours when bitterness of soul prevents us from having any comforting hope in him. II. THOUGH GOD WILL HIS PEOPLE HE WILL NEVER FORSAKE THEM. This is a further step. Not only is the chastisement no proof of God’s having forsaken his people, but in no case will he forsake them; no such proof can ever be found. True, they may be separated from God and may become "castaways;" but this is only because they forsake him. He is ever true to his side of the covenant. Let us, therefore, be prepared to expect the chastisement, but also be well settled in faith that the far worse trouble, the neglect of our souls by God, can never come. III. OUTWARD ARE NO OF OUR WITH GOD. The great contrast between Israel and Babylon furnishes a striking instance of this truth. It is strange. For one would have thought that the outward and inward life would harmonize. So they will ultimately. Then the "golden cup" will be broken and the suffering child of God exalted to honour. But now the world is in confusion, evil is allowed a certain liberty for the consequent discipline of good, and thus the sufferers may be near to God while the fortunate and happy are far away in sin, Public thanksgiving. In the destruction of Babylon and the restoration of Israel the devout sufferers of the Captivity see the justification of their conduct which had lain under a shadow while they shared in the punishment of their guilty brethren. So happy an issue from their troubles calls for devout gratitude, and this finds its expression in hymns of praise and public thanksgiving. I. PRAISE IS ONE OF THE MOST OF WORSHIP. Two faults may be observed in much of our worship—both arising from our centring it in ourselves. 1. It is too selfish. We are more earnest in prayer than in praise. In sore need we cry out with terrible anxiety; but when the need is satisfied we return thanks in poor and faint tones. We are eager to obtain blessings for ourselves, but little desirous of glorifying God. Yet the essence of worship is self-surrender. We degrade it and contradict its spirit when we make it serve the ends of self-seeking. 2. It is too subjective. We dwell much on our own feelings instead of going out of self in the contemplation of God. Consequently our worship is pitched too much in the minor key. We wail out "Misereres" when we should be shouting "Magnificats." We have much to say about our low estate, but little concerning the way in which God has regarded it. But, the highest worship is adoration—the going out of self in wonder, love, and praise towards the glory of God. It would be well if we made less mention of our own feelings and were more ready to "declare the work of the Lord our God." II. PRAISE MUST BE IF IT IS TO BE EARNEST. Much of our worship is vapid and senseless because it is expressed in big vague phrases which carry little thought to our minds. 1. We should praise God by declaring his works. It is his character that we adore. But we see and realize this as it is reflected in his works. We see the glory of the sun, not by gazing with eagle vision into its dazzling centre, but by looking abroad on the many hues that it casts on land and sea and sky. We cannot see the glory of God by abstract speculations on divinity; we must study his works in nature, providence, and redemption. 2. We should praise God by noting those particular works which affect our experience. This is the secret of earnest praise. The Jews declare the works they have witnessed; i.e. the special blessings of the restoration. Each man can call to mind some of the blessings he has personally enjoyed, and in the consideration of these see good ground for glorifying God. III. THE OF PRAISE SHOULD BE PUBLIC. The people come together; they assemble at Zion, the place of public worship; they declare—make public—the works of God. This is fitting for many reasons. 1. It glorifies God. This is the only way in which we can glorify him. We cannot add to his glory, but we may reflect it. 2. It increases our own thankfulness. Joy is sympathetic. By sharing it we increase it. 3. It leads others to see the same glory and goodness of God. A song of praise is the most effectual sermon on the grace of God; for it is (1) the language of experience, (2) an expression of feeling, and (3) a vivid representation of "the works of the Lord our God." (See homily on Jeremiah 10:16.) God’s battle axe. I. GOD WORKS . He does not. delight in destruction. It is not his chief work. But he has performed it and he may again. When a thing is absolutely evil it is best that it should cease to be. For the prevention of further evil it must be destroyed. The Creator then becomes the destroyer. II. GOD USES HUMAN . He might have sent death, as he created life, with a word. But he chose to use a weapon, "a battle axe," i.e. a human instrument. Thus (1) he honours good men by making them his servants, and (2) he counteracts the evil influence of bad men by overruling it for ends of Divine judgment. III. THEY WHO CANNOT SERVE GOD IN THE HIGHER WORK MAY YET SERVE HIM IN SOME NEEDFUL MISSION. The man who cannot become a prophet may act as "God’s battle axe." In God’s great kingdom there is work for all classes and kinds of men. Rough and rude natures may find some mission. Still the highest mission is not that. of destruction. The most worthy servant of God is he who follows Jesus Christ and. "goes about doing good," Jeremiah 51:45 Flight from the city of Destruction. As Christ advised his disciples to flee from Jerusalem when the judgment of heaven was about to fall, Jeremiah here calla upon the Hebrew residents in Babylon to escape from the doomed city. The parallel suggests that similar circumstances may render similar conduct again desirable. I. THE SINFUL WORLD IS A CITY OF . The world as God created it. is good and safe. But man has made the world a dangerous place by his abuse of its lower properties. Thus the worldly spirit is an evil spirit, and the prince of this world is the supreme power of wickedness. Jesus Christ blended together his picture of the destruction of Jerusalem with a larger vision of the end of the world. In what way the wider and more distant fulfilment of his prophecy will come about we cannot tell; the day of it is known to no man, not even to the "Son of man" (Matthew 24:36). Meanwhile the world lies under a certain doom. It has been so corrupted and abused that to yield to its spirit, to follow its ways, to live mainly for its advantages, is to court ruin. II. THE IS URGED TO FLEE FROM THIS CITY OF . (2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1.) It would seem that the sharp line of separation between the world and the Church is melting away. Perhaps it was somewhat stiff and arbitrary. Many innocent things were once put under the ban which most of us would not now think of condemning, and an unhealthy sanctimoniousness was fostered by the idea that strictness was holiness. We are growing more free and more reasonable in some respects, learning that "every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it be received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified through the Word of God and prayer." Moreover, we may hope that the Spirit of Christ has penetrated into the world beyond the boundaries of the Church, so that the very atmosphere of worldly society is more or less permeated by purifying Christian ideas. Nevertheless the approach of the world and the Church is mutual If the world is coming nearer to the Church, the Church is in some respects approaching the world. A worldly spirit in business, in pleasure, even in religion, is too apparent. We forget that we are pilgrims and strangers here and seek another city. We live too much as if worldly prosperity were the goal of life. We need to be reminded that this is not our rest, that in so far as we yield to the spirit of worldliness we court the doom of the city of Destruction. III. THE ’S FLIGHT FROM THE CITY OF MUST BE . Jews were to flee bodily from Babylon and Christians from Jerusalem But the flight we need is wholly different in character. Monks and hermits thought to flee from the world by hiding within still cloisters or far away among desert solitudes. But they made a double mistake. They neglected their duty to the world and yet they did not escape from the evil of it. We may carry the world into the wilderness, for it is in our hearts. While we have bodies and live on the earth no change of place will be an escape from the world. Then we have a mission to fulfil, and no pretence of care for our own souls can excuse us for shirking the work of life; certain views of salvation are often put forth according to which Christianity is supreme selfishness—the saving of one’s own soul even though others suffer. These are false. The great duty of the Christian is to live for me good of his fellow men. To do this he must be in the world. Intercourse with the world for such a purpose is right. It is foolish to visit an infected locality for pleasure, but divinely charitable to do so to minister to the sick. The flight from the world must be escape from its spirit, its evil influence, its sinful delights. Christ prays, not that we shall be taken out of the world, but that we shall be saved from the evil of it. Through him we may have this deliverance, because he has "overcome the world." The duty and encouragement of the saved. I. THE DUTY. "Stand not still." 1. Why the duty is requisite. Past deliverance is no security for the future. The first arrow missed the mark, but the second may strike. The tide advances; though the waves have not yet reached us, they will overwhelm us if we remain where we are. (1) It is possible to avoid one earthly trouble and succumb to another—to escape the sword and fall a prey to the pestilence. (2) It is possible to escape much distress in this world and then to fall under a terrible doom in the next world. (3) It is possible to be safe now from the terrible effects of sin and to yield to future temptation and so bring upon our heads ruin in the future. 2. How the duty is to be performed. (1) We must be prayerful. As the danger is ever renewed so must the grace be. Therefore we need to be always seeking aid from heaven. (2) We must be watchful.. New dangers may arise at any moment. (3) We must be anxious to flee from evil. Our whole course must be with the back to the city of Destruction. (4) we must be diligent. The attainments of the past will not suffice. Forgetting those things which are behind, we must press forward. The Christian’s safety is not in indolent reliance upon Christ, but in trustful obedience. II. THE . "Remember the Lord from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind" 1. God’s grace in the past is an encouragement for the future. Past deliverances will not secure us against future danger, but they wall furnish reasons for seeking safety again in God. 2. The chief reason for pressing diligently and hopefully forward is to be found in the contemplation of God. His holiness should make us fear sin; his love should make us trust in his helping grace. That we may not stand still, we should "remember the Lord." 3. Our very remoteness from God should urge us not to stand still We may have wandered far from God in sin, or have forgotten him among the crowd of worldly distractions. But when we realize our condition, when we come to ourselves, we shall see that our only safety will be in arising and going to our Father. We can never be too far to return by Christ" the Way." The further we are from God the greater is our danger, the nearer we approach him the more of his grace and help shall we enjoy. 4. Thoughts of our mission and destiny should induce us not to stand still. The Jews are to remember Jerusalem, their ancient home, the seat of their future destinies. If there were no such city they might despair in their exile. The thought of Jerusalem suggests a centre of union and an aim for the future. If a man loses all hope, he loses himself. When we think of our possible future and of our mission, we are roused to take up the tangled threads and weave our life’s work with patience according to the pattern of God’s will. Jeremiah 51:52-64 The book cast into the river. I. MEN DO NOT SUFFER FOR THEIR SINS WITHOUT WARNING FROM GOD. Seraiah was to go to Babylon and see that he read there the words of the prophecy concerning the city. God has warned us of the doom of sin, and he has sent the warning to us. We have not to search for it. It sounds in our ears. It is written large in the Bible. It is repeated in the lessons of providence. II. IF A DIVINE WARNING IS IT IS USELESS TO THE DOOMED. The prophecy seems to have had little or no effect on the people of Babylon. No doubt it was sent in mercy like Jonah’s preaching against Nineveh, to lead the people to repentance. But if they failed to repent, the Divine message could afford no protection. Unless we are influenced by the Bible, it will be useless for us to hold it in our hands. It can be then only a witness against us. Neither the mere possessor of Scripture, nor the reader, nor the student of it finds a way of safety in its teachings, but only he who follows its truths in practice. He who hears Christ’s sayings and does them builds on the rock. III. WHEN A DIVINE WARNING IS PROVED TO BE IT MAY BE . The book, no longer of use, is to be cast into the river and sunk with a stone attached to it. The voice of conscience grows silent from being long unheeded. While men neglect to obey the teachings of Scripture, they harden themselves against the reception of them. If there is no mere warning, they may grow careless as though there were no more danger. They should rather take this silence as Ominous of the approaching destruction which the warning has been ineffectual in urging them to escape. BY A.F. MUIR Divine love not to be severed from its object. A marvellous statement. A down-trodden, sinful remnant of his people, who had broken every engagement of his covenant, is still owned and cared for. I. A PROOF OF THE AND LONG MERCY OF GOD. 1. Having entered into covenant relations with Israel, he will not withdraw from them, even although their portion of the agreement has not been kept. He remains faithful, notwithstanding human unfaithfulness. The awful guilt of the elect nation cannot invalidate the obligations God has imposed upon himself. He is ready, therefore, at any moment to fulfil these when the conditions are complied with. 2. But it is rather to be taken as illustrating Divine mercy. The purposes of his love are never laid aside. He devises schemes of salvation when we are yet sinners. 3. Though hidden from human eyes, Divine love works continually and through all things. It was hard for mere men to see the favour of God in such times. Many of the Israelites themselves, doubtless, imagined themselves forsaken. Yet was redemption nearer to them in Babylon than when at Jerusalem they insulted and disobeyed him. "All things work together for good to them that love God," ere.; "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job 13:15). II. A FULL OF WARNING AND . 1. The enemies of the Church are not to presume upon her misfortunes. 2. The Church itself, although cast down and feeble, is to be of good courage, for it is not cast off. Adversity is not forsakenness. "Lo, I am with you alway." There is no room for presumption, for the chastisements of love have greater severities in store for aggravated guilt. But, relying on the grace of God, it may arise and recommence the mission it has forsaken.—M. Jeremiah 51:6, Jeremiah 51:50 The duty of separating from the world. I. IN WHAT SENSE UPON THE OF GOD. 1. Spiritual detachment is always the duty of saints. In heart and life they are to be separate unto the Lord. Their motives, ulterior aims, and dispositions are to be such as the Holy Spirit creates and fosters. They obey the law of the resurrection life, and "seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, setting their affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Colossians 3:1, Colossians 3:2). 2. Physical removal may be requisite when (1) all hope of saving or benefiting sinful men is at end; or (2) there is danger that we snail yield to the temptations of their society, or encourage them in their evil courses, and thus share their curse. The Jews were to seek the peace of Babylon so long as that was possible; to share in civic life, business pursuits, and social intercourse, until this prophecy came to their knowledge. II. THE MOTIVES AND AIMS THAT ARE TO US IN DOING THIS, They are not selfish. It is only when spiritual interests are at stake. There must be no idleness or lingering when the call of duty comes. The Jew was to arise and seek his long forsaken land at once. His motives were: 1. Allegiance to God. He was to "remember the Lord afar off." God was indeed near to him, even there in Babylon. lie is to seek more closely to serve and honour him. And this ought ever to be the aim of Christians: "a closer walk with God." And if he be spiritually minded, he will feel the attraction of the Divine presence and the blessedness of the Divine communion, which far more than make up for temporal loss or sorrow incurred for conscience’ sake. It is the special duty of Christians to call upon God and obey him when amongst those who do not know his Name. 2. The interests of the kingdom of God on earth. God sought to separate and sanctify to himself a peculiar people in olden time, that it might witness to his truth. He still seeks to gather a spiritual Church, whose communion consists of those who are redeemed by the blood of his Son. Through its manifold ministries he is carrying out the salvation of the world. Every Christian is bound to connect himself with it in some form or other, and to take his part in its worship and work. The language of the ancient exile might well be adopted by every member of the new Israel—Psalms 122:1-9.; Psalms 137:5, Psalms 137:6.—M. Praise the outcome of saintly experience. These are the words of Jeremiah, but there can be little doubt he is but instinctively interpreting the emotion that must fill the breasts of his countrymen when his predictions were accomplished. As a representative Israelite, he expresses the deep-seated impulse that is felt when the greater providences and special spiritual deliverances of life are realized. I. OF SAVING GRACE AN OF AND PRAISE. We owe thankful recognition to God for our creation, preservation, and the recurring, mercies of our temporal life; but there are stronger emotions awakened by the experiences of grace in the spiritual nature. 1. Notice some of these. This deliverance from Babylon. Conversion, or the rescue of the soul from the spiritual Babylon. The triumphs of the gospel; faithfulness of saints; increase of spiritual power and influence; preservation of Christian institutions in times of spiritual apathy or persecution; evangelization of heathen lands, etc. Special answers to prayer, or peace and comfort in private fellowship with our heavenly Father. 2. Their general character. "The Lord hath brought forth our righteousness" ("righteousnesses"). This deliverance was a great act of judgment. The cause of God’s people was vindicated, and the guilt of Babylon avenged! (cf. Psalms 37:6). The whole world was witness of the character and meaning of the event. And this is the element in all the experiences of grace that awakens special thanksgiving—they are manifestations of Divine righteousness in the life of men; triumphs of truth and holiness and love. II. THE SPECIAL DUTY TO WHICH THEY CALL US. 1. Declaring and interpreting God’s work to men, (1) by word; (2) by work. 2. Public celebration in God’s house. Zion was the most fitting and representative, place for such a duty. Public worship should be linked with the experiences of private devotion and the spiritual life. Public and common praise is the privilege and delight of Christians.—M. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 51:6 Escape for thy life! "Flee out of the midst of Babylon," etc. This word was addressed to those who should be found in Babylon when the day of vengeance came upon her (cf. Genesis 19:15). And it seems to anticipate what was afterwards the fact—that many of the Jews would not care to go away from Babylon. Note— I. WHO ARE TO ESCAPE. This word was not addressed to all. Many of God’s people did "let Jerusalem come into their mind," and, as soon as ever opportunity was given them, they returned to their own land. But there were many who chose to stay. They had long dwelt in Babylon. They had got to like her rule, for they had prospered in this world’s wealth. The surrounding idolatries did not "vex" their souls. They felt secure in her; they had become morally and spiritually enslaved. Hence they would not return with their brethren when the opportunity came. And how like is the position of men now! They are in bondage and spiritual captivity under the power of "the prince of this world." Some have heard the word and have escaped, but others care not to flee. They are content to be where and as they are. II. WHENCE THEY ARE TO ESCAPE. Babylon stands for the kingdom of evil, which is ruled over by the spirit of evil. Now, that kingdom is fitly represented by Babylon. The power, the attractiveness, the fascination, the deceptiveness, the widespread and long continued rule of the one find their type and likeness in the other. And the unwillingness which was felt by the great majority of Jews to quit Babylon is paralleled by the more sad unwillingness to abandon that kingdom of evil which God is ever bidding us escape and flee from. III. WHY WE ARE TO ESCAPE. It is "for our life." This cannot be taken literally of the Jews in Babylon. For, so far as this life was concerned, they prospered greatly under the Persian rule (cf. Book of Esther in proof). And their descendants lived on right down to the times of the apostles, and were those "of the dispersion" of whom we read in the New Testament. But for the most their national and spiritual life was lost by their disobedience to this command. They ceased to be Jews, and were absorbed in the heathen nations around. And, of course, their religious life perished at the same time (see histories of the Captivity). And so in regard to the spiritual analogies of these events. Men will not, do not, literally lose this life by refusing to come away from the kingdom of evil into the kingdom of God. On the contrary, they seem to flourish greatly. The prosperity of the ungodly has been a notorious and perplexing fact in all ages of the world, And it is a sore temptation and trial to those who feel the drawing of the kingdom of God. And the temptation can only be overcome by remembering that the life of the soul depends upon our obedience to this word. It is when the unseen and the eternal are seen by faith that the gloss and glamour of the world are seen at their real and poor value, and the solid worth of the kingdom of God is confessed and yielded to. The angels had to "hasten" even "just Lot," though the fire of the Lord was on the point of descending on "the cities of the plain." And how we need hastening now! How slow to believe that judgment is nigh! For with the advent of death that judgment begins to every soul that enters into eternity unforgiven and unsaved. IV. HOW WE SHALL ESCAPE. The one all-essential question is—Do you really wish to? For if there be the genuine desire, the path of escape will be soon revealed. No directions are of any use until this desire be awakened in the soul. But where it exists, it will express itself in what the Bible calls "seeking the Lord." And, as this is continued, there will he deepened in the soul that hatred of sin and aspiration after holiness which lie at the root of all true religious life. Repentance will thus be formed within the soul, and will be fostered by careful obedience to the will of God as declared in his Word. But— V. WHITHER SHALL WE ESCAPE? There is but one answer to this. To the Lord Jesus Christ. It is as we look up to him in lowly, earnest trust, renouncing all self-reliance, that the new life is begotten in us, and we are grafted in him, and so become "new creatures," as St. Paul tells, and so are we in the kingdom of God, and clean escaped from the kingdom of the evil one. We are pardoned, accepted, made possessors of the Holy Ghost and of eternal life.—C. The response of the redeemed. "The Lord hath …come, and let us" etc. I. WHAT THE LORD HATH DONE. "Brought forth our righteousness." Now, by this we may understand: 1. The Lord lath brought forth, made known, revealed, him who is our Righteousness. By his representative character, what is done by him is as done by us. "We thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead" (2 Corinthians 5:14). There is nothing unreasonable in this. We are perpetually imputing to others what is not in them or but very faintly in them. We do so when we treat strangers with all kindness for the sake of those—some honoured and beloved ones—who commend them to us. We cause to flow over on them the worth and goodness of those by whom they are commended. They may not merely be strangers, but unworthy and evil, and yet, for the sake of others, we deal with them, not as they are, but as those are from whom they come. So is the Lord Jesus our Righteousness, blessed be his Name! 2. The Lord hath brought forth righteousness in us. But for him there would have been no righteousness at all. Some speak of "natural goodness." There is no such thing. All goodness, like all light, has but one source. Divines tell of ruined arches, stately pillars, etc; relies of the noble fabric that once was. But Scripture rather teaches that sin wrought death. If, then, there be aught that is beautiful and good, fair and righteous—and there is, and much—it is not a relic, but a new creation. It comes from him who is "the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:1-51.; cf. James 1:16). And when a man yields up his soul to Christ, then—vitally grafted into him, the true Vine, and having become a living branch—he will more and more yield the fruit of righteousness, as he never did or could before. 3. The Lord hath brought forth his covenant. That is to say, he hath brought forth in his own mind, so as to remember, his covenant that he made (cf. Psalms 105:8-15; Psalms 111:1-10; etc.). It is ever declared to be on the ground of this covenant that God dealt well with his people. Now, that covenant had been, as it were, put out of the Divine mind by the multitude of their sins. But now he brings it forth again. 4. The Lord hath vindicated us. The enemies of the Lord blasphemed his people. Counted them as having no worth or goodness at all; as far inferior to all others. But, despised as his people were and condemned, now, by God’s redemption of them, he was to bring forth their righteousness, vindicate them, on and before all (cf. Psalms 37:5-7). This, which he did for Israel, he will do for all his people—"will bring forth their righteousness as the light, and their judgment as the noonday." II. WHAT, , SHOULD WE DO? "Come, and let us declare in Zion the work of the Lord our God." This is what we are to do. 1. Why should we do this? For the honour of God. It is his due. For our own soul’s sake; to keep silence on what he has done for us is not only dishonouring to him, but disastrous to our own souls. For the encouragement of others, that they may be led to trust in him. 2. How should we do this? Openly: "Let us declare in Zion," etc. Not concealing our obligation, not refusing to confess him. Unitedly: "Come, and let us," etc. Join with them of a like mind. Heartily: calling on others to do the like, "Come," etc. In his Church: "In Zion." There taking our place, falling into rank in the army of the Lord. In the heavenly Zion the redeemed of the Lord never tire of thus declaring the work of the Lord.—C. Jeremiah 51:19 The Portion of Jacob .—C. The Church God’s battle axe. God ever employs instruments to accomplish his purposes. He is a God that "hideth" himself. Hence many see nothing but instruments, and forget, or deny, the hand that uses them. "That does not seem much of a sword;" said one, as he looked upon the treasured weapon of a great national hero and valiant soldier. Ah, but you do not see the hand that wielded it, was the just reply. So as we look on the agencies God employs, how feeble they seem to be! But think of the force behind them, and then the works they accomplished are explained. Now, this is true of all God’s works. Especially is it true in all the great spiritual achievements which we have heard of or seen. This verse refers to Israel, in reference to the idolatrous nations around them, and to Babylon especially. Israel was the unseen cause that led to the overthrow and destruction of one nation after another. For the Church’s sake God governs the world. "All things are yours." Now, note— I. THE WITNESS OF HISTORY to the truth that God’s people are his "battle axe and weapons of war." "I came not to send peace upon earth, but a sword," said Jesus, and in the same sense as this verse declares that word is true. "Magna est veritas, et prevalebit," is another rendering of the same fact. 1. Before the birth of Christ the pure monotheistic faith of Israel had, after their captivity, begun its iconoclastic work. Over large portions of the then civilized world that faith began to permeate and cleave its way. So that the old idolatries were in many places stricken with a mortal blow before even he was proclaimed who was to draw all men unto him. 2. The downfall of paganism. Notwithstanding the many accretions of error and superstition with which the pure faith of Christ so soon became encumbered, there yet remained inherent in it and inseparable from it such vital and mighty energy that it smote as with a "battle axe" one falsehood after another, until they were well nigh all slain. The forces against her in that ancient world were simply tremendous, but the Church went forth conquering and to conquer. In vain the scorn of the great, the fires of awful persecution, the power of venerable superstition; in vain the hindrances which she herself put in her own way; the Church was still God’s destroying power against the false religions of that age, until at length the last emperor of Rome who endeavoured to revive paganism, Julian—whom a corrupt hierarchy malignantly branded as "the apostate," though, in fact, he was less apostate than themselves—confessed with his dying breath, "O Galilaean, thou hast conquered!" In all that long and heart-stirring conflict this declaration of the prophet was illustrated again and again. 3. In the Reformation. Not alone in those nations in which the Reformation principles took root, but in the Church of Rome herself, was the error and evil destroying power of the truth that dwelt in the hearts of God’s people made manifest. See in such a book as Ranke’s ’History of the Popes’ what vast difference and improvements were brought about in the Catholic Church itself by the awful discipline through which she had then to pass. Whatever stern censures may have to be passed on that Church since the days of the Reformation—and they are neither few nor light—yet candour must admit that they are far fewer and far lighter than those which the outraged conscience of Christendom heaped upon her in the generations before. 4. In all missionary and evangelistic triumphs over heathendom. II. THE WITNESS OF . We are wont to speak of the truth of God as "mighty to the pulling down of the strongholds of sin and Satan." This is a Christian commonplace. And is it not true? What but this battle axe slew the giant sins that ruled and oppressed in each soul? III. THE SECRET OF THIS FORCE. What makes the Church God’s battle axe? We answer: 1. The truth that sustains her. The truth concerning God and our relations to him—he our Father and we all his children. 2. The spirit that animates her; not one of hate or disregard to man, as was common before Christ came, but love—love even towards the vilest for Christ’s sake. 3. The rule that regulates her. The heathen looked on with amazement at the blamelessness of life and the sanctity of character which the faith of the Church produced, and they felt and owned its power. 4. The love that constrains her. She ever "bore about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," and, mindful of that, she shrank from no suffering and refused no service. 5. The hope that cheers her. She wrought, not for a corruptible crown, but an incorruptible; and the hope, "that blessed hope," of her Lord’s appearing to receive and reward his people, cheered them on amid the awful sufferings which they were called on to bear. And still it is in proportion as these mighty motives animate the Church in the individual soul that faithful and effectual service is done for Christ against the many and mighty adversaries of God with which the world abounds.—C. A fatal fact. "Behold, I am against thee." I. ITS TRUTH . When Jerusalem was taken the captain of Nebuchadnezzar’s army avowed that what had happened was of God (cf. Jeremiah 40:2). So afterwards when, by the Roman army, Jerusalem was again captured, as our Lord foretold it would be, then too we have it on record that a like avowal was made by the leader of the Roman armies. And so here in regard to Babylon, no other conclusion could be come to. So vast was the power of Babylon that only the Divine opposition could explain the calamities that came upon her. And so when we see nations, Churches, men, that have every worldly advantage nevertheless brought low, as Rome was by the Goths, we can account for it only by this fact—"I am against thee." II. ITS SHOWN. If empires like Babylon cannot stand when God is against them, who else can stand? "If these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" If the mightiest fall beneath the Divine opposition, who of lesser power can hope to endure? "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." He is sure to if these do. III. ITS EVIDENT. Send an embassage and seek conditions of peace (Luke 14:31). "Be ye reconciled unto God." "Acquaint thyself with God, and be at peace."—C. Harvests of horror and threshings of wrath. The Bible continually makes use of the similitude of the harvest and its labours, but it is only by its qualifying words that we can know what kind of harvest is meant. Here we have the frequent metaphor, but it tells of no joy, of sorrow only. Similar language has been used of Israel as is here used of Babylon (cf. Isaiah 21:10; Isaiah 41:15). Israel’s sins had been the seed of that harvest, and it was a terrible one. All the sorrows of the invasion and destruction of their beloved land and city, their holy city, Jerusalem, and all those which were associated with and sprang out of their bitter exile in Babylon, were but parts of that harvest and strokes of "the bruising flails of God’s corrections." But here it is Babylon that is spoken of (cf. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/pulpit-commentary/ The contents of this chapter prove that it is not an independent narrative, but the concluding part of a history of the kings of Judah. It agrees almost word for word with 2 Kings 24:18-25:30, from which we are justified in inferring that it is taken from the historical work which the editor of the Books of Kings closely followed. It is most improbable that Jeremiah was the author. Would the prophet have contented himself with the meagre statement that Zedekiah "did that which was evil in the eyes of the Lord" (verse 2), or with such a summary description of the siege of Jerusalem? Apparently the editor who attached Jeremiah 52:1-34. as an appendix to the Book of Jeremiah omitted the account of Gedaliah (preserved in 2 Kings 25:22-26) because a fuller narrative had been already given in ch. 40-42. Apparently, too, either the same or some later editor inserted verses 28-30 from another source; the passage differs in several respects from 2 Kings 24:1-20. The text of ch. 52. seems to be a nearer approach to the original document than that of 2 Kings 24:18-25:30 (see Graf’s commentary). Compare ch. 39. Jeremiah 52:3 It came to pass. The implied subject of the verb is Zedekiah’s evil doing. That Zedekiah rebelled. There ought to be a full stop before these words, and "that" should rather be "And." Jeremiah 52:6 The famine was sore (see the pathetic descriptions in Lamentations 1:19, Lamentations 1:20; Lamentations 2:11, Lamentations 2:12, Lamentations 2:20; Lamentations 4:9, Lamentations 4:10). Jeremiah 52:7 Broken up; rather, broken into. The plain. The Hebrew has," the Arabah," the name constantly given to the chalky depression in the midst of which the Jordan ran. Jeremiah 52:9 Gave judgment (see on Jeremiah 1:16). Jeremiah 52:11 In prison; literally, in the house of custody. Jeremiah 52:22 All of brass, etc.; rather, all of brass: and like unto these had the second pillar, and pomegranates. Jeremiah 52:23 On a side; rather, towards the outside. Jeremiah 52:28 In the seventh year. As Ewald and Keil agree, we should correct "seventh" into "seventeenth" (just as in 2 Chronicles 36:9, for "eight" we should read "eighteen"). On the small number of Jews deported Ewald remarks, "Nothing so clearly shows the extent to which the best men from the upper classes had been already despatched by the Chaldeans across the Euphrates, as the fact that in all the years of the second, and, if it be insisted on, of the third revolt, put together, they found only 4600 men more whom they thought worth the trouble of transporting" (’History of Israel,’ 4.265). As to the third deportation, see on Jeremiah 41:1. Jeremiah 52:31 Lifted up the head of Jehoiachin. Ewald thinks that Jehoiachin was regarded by the Jews in exile as the legitimate king, and compares Lamentations 4:20; Lamentations 2:9. Jeremiah 52:4-7 The siege and capture of Jerusalem. I. GENERAL LESSONS OF THE SIEGE. 1. God will perform his threats. The capture of Jerusalem had been long and frequently predicted. The accumulated prophecies were now fulfilled. 2. Delay of judgment is no reason for expecting it to be permanently withheld. The fate of Jerusalem seemed to be long postponed. But at length it came. 3. Previous immunity is no security for the future. The Jews fondly idolized Jerusalem as a charmed city. It seemed impossible that she should fall into the hands of her foes. We grow careless and confident through a series of fortunate escapes. But our confidence is irrational unless it has any deeper ground. 4. The favour of God is no protection against the punishment of sin. The Jews regarded themselves as Divine favourites. They had received many peculiar privileges. But these made the duty of fidelity only the more obligatory. For the most favoured people to be faithless was a great and terrible wickedness. Indeed, the favour of God, instead of mitigating punishment, makes a heavier penalty to be fitting for those who are so ungrateful as to sin against it. II. SPECIAL OF THE SIEGE. 1. It was thorough. The great king Nebuchadnezzar came in person and "all" his army, and pitched a camp and built forts. Every effort was made to secure the city. The instruments of Divine vengeance are terrible, earnest, and vigorous. 2. It was protracted. It lasted for eighteen months How wearily those days and weeks and months must have dragged themselves along, every hour increasing the agony! But what is this period to the vast, dim reaches of the "punishment of the ages," which awaits lost souls? 3. It produced horrible sufferings. In the madness of famine, women devoured their own children. Thus God punished (1) "satiation and disgust towards his holy Word and soul food; (2) the terrible offering up of children to Moloch; (3) the loose discipline of children" (Cramer, quoted by Naegelsbach). From a merely selfish position, who that knew and realized the frightful consequences of his sins would bring these upon his head for the sake of the poor pleasures of an hour? 4. It was successful. The siege ended in the capture of Jerusalem. The force of Nebuchadnezzar was great and terrible, but behind it was the judicial will of Heaven. To withstand this was certainly futile. All resistance to the decrees of Divine judgment must be vain. Our one hope is not in opposition, but in penitent cries for God’s mercy and unresisting submission to his will. Jeremiah 52:8-11 The fate of Zedekiah. I. THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE FATE OF . 1. The general calamity of his nation. The king suffers with his people. Unfortunately it too often happens that an innocent people is punished for the fault of its sovereign. We must not be surprised if the converse is sometimes true. We are all members one of another. Not only kings, but in a less degree private individuals, must expect to share the troubles of the community, apart from the exact measure of private desert. In this life the execution of Divine justice is general; in the next life it will be particular—then the judgment will be individualistic. 2. His own sin. Zedekiah did "evil in the eyes of the Lord" (Jeremiah 52:2). Others may have done worse and escaped. But if we have no more severe a fate than we deserve, we can find no ground for complaint in the fact that more wicked men receive (at present) a milder treatment. 3. His weakness. Zedekiah was more weak than wicked. It is often observable in history that the weak king suffers calamities which the bad king escapes. But weakness is a culpable defect in a sovereign. If he is not strong enough for his duties he should resign the reins of power. No one has a right to retain a post which he cannot efficiently fulfil. Moral weakness is always wrong—to be blamed as much as to be pitied—for it can be overcome (Isaiah 40:29-31). 4. His erroneous policy. Zedekiah was set on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar; he plotted with Pharaoh against his suzerain; and when his rebellion roused the vengeance of Babylon, he found Egypt to be only "a broken reed." In his case the vanity of trust in princes was illustrated. 5. The will of God. The fate of Zedekiah had been predicted by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 34:1-7). The prophecy implied a Divine decree. God has no hard, cruel decrees irrespective of our conduct and will. But following our wrong doing, God’s fixed counsels of judgment make flight hopeless. II. THE LEADING OF THE FATE OF . 1. He was captured in the agonies of flight. According to Josephus, this was not till he had reached the banks of the Jordan. How terrible to be so nearly saved, and yet to fall a prey to vengeance at last! To be only almost saved is worse than never to have had a hope of deliverance. They who have been near to the kingdom of heaven and have not entered it will feel the more bitterly the doom that they will share with the city of Destruction. "Remember Lot’s wife." 2. He was carried to Babylon and tried before King Nebuchadnezzar. The triumph of the great monarch was the shame of his vassal. 3. His children were slain before his eyes. Parents suffer in the sufferings of their children more than in the pain of their own bodies. The action of Nebuchadnezzar was cruel, brutal, devilish. There are no such spiteful elements in God’s punishment of the wicked. His is given in sorrow and with reluctance. 4. His eyes were put out. Here was the greatest refinement of cruelty. Zedekiah’s sight was preserved till he had witnessed the death agonies of his children. Then he was blinded, so that the last vision to dwell in his memory was the harrowing spectacle of his children’s massacre. But after so terrible a sight would the wretched man care to look on the light of day? 5. He was detained in prison till his death—a punishment worse than death. Dethroned, humiliated, in chains, in a dungeon, bereaved of his children, the poor blind king is left to the agony of his own bitter thoughts. May God deliver us from a similar fate in the future world! Jeremiah 52:13 The destruction of the temple. I. THE EARTHLY IS . Solomon’s temple was the pride of the Jews. For centuries it had stood mellowing with age. But when the brutal Chaldeans flung their torches at it the magnificent pile of buildings was soon reduced to a mass of smouldering ruins. Sic transit gloria mundi. An invasion, a revolution, a conflagration, may destroy the work of years in a night. Splendid possessions are poor refuges. A palace is not necessarily a castle. II. THERE IS NO SAFETY IN HOLY PLACES AND THINGS. The temple was burnt, and its treasures and sacred vessels were carried to Babylon. The flames that leaped up on the private houses of Jerusalem found no charmed circle to keep them off from the temple. The building was holy only in so far as it was put to holy uses. But when it was desecrated by sin no magical influence could prevent it from complete destruction. And if the temple could not preserve itself, much less could it protect its superstitious devotees. It was vain indeed for them to cry, "The temple of the Lord," as though the words were a spell to ward off trouble. Thus all who trust in holy sites, ceremonial services, etc; apart from spiritual devotion, will find their faith wrecked, even if the idol of their superstition is not destroyed. III. WHEN THE SPIRIT OF HAS A TEMPLE THE OF THE MAY BE A GOOD RATHER THAN AN EVIL. The temple is then worse than useless; it is a snare, tempting men to believe that all is well so long as it stands. So the ordinances of religion delude men into false confidence. While these are duly administered with imposing solemnity, it is difficult to believe that the spirit of religion has fled. Let these go too and men have their eyes open to their true condition. The temple without true worship is a mockery to God. When the soul has gone the body had better be put away as soon as possible. If the Christian has ceased to offer spiritual sacrifices in his body as in a temple of the Holy Ghost, his life is no longer of any true value. When this temple is destroyed the fate is striking and alarming, yet it is but little after its sad desecration through sin. IV. THE ONLY DURABLE WORK IS AND HOLY WORK, "Each man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire" (1 Corinthians 3:13). There will be a test to the work of life. This may be splendid as a temple, but if it is unholy and earthly in character it must pass away ultimately. How many temples, and cities, and kingdoms, "cloud-capped towers, and gorgeous palaces" have left "not a rack behind"! It is the spiritual work of a man that endures. Even this fails, fruitless, unless it is good in character. Jeremiah 52:16 Sparing the poor. I. THE FACT. Whilst the king, the nobles, the wealthy, and many others were carried into exile, certain of the poor were still left in the land. We are accustomed to speak of the hardships of poverty, but there are compensating advantages not a few. Many evils of the worst character only visit the rich. In times of public trouble the houses of the rich are attacked and the persons of the great are threatened, while the poor are left in happy neglect. Great men are beset with anxieties such as are unknown to the simpler lives of the poor. Who would be a king now that kings are all marks for the assassin? In those countries where the sovereign is compelled to take elaborate precautions for his safety, the poor citizen can move about the streets without fear. The one is a prisoner in his own palace, the other a free man with liberty to roam over the whole kingdom. Ambition aims at distinction, but that is a poor crown to win. Distinguished men have peculiar vexations and dangers of their own. There is more happiness in obscurity. The wise man will say, "Give me neither poverty nor riches;" and the Christian will add, "Not my will, but thine, be done," knowing well that for him that lot is best which his heavenly Father assigns to him. II. THE . What was there in the condition of the poor to induce the Chaldeans to spare them? 1. Their innocence. The peasants had not been plotting against Nebuchadnezzar, and the vengeance that the Babylonian monarch vented on the king and the seat of his government was naturally averted from the quiet country folk. These men were also more innocent in the sight of God. The leading people had shown their faithlessness in turning from Jehovah to Egypt; they, too, had probably descended the lowest in the vices of the age, which brought upon the nation the wrath of God. Poor men may be bad men. But there are sins to which they are less liable than great men. 2. Their weakness. While the great men were removed to Babylon, there would appear to be little danger of an insurrection among the poor people scattered over the farms, who had enough to do to earn their daily bread. There is a protection in weakness. A little strength often courts danger. They who are weak in themselves may be strong in the protection of God’s providence. 3. Their usefulness. These poor people were left to work as "vine dressers and husbandmen." Nebuchadnezzar had no wish to see his newly acquired territory converted into a desert. It was for his advantage that some of the people should be spared. There is no protection like usefulness. Be serviceable and you will be safe. lie who lives for the real. good of his fellow men and the glory of his great Master may be sure that no harm can touch him so long as he is faithful to his task. Jeremiah 52:31-34 The deliverance of Jehoiachin. The new king signalized his accession to power by an act of clemency. Possibly he saw no reason to continue the cruelty of his predeceesor now that the Jews were quieted; possibly he was influenzal by Daniel. Whatever the cause of it may have been, it is pleasant to see how mercy "becomes the throned monarch better than his crown." I. MAY COME AT LENGTH AFTER . Jehoiachin had endured thirty-seven years of imprisonment. He must have lost hope long before his liberation. Yet the longest night has its end. If trouble outlast life, there is the blessed liberator, death, that ultimately frees the most wretched from his distresses. Then what will thirty-seven years of suffering be to the ages of eternity? It is a weary time to endure, but, Compared with the life beyond, it will seem both light and brief. II. THE OF MUST MAKE THE RETURN OF THE COMMON MERCIES OF LIFE A . What a meaning there is in the word "liberty" in the ears of the captive! Only the sufferers from thirst know the sweetness of water. The sick, when restored, enjoy health as the strong never can. Jehoiachin would find his change of circumstances wonderful beyond all expression. III. NO EARTHLY IS PERFECT. The old man had endured captivity so long that he must have been bewildered and distracted by his release. For him, once a proud tyrant, now an aged, humiliated captive, crushed with the imprisonment of more than a third of a century, the thoughtless merriment of a court would seem like the life of another world or like a dream of childhood. His sufferings must have been too severe and too protracted for him to enter at once into the liberty and honour that were offered to him; One can scarcely think that he could ever feel at home with them. We know not what will be the first impressions of a new world when the soul escapes from its earthly captivity and enters the court of heaven. But there is an essential difference between Jehoiachin’s condition and this. Jehoiachin remained an old man, worn with suffering as well as with years. The Christian has the gift of eternal life. To him the liberation by death is more than a change of external circumstances. He looks for the renewal of the fresh vigour of youth. Jehoiachin was never restored to his kingdom; at best he was an honoured subject of Babylon. But the Christian is restored to more than the primitive rights of man—to glory and kingship. Finally, there is no indication that Jehoiachin was changed in character. His long, lonely sufferings and the many reflections of thirty-seven years of imprisonment may have humbled him to penitence. But the historian does not appear to know of any such change. Yet a man’s greatest enemy is himself. Deliverance of the body from a dungeon is a small boon if the soul is still captive to sin. The salvation in Christ effects this complete deliverance. BY S. CONWAY Jeremiah 52:1 Zedekiah. (Cf. former homily, Jeremiah 37:1.)—C. The Lord creating evil. This is one of the passages of Scripture the meaning of which does not lie on the surface. It seems to represent God as instigating sin. For "through the anger of the Lord" it is said "that Zedekiah rebelled." But it was for that very rebellion he was so sorely punished, and yet it is said it was "through the Lord." Note— I. THERE ARE OTHER LIKE THIS. Cf. "the Lord hardening Pharaoh’s heart." The history of Judas. "None of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might, be fulfilled" (John 17:12). Again," Is there evil in the city and I have not done it?" (Amos 3:6; Isaiah 45:7). And St. Peter’s word to the Jews on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:23). They wickedly did what nevertheless God had determined before to be done. And there are yet other Scriptures besides these. II. THEY GIVE ELSE TO GREAT . It is not difficult to understand that men should do wrong, or even the particular wrong which is charged against them and for which they are punished; but the difficulty is that the sin should be seemingly ascribed to God. And the Jews seem to have believed that God did prompt men to sin; cf. John 9:1, "Who did sin, this man or his parents in order that (ἱνα) he should be born blind?" The effect, the man’s blindness, they looked on as designed and intended by God, and hence the cause producing that effect must have been designed also. As we read over Scriptures like these, the question of Abram starts immediately to our lips, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (cf. Romans 3:5-8). God "may and must transcend our understanding. He will by the very nature of the case dazzle and confound our imagination by the unsuspected riches and glory of his many mansions; but he must not trouble our sense of right if he would retain our homage and our love." But it is this sense of right that is troubled by what seems to be the teaching of Scriptures like these. They seem to teach that God prompts men to sin and then punishes them for it. Some who reasoned with St. Paul appear to have suggested (cf. Romans 3:1-31) that in such cases God was "unrighteous’" who took "vengeance." The apostle does not attempt to argue the matter, but treats the suggestion with a sort of "Get thee behind me, Satan," which is what his μὴγένοιτο really amounts to. And where the suggestion is made from mere captious motives, or with the intent only to support a foregone conclusion and determination to disregard God, then such a reply is the proper one to make. But it can never be other than right to endeavour to meet the honest difficulties which some of the utterances of God’s Word and some of the actings of his providence do unquestionably give rise to. If the suggestion were true that God made men to sin and then damned them for it, nothing could be more horrible, and no possible force could make men trust, love, or sincerely worship a God who would act so. But the suggestion is not true; for— III. THE IS , NOT REAL. God is never the author of sin. "The Lord is holy in all his ways, and righteous in all his works." "Let no man say when he is tempted," etc. (cf. James 1:13). But when sin has been Begotten in a man’s soul by his own evil desires, then the special form in which that sin shall manifest itself is very often ordered by God. This is how we understand all these passages. That very Babylon in connection with which this John 9:3 is written may supply an apt illustration. Isaiah calls Babylon "the desert of the sea," for when, by reason of the melting of the snows which fed the Euphrates and her many tributaries, the great river overflowed its hanks, the great plain on which Babylon stood became like a vast sea. But the great Assyrian lords cut their canals and constructed their massive dams and reservoirs so that the superabundant and otherwise destructive waters were directed into safe channels, and could do no further harm. Those monarchs were not the authors of the floods, but by their skill and wisdom they directed which way those floods should flow. On one of our great railways a little while ago, a signalman saw to his horror that an engine had somehow got away without its driver, and was rushing on with ever-increasing speed to its own destruction and that of the first unhappy passenger train—and one was nearly due—that it should meet. Quick as thought the signalman seized his levers and turned the runaway into a siding where it could harm no one but itself. In every large fire the firemen act in a similar way. And so God. When sin has broken out by no will of his, but altogether contrary to his will, he does not let it run riot, as it might, but he orders the way it shall take. Thence it came to pass "through the Lord" that "Zedekiah rebelled against the King of Babylon" (verse 3). IV. THIS OF SIN’S WAY ON THE PART OF GOD IS A THING MUCH TO BE . 1. For our consolation and comfort. Mad and monstrous as sin is, it is yet under God’s control. Like as to the raging sea, he can say and does say to it, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further," etc; and cf. Jeremiah 5:22. 2. For the warning of the sinner. The flames of the eternal fire are lit within our own soul. Sin is ever twisting and knotting its own scourge. What a man soweth that shall he also reap. The seed of all our punishments was sown by our own hand, though we never intended the harvest. The way sin shall take is utterly out of our power. If it does somewhat that we did intend, it does for men that we never dreamt of nor desired. 3. For instruction to all thoughtful readers of God’s Word and beholders of his providence. God "does" the evil that is in the city (Isaiah 45:1-25.), but he does not originate it, and that which he does is but the ordering of its way.—C. Jeremiah 52:4-34 The march of doom. These verses tell of the awful progress of the judgment of God on the doomed city of Jerusalem, her king, and people. To all who imagine that God is too full of love and graciousness to sternly judge and punish men, the contemplation of the events told of here may be painful, but assuredly they will be salutary also. We are shown the Babylonian armies gathering round the city; the long and dreadful siege; the gaunt famine that fastens upon the besieged; the walls broken at last and the inrush of the infuriated foe; the flight, capture, and tragedy of the king; the burning of the city and temple; and the carrying off into exile or slaughter of all but the poorest of the people. Ten weary years are covered by these events, and they were years full of lamentation, affliction, and woe. Now, all this teaches plainly— I. THAT THE OF GOD ARE SLOW TO BEGIN. He is slow to anger. How long he bore with Judah and Jerusalem ere these tribulations came! II. BUT WHEN BEGUN THEY GO ON. What a procession of one calamity after another it is! III. THEY CANNOT BE OR TURNED ASIDE. All that endurance, courage, and skill could do was done in that memorable siege. Cf. Ezekiel 7:6, "An evil, an only evil, behold, it is come," etc. IV. THE AND ANGUISH DEEPEN. (Cf. Ezekiel 7:1-27.; 8.; 11.; Lamentations 2:11, Lamentations 2:12, Lamentations 2:19; Lamentations 4:4, etc.) V. THEY ARE AND KNOW NO PITY. Prayers and entreaties are in vain (cf. Proverbs 1:24-31). VI. THEY CEASE NOT FILL THEIR WORK IS DONE. See this history. The heart of the deceived evil doer protests that God cannot deal so. But he has dealt so with ungodly men, not once nor twice alone; and when he declares that he will again, of what avail is man’s mere protest that he will not? Cf. the whole Book of the Revelation. How loudly, therefore, do facts like these cry out to the sinner, "Flee from the wrath to come"!—C. Jeremiah 52:4, Jeremiah 52:6, Jeremiah 52:12 Days whose duties are indelible. Note the particularity of the dates given in each of these verses. Not the year only, but the month; and not the month only, but the day; and sometimes not the day only, but the hour, whether morning or evening, during the light or dark. Now— I. THERE ARE SUCH DAYS. In the record of the Flood we have such exactness of date. And in the later history of Jerusalem, the story of its decline and fall under its last kings, we again and again, as in this chapter, meet with such careful giving of exact dates. And in our own experience, looking back over the record of our lives, how vividly some dates stand out! We know the year, the month, the day, and hour, and it seems likely that we shall never forget them nor the events connected with them. II. BUT THESE DAYS ARE NEARLY ALWAYS DAYS OF PAIN AND . It was so in the instances given in these verses. There are anniversaries which we keep, but these are for the most part joyous days, the memory of which we will not willingly let die. But the fact of our keeping them shows that there is probability that such memory would die if we did not carefully keep it up. But the days whose dates are indelible need no anniversaries to remind us of them. We cannot forget them, though, perhaps, we would fain do so. They are burnt in upon our souls so deeply that they are written as on a rock forever. And they are days, not of joy, but of sore distress; as when first the fierce Babylonian forces beleagured the holy city, and as when after weary months of obstinate defence the awful famine at length broke them down; and as when the proud conqueror in his rage burned down the sanctuary of God. Days of judgment were they, never to be forgotten by Israel any more. And there were many such days. We read of the "fasts" of the different months, many of which commemorated these sad events. III. AND THEIR DATES ARE WRITTEN IN OUR SOULS. 1. Because of the contrast which they offer to well nigh all other days. If any mark stands out conspicuous—like the black marks on a white page, or white on black—it proves that the ground upon which such mark stands out so conspicuously is of an entirely opposite colour, a complete contrast. And so the very blackness of these indelible days proves that the days against which they stand out so conspicuously have been of a far other and happier kind. Our very trials, by the vividness with which we remember them, prove the general goodness of our God, because they are such exception to his rule. 2. Because of their intensity. The mark is not merely dark, but deep. The sword pierces through the soul. It is the intensity of the pain that makes it so memorable. 3. Because of the shadow they cast. All our after life may be darkened—it often is so—by the effect of some awful blow, and the shadow ever starts from and guides our thoughts up to the terrible fact which has caused it. IV, BUT THESE DATES ARE NOT FOREVER. Cf. our Lord’s illustration: "A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow,… but as soon as she is delivered … she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy." So it is oftentimes even in this world. Life would not be bearable were all sorrows indelible. But they are not. The lapse of time, the pressure of necessary work, the awakening of other interests, and, above all, the bestowment of new joys—all tend to scatter the gloom of the soul and to thrust into oblivion memories that could only give pain. And none of them shall follow us into our eternal home. We shall not—it does not appear possible—forget facts that have occurred, but we shall see them in such new lights and irradiated by such love of God that all the pain that belonged to them will depart and be seen no more. "Help, Lord, that we may come To thy saints’ happy home. Where a thousand years As one day appears; Nor go Where one day appears As a thousand years For woe!" C. Famine. One of the most frightful that over befell any city is told of here. Its ghastly details may be traced out from this verse and different parts of the writings of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. This verse tells how the store of bread gradually failed; Jeremiah 37:21 and 38:29 with what difficulty ever so little was gained (also Ezekiel 5:16; Ezekiel 5:16; Ezekiel 12:19) Then Lamentations 4:7 and Lamentations 5:10 tell of the sufferings of the nobles; Lamentations 4:5 and Ezekiel 4:12-15 of the degradation of the high-born ladies of Jerusalem, snatching morsels of bread from the dunghills. The cries of the poor little children (Lamentations 2:11, Lamentations 2:12, Lamentations 2:19; Lamentations 4:4); the hard-heartedness of their parents (Lamentations 4:3). Fathers ate the flesh of their own sons (Ezekiel 5:10); mothers that of their new-born babes (Lamentations 2:20; Lamentations 4:10). Thus frightful was this famine. And it is ever a fearful thing, let the cause be what it may. Note— I. THEY ARE SENT. 1. As punishment: (1) For violation of natural law. When men will crowd together in space too limited or on lands that will not yield sufficient, or will out of greed or selfishness refuse to cultivate aright the land they have, then sooner or later famine will come. (2) For violation of Divine laws. So in the case of famine told of here. But: 2. They are sent as prompters and promoters of repentance and amendment. In case of violated natural laws they have again and again performed this needed office. Men have spread themselves abroad, communications between one district and another have been opened up, improved methods of cultivation have been adopted, wiser and juster laws have been enacted, and men’s energies and thoughts have been roused to devise remedies and safeguards against the recurrence of the evil. And when it is the Divine laws that have been violated, the Divine laws against sin—for natural laws are also Divine—famine has brought many a prodigal to himself, and led him to say," I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned." It did so in the case of the Jews. II. BUT FAMINE IS AN AND THING. For in our Father’s house there is bread enough and to spare, and none need perish with hunger. The world contains ample store; the resources of nature are in no degree exhausted, and therefore it can only be by negligence of God’s laws in nature that famine can in ordinary cases occur. And why need any go away into the far country of sin, and so compel the righteous and loving Father to send such sore judgment after them in order to bring them back? "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself!" It is not according to God’s will in any case. III. AND WHAT IS TRUE OF THE LITERAL IS TRUE ALSO OF THE FAMINE. 1. It is caused by man’s disobedience. So it was at the first. Sin thrust him forth from the Father’s house, the happy home where he never knew what want was. And so it is still. Had those who knew of Christ and his redemption but obeyed the word, "Let him that heareth say, Come," long ere this the whole world would have been evangelized. And if the same command were obeyed now, the like result would speedily follow. Christ has given a self-propagating power to his Church, which it has failed to use, and therefore spiritual famines are and will be until the Church obeys her Lord’s commands. But: 2. Such famine need not be. Christ is the "Bread of life" for all, and there is enough and to spare for all . Let not thy brother hunger if thou canst give him of this bread. Think of what famine means, and let thy charity be aroused. Take care that thou eatest—not merely talkest—of the Bread of life thyself.—C. The irony of a name. These verses tell of King Zedekiah—of the tragedy of Zedekiah, we might say, for never was there a tragedy more terrible than that in which he bore the chief part. But think of his name—"Jehovah our Righteousness." "As the last note of Jeremiah’s dirge ever Jehoiachin died away, he had burst forth into one of those strains of hope, in which he had represented the future ruler of Israel as the righteousness or justice of Jehovah (cf. Jeremiah 23:5-7). It may be that, in allusion to this, the new king assumed that name Zedek-Jah on his accession to the throne. He was a mere youth, but not without noble feelings which, in a less critical moment, might have saved the state." And his very name attested the hope which was cherished concerning him. But read the history of his career and his awful fate, and see if ever there could be sadder irony than in the name he bore. It was a glorious name, but how miserably belied! Defeated, dethroned, disgraced, bereaved, tortured, blind, an exile, a slave,—so he dragged out the last weary years of his life. We know not how many they were, we can only hope they were but few. I. SUCH IRONY OF NAMES IS . The degenerate bearers of noble and hallowed names are many. The children of Abraham were told by our Lord that they were children of the devil. A good name should be an inspiration; it often is; noblesse oblige. That it may be so is often the motive wherewith it is given by parents to their children. But, as with Zedekiah, their character and their names are in sad contrast. II. NOTE THE CAUSE OF THIS SAD IRONY IN THIS CASE. It was not lack of right knowledge. For a while he was under the teaching and influence of God’s prophet Jeremiah. And men rarely go wrong from lack of knowledge. Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. Nor for lack of right feeling. He had again and again good purposes and aspirations. So with men like him. Nor were there wanting sundry endeavours to act according as God prompted him. He made one and another attempt. But the secret of his sad failure was his lack of strength, infirmity of will, weakness of resolve. And thus it perpetually is with men who turn out failures in life. There is no more pitiful sight in this world than the spectacle of these ruined men. Jeremiah lamented bitterly over Zedekiah, as he well might. III. LET THIS ILL-APPLIED NAME LEAD US TO THINK OF HIM WHOSE NAME WAS NOTHING BUT BLESSED TRUTH—JESUS. He was called Jesus because "he should save his people from their sins." For in him is the remedy for all such as Zedekiah was. Give up our will to him, come to be in him by a living faith, and his strength shall be reproduced in us, and out of weakness we shall be made strong.—C. BY D. YOUNG Jeremiah 52:1-3 Zedekiah as king. I. THE OF A YOUNG MAN. He was twenty-one years old when he began to reign. Out of boyhood, looking round him at a time when he had become responsible for the conduct of his life. In England the age of twenty-one is full of significance to many young men, for then they become free from legal disabilities and restrictions. Any young man about the age of Zedekiah becomes thereby an object of special interest. II. AN . At least we may fairly assume this from 2 Kings 24:17. Zedekiah was not in the succession. Of course it is just possible there may have been aims and intrigues by which Zedekiah gained the crown. But that does not make less noticeable the fact that young men often do find themselves in unexpected positions. They have been making ready for one course, when all in a moment they are turned into a new course where they have to act without much time for consideration. III. A . Responsible in any case as that of a young man; peculiarly responsible as being called to a throne. To be called to a position of peculiar responsibility may sober a man if he is inclined to be reckless, may rouse him if inclined to be easy going and self-indulgent. This point may be illustrated by the traditional belief in the change that came over Henry V. on his accession to the throne, especially as this view is brought out in Shakespeare. IV. A . A king appointed by a foreign conqueror would be regarded with dislike by many. In such circumstances the best of personal qualities were needed, decision of character combined with the utmost circumspection. V. A IN WHICH HAD A ADVISER. Not any of his own courtiers, though there may have been men among them marked by prudence and insight. He has a prophet of Jehovah, a man with a keen sense of right and wrong, a man with revelations from on high, to help him. Moreover, it is on record that he actually sought Jeremiah out. Note the many references in the course of the book to the dealings between the king and the prophet. By the plain speaking of such a man many doubts might be cleared and many errors corrected. It is the censure on Zedekiah (2 Chronicles 36:12) that "he humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord." ― Y. Jeremiah 52:8 Zedekiah’s army scattered. Zedekiah’s aim was to keep his army together, for as long as he could do that there was a chance of averting the evil day, and perhaps in the end escaping it altogether. But without his army he was utterly helpless. He could not bring himself to heed Jeremiah’s counsels, doing the right and putting his trust in Jehovah. And so when the army was gone everything was gone. Nothing remained but random, desperate attempts at flight, and the certainty of ultimate capture. We have to ask ourselves what we shall do when our army is scattered from us, when the resources of our own making are vanished. The chief battles of our life are not to be fought with external resources at all. In every warfare where the weapons are carnal the weapons must fail at last. Only when we are engaged in truly spiritual warfare, and have the hosts of heaven on our side, can we be sure that our army will not be scattered from us.—Y. Zedekiah’s fate. Here is a triple bondage—the bondage of blindness, fetters, and imprisonment. Truly a dreadful doom! Look— I. AT THE CAUSE OF IT. 1. The cause so far as it lies in his own conduct. There was no need for him to accept a throne as viceroy for Babylon, but, having done so, he had entered into an implied covenant. No wonder that the King of Babylon took special care to stamp such conduct in a peculiar way. 2. The cause so far as it lies in the notions of the time. Zedekiah was treated, not only vindictively, but savagely. The meaning must have been to humiliate him, to make the iron enter into his very soul. What a difference Christianity has made in the treatment of conquered foes! The change has Come very slowly, but it is real and stable. One cannot imagine the time returning when a captured enemy would be deprived of his eyesight. II. AT A . One cannot but think of Samson, whose external condition was exactly that of Zedekiah, blinded, fettered, and imprisoned. Reduced to this state the Philistines reckoned he was impotent. Zedekiah really was impotent; he seems to have gone on to the day of his death in monotonous submission to what he felt necessity. But it was only necessity because he made it so. The worst limitations our fellow men can put on us may become in certain conditions like an easily snapped thread. Zedekiah might have risen above all these insults and pains. Perhaps he did rise. It is well for us to recollect how God has placed the essential liberty of every individual in his own hands.—Y. Jeremiah 52:12, Jeremiah 52:13 A great burning. I. THE BURNING IN GENERAL. The sum of the details amounts to a statement that the city was reduced to ashes. For this not Babylon is to be blamed, but Zedekiah and his predecessors, together with their advisers. Babylon was only acting according to the fashion of the times. The hand of Jehovah was withdrawn, the hand that might have averted the torch; and it was withdrawn because the destruction of Jerusalem had become a better thing for the world than its preservation. Still, it is not to be said in the fullest sense of the word that Jehovah destroyed Jerusalem say as he destroyed Babylon. In the course of a few generations Jerusalem rose from its ashes, temple included. The mere destruction of buildings, terrible as it is at the time, may soon be got over, as witness the rebuilding of London, and Chicago. The decay of national spirit and national resources is the thing to be feared. II. THE BURNING OF THE TEMPLE IN . Babylon had no fear in destroying the house of the Lord. Doubtless it was quite a common thing in war to destroy the temples of gods, for they were looked upon merely as part of the resources of nations. We must distinguish between what is essentially sacred and what is sacred only by association and to serve a purpose. When the purpose is accomplished the sacred sinks back into the common. God dwelleth not in temples made with hands. He was none the poorer for all this burning. Babylon learned hereafter that, though his house had been burned, his power was not at all diminished. The chief value of the temple lay in this, that it had been an expression of the piety and devotion of David and Solomon. Kings and people alike had proved themselves unworthy of their great ancestors.—Y.