This is Yahweh’s word that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought.
“Judah mourns, and its gates languish. They sit in black on the ground. The cry of Jerusalem goes up.
Their nobles send their little ones to the waters. They come to the cisterns, and find no water. They return with their vessels empty. They are disappointed and confounded, and cover their heads.
Because of the ground which is cracked, because no rain has been in the land, the plowmen are disappointed. They cover their heads.
Yes, the doe in the field also calves and forsakes her young, because there is no grass.
The wild donkeys stand on the bare heights. They pant for air like jackals. Their eyes fail, because there is no vegetation.
Though our iniquities testify against us, work for your name’s sake, Yahweh; for our rebellions are many. We have sinned against you.
You hope of Israel, its Savior in the time of trouble, why should you be as a foreigner in the land, and as a wayfaring man who turns aside to stay for a night?
Why should you be like a scared man, as a mighty man who can’t save? Yet you, Yahweh, are in the middle of us, and we are called by your name. Don’t leave us.
Yahweh says to this people, “Even so they have loved to wander. They have not restrained their feet. Therefore Yahweh does not accept them. Now he will remember their iniquity, and punish them for their sins.”
Yahweh said to me, “Don’t pray for this people for their good. When they fast, I will not hear their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and meal offering, I will not accept them; but I will consume them by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence.”
Then I said, “Ah, Lord Yahweh! Behold, the prophets tell them, ‘You will not see the sword, neither will you have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place.’ ”
Then Yahweh said to me, “The prophets prophesy lies in my name. I didn’t send them. I didn’t command them. I didn’t speak to them. They prophesy to you a lying vision, divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own heart. Therefore Yahweh says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, but I didn’t send them, yet they say, ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine. The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness on them.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–16 Though the Prophet does not distinctly express that what…
Though the Prophet does not distinctly express that what had not yet happened was divinely revealed to him, yet it may be easily gathered that it was a prophecy with reference to what was future. Of this sterility nothing is recorded in sacred history: there is, however, no doubt but God had in an unusual manner afflicted the Jews, as previously in the days of Ahab. As then a drought was near at hand which would cause great scarcity, his purpose was to forewarn the Jews of it before the time, that they might know that the dryness did not happen by chance, but was an evidence of God’s vengeance. And we know that whenever any adversity happens, the causes of it are sought in the world, so that hardly any one regards the hand of him who smites. But when there is a year of sterility, we consult astrology, and think that it is owing to the influence of the stars: thus God’s judgment is overlooked. As then men contrive so many expedients by which they throw aside the consideration of Divine judgment, it was necessary that the Prophet should speak of the sterility mentioned here before it happened, and point it out as it were by the finger, though it was yet not made manifest.
He therefore says that the word of God came to him respecting the words of restraints Though דבר, deber, signifies a thing or a business or concern, yet, what seems here to be intended is the contrast between דבר, deber, the word of God, and דברים deberim, the words of men; for he says, על דברי הבצרות ol deberi ebetserut, because the Jews, as it is usual, would have many words of different kinds among themselves respecting the sterility: when anything uncommon or unexpected happens, every one has his own opinion. But the Prophet sets up the word of Jehovah in opposition to the words of men; as though he had said, “They will inquire here and there as to the causes of the scarcity; there will yet be but one cause, and that is, God is punishing them for their wickedness.”
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He calls sterility prohibitions or restraints: for though God could in an instant destroy and mar whatever has come to maturity, yet, in order to shew that all the elements are ready to obey him, he restrains the heavens whenever he pleases; and hence he says,
“In that day the heavens will hear the earth, and the earth will hear the corn, and the corn will hear men.” (Hosea 2:21, 22)
For as this order of things is set before us, it cannot be otherwise but that, whenever we are hungry, our eyes turn to the corn and bread; but corn does not come except the earth be fruitful; and the earth cannot of itself bring forth anything, and except it derives moisture and strength from the heavens. So also, on the other hand, he says,
“I will make for you the heaven brass and the earth iron.” (Leviticus 26:19)
We hence see the reason for this word, prohibitions, by which the Prophet designates the dryness of the heavens and the sterility of the earth; for the earth in a manner opens to us its bowels when it brings forth food for our nourishment; and the heavens also pour forth rain, by which the earth is irrigated. So also God prohibits or restrains the heavens and the earth, and closes up his bounty, so as to prevent it to come to us. It now follows —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13 Or, restraint.
Or, restraint.
Which came for lack of rain, as verse 4.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–16 Jer 14:1 The word of the LORD that came…
Jer 14:1 The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth.
Ver. 1. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth.] De rebus retentionum - that is, concerning the drought or dearth by restraint of necessary rain and moisture - unde frugum raritas, annonae caritas, fames, from which the shortage of grain made the year’s produce expensive, resulting in famine; whereupon followed a famine, as there doth also a "famine of the Word," where the divine influences are restrained. Junius rendereth it, Super verbis cohibitionum, concerning the words of cohibitions; that is, saith he, concerning the prayers made by the prophet and other good people for the diverting of God’s judgments, publicly denounced.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–16 dearth we are not told, nor when it happened;…
What
dearth we are not told, nor when it happened; some think that it was in the time of the siege of Jerusalem; others, that it was in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah; but they judge most probably that think it was in the time of Jehoiakim, for we read, Jer 36:9, of an extraordinary fast by him proclaimed, which many judge was upon this occasion. The Hebrew phrase which is here used signifying, the matter of the restraints, gives interpreters some liberty to abound in their senses of this text; but the following words make it evident, Jer 14:4,5, that the restraints here mentioned were God’s restraining of water from them, so that the dearth was occasioned from a great drought, which is elegantly described in the five next verses, and deprecated Jer 14:7-9, which make indeed but a preface to the revelation of the mind and will of God in this prophecy.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 The first verse is the title of the whole…
The first verse is the title of the whole chapter: it does indeed all concern the dearth, but much of it consists of the prophet's prayers concerning it; yet these are not unfitly said to be, The word of the Lord which came to him concerning it, for every acceptable prayer is that which God puts into our hearts; nothing is our word that comes to him but what is first his word that comes from him. In these verses we have,
I. The language of nature lamenting the calamity. When the heavens were as brass, and distilled no dews, the earth was as iron, and produced no fruits; and then the grief and confusion were universal. 1. The people of the land were all in tears. Destroy their vines and their fig-trees and you cause all their mirth to cease, Hos 2:11, Hos 2:12. All their joy fails with the joy of harvest, with that of their corn and wine. Judah mourns (Jer 14:2), not for the sin, but for the trouble - for the withholding of the rain, not for the withdrawing of God's favour. The gates thereof, all that go in and out at their gates, languish, look pale, and grow feeble, for want of the necessary supports of life and for fear of the further fatal consequences of this judgment. The gates, through which supplies of corn formerly used to be brought into their cities, now look melancholy, when, instead of that, the inhabitants are departing through them to seek for bread in other countries. Even those that sit in the gates languish; they are black unto the ground, they go in black as mourners and sit on the ground, a the poor beggars at the gates are black in the face for want of food, blacker than a coal, Lam 4:8. Famine is represented by a black horse, Rev 6:5. They fall to the ground through weakness, not being able to go along the streets. The cry of Jerusalem has gone up; that is, of the citizens (for the city is served by the field), or of people from all parts of the country met at Jerusalem to pray for rain; so some. But I fear it was rather the cry of their trouble, and the cry of their prayer. 2. The great men of the land felt from this judgment (Jer 14:3): The nobles sent their little ones to the water, perhaps their own children, having been forced to part with their servants because they had not wherewithal to keep them, and being willing to train up their children, when they were little, to labour, especially in a case of necessity, as this was. We find Ahab and Obadiah, the king and the lord chamberlain of his household, in their own persons, seeking for water in such a time of distress as this was, Kg1 18:5, Kg1 18:6. Or, rather, their meaner ones, their servants and inferior officers; these they sent to seek for water, which there is no living without; but there was none to be found: They returned with their vessels empty; the springs were dried up when there was no rain to feed them; and then they (their masters that sent them) were ashamed and confounded at the disappointment. They would not be ashamed of their sins, nor confounded at the sense of them, but were unhumbled under the reproofs of the word, thinking their wealth and dignity set them above repentance; but God took a course to make them ashamed of that which they were so proud of, when they found that even on this side hell their nobility would not purchase them a drop of water to cool their tongue. Let our reading the account of this calamity make us thankful for the mercy of water, that we may not by the feeling of the calamity be taught to value it. What is most needful is most plentiful. 3. The husbandmen felt most sensibly and immediately from it (Jer 14:4): The ploughmen were ashamed, for the ground was so parched and hard that it would not admit the plough even when it was so chapt and cleft that it seemed as if it did not need the plough. They were ashamed to be idle, for there was nothing to be done, and therefore nothing to be expected. The sluggard, that will not plough by reason of cold, is not ashamed of his own folly; but the diligent husbandman, that cannot plough by reason of heat, is ashamed of his own affliction. See what an immediate dependence husbandmen have upon the divine Providence, which therefore they should always have an eye to, for they cannot plough nor sow in hope unless God water their furrows, Psa 65:10. 4. The case even of the wild beasts was very pitiable, Jer 14:5, Jer 14:6. Man's sin brings those judgments upon the earth which make even the inferior creatures groan: and the prophet takes notice of this as a plea with God for mercy. Judah and Jerusalem have sinned, but the hinds and the wild asses, what have they done? The hinds are pleasant creatures, lovely and loving, and particularly tender of their young; and yet such is the extremity of the case that, contrary to the instinct of their nature, they leave their young, even when they are newly calved and most need them, to seek for grass elsewhere; and, if they can find none, they abandon them, because not able to suckle them. It grieved not the hind so much that she had no grass herself as that she had none for her young, which will shame those who spend that upon their lusts which they should preserve for their families. The hind, when she has brought forth her young, is said to have cast forth her sorrows (Job 39:3), and yet she continues her cares; but, as it follows there, she soon sees the good effect of them, for her young ones in a little while grow up, and trouble her no more, Jer 14:4. But here the great trouble of all is that she has nothing for them. Nay, one would be sorry even for the wild asses (though they are creatures that none have any great affection for); for, though the barren land is made their dwelling at the best (Job 39:5, Job 39:6), yet even that is now made too hot for them, so hot that they cannot breathe in it, but they get to the highest places they can reach, where the air is coolest, and snuff up the wind like dragons, like those creatures which, being very hot, are continually panting for breath. Their eyes fail, and so does their strength, because there is no grass to support them. The tame ass, that serves her owner, is welcome to his crib (Isa 1:3) and has her keeping for her labour, when the wild ass, that scorns the crying of the driver, is forced to live upon air, and is well enough served for not serving. He that will not labour, let him not eat.
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II. Here is the language of grace, lamenting the iniquity, and complaining to God of the calamity. The people are not forward to pray, but the prophet here prays for them, and so excites them to pray for themselves, and puts words into their mouths, which they may make use of, in hopes to speed, Jer 14:7-9. In this prayer, 1. Sin is humbly confessed. When we come to pray for the preventing or removing of any judgment we must always acknowledge that our iniquities testify against us. Our sins are witnesses against us, and true penitents see them to be such. They testify, for they are plain and evident; we cannot deny the charge. They testify against us, for our conviction, which tends to our present shame and confusion, and our future condemnation. They disprove and overthrow all our pleas for ourselves; and so not only accuse us, but answer against us. If we boast of our own excellencies, and trust to our own righteousness, our iniquities testify against us, and prove us perverse. If we quarrel with God as dealing unjustly or unkindly with us in afflicting us, our iniquities testify against us that we do him wrong; "for our backslidings are many and our revolts are great, whereby we have sinned against thee - too numerous to be concealed, for they are many, too heinous to be excused, for they are against thee." 2. Mercy is earnestly begged: "Though our iniquities testify against us, and against the granting of the favour which the necessity of our case calls for, yet do thou it." They do not say particularly what they would have done; but, as becomes penitents and beggars, they refer the matter to God: "Do with us as thou thinkest fit," Jdg 10:15. Not, Do thou it in this way or at this time, but "Do thou it for thy name's sake; do that which will be most for the glory of thy name." Note, Our best pleas in prayer are those that are fetched from the glory of God's own name. "Lord, do it, that they mercy may be magnified, thy promise fulfilled, and thy interest in the world kept up; we have nothing to plead in ourselves, but every thing in thee." There is another petition in this prayer, and it is a very modest one (Jer 14:9): "Leave us not, withdraw not thy favour and presence." Note, We should dread and deprecate God's departure from us more than the removal of any or all our creature-comforts. 3. Their relation to God, their interest in him, and their expectations from him grounded thereupon, are most pathetically pleaded with him, Jer 14:8, Jer 14:9. (1.) They look upon him as one they have reason to think should deliver them when they are in distress, yea, though their iniquities testify against them; for in him mercy has often rejoiced against judgment. The prophet, like Moses of old, is willing to make the best he can of the case of his people, and therefore, though he must own that they have sinned many a great sin (Exo 32:31), yet he pleads, Thou art the hope of Israel. God has encouraged his people to hope in him; in calling himself so often the God of Israel, the rock of Israel, and the Holy One of Israel, he has made himself the hope of Israel. He has given Israel his word to hope in, and caused them to hope in it; and there are those yet in Israel that make God alone their hope, and expect he will be their Saviour in time of trouble, and they look not for salvation in any other; "Thou hast many a time been such, in the time of their extremity." Note, Since God is his people's all-sufficient Saviour, they ought to hope in him in their greatest straits; and, since he is their only Saviour, they ought to hope in him alone. They plead likewise, "Thou art in the midst of us; we have the special tokens of thy presence with us, thy temple, thy ark, thy oracles, and we are called by the name, the Israel of God; and therefore we have reason to hope thou wilt not leave us; we are thine, save us. Thy name is called upon us, and therefore what evils we are under reflect dishonour upon thee, as if thou wert not able to relieve thy own." The prophet had often told the people that their profession of religion would not protect them from the judgments of God; yet here he pleads it with God, as Moses, Exo 32:11. Even this may go far as to temporal punishments with a God of mercy. Valeat quantum valere potest - Let the plea avail as far as is proper. (2.) It therefore grieves them to think that he does not appear for their deliverance; and, though they do not charge it upon him as unrighteous, they humbly plead it with him why he should be gracious, for the glory of his own name. For otherwise he will seem, [1.] Unconcerned for his own people: What will the Egyptians say? they will say, "Israel's hope and Saviour does not mind them; he has become as a stranger in the land, that does not at all interest himself in its interests; his temple, which he called his rest for ever, is no more so, but he is in it as a wayfaring man, that turns aside to tarry but for a night in an inn, which he never enquires into the affairs of, nor is in any care about." Though God never is, yet he sometimes seems to be, as if he cared not what became of his church: Christ slept when his disciples were in storm. [2.] Incapable of giving them any relief. The enemies once said, Because the Lord was not able to bring his people to Canaan, he let them perish in the wilderness (Num 14:16); so now they will say, "Either his wisdom or his power fails him; either he is as a man astonished (who, though he has the reason of a man, yet, being astonished, is quite at a loss and at his wits' end) or as a mighty man who is overpowered by such as are more mighty, and therefore cannot save; though mighty, yet a man, and therefore having his power limited." Either of these would be a most insufferable reproach to the divine perfections; and therefore, why has the God that we are sure is in the midst of us become as a stranger? Why does the almighty God seem as if he were no more than a mighty man, who, when he is astonished, though he would, yet cannot save? It becomes us in prayer to show ourselves concerned more for God's glory than for our own comfort. Lord, what wilt thou do unto thy great name?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–16 The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah…
The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth. Or, "concerning the words of straints" (x); that is, concerning the businesses of a drought, as the Targum; concerning the Lord's restraining rain from the earth, and forbidding the heavens dropping it down; the consequence of which is a drought, or dryness of the earth; and the effect of that a famine; when this was it is not anywhere said; it could not be the famine at the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, because that only affected the city; this all Judea. Some think it was in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, long before the siege; and others, that it was in the reign of Jehoiakim, since we read of a fast in his time, Jer 36:9, which might be on this occasion; and it appears that there was one at this time, though not acceptable to God; see Jer 14:12.
(x) "super verbis, cohibitionum", Junius & Tremellius; "retentionum"; Tigurine version; "prohibitionum", Pagninus, Montanus.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 A grievous famine prophesied, its miseries, ver. 1-6. The…
A grievous famine prophesied, its miseries, ver. 1-6. The prophet prays, but God will not be entreated for them, ver. 7-12. Lying prophets no excuse for them, ver. 13-16. The prophet's complaint, ver. 17-22.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16 This chapter begins with foretelling a drought that should
CHAPTER XIV
This chapter begins with foretelling a drought that should
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greatly distress the land of Judea, the effects of which are
described in a most pathetic manner, 1-6.
The prophet then, in the people's name, makes a confession of
sins, and supplication for pardon, 7-9.
But God declares his purpose to punish, forbidding Jeremiah to
pray for the people, 10-12.
False prophets are then complained of, and threatened with
destruction, as are also those who attend to them, 13-16.
The prophet, therefore, bewails their misery, 17, 18;
and though he had just now been forbidden to intercede for
them, yet, like a tender pastor, who could not cease to be
concerned for their welfare, he falls on the happy expedient of
introducing themselves as supplicating in their own name that
mercy which he was not allowed to ask in his, 19-22.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIV
Verse 1. The word - that came - concerning the dearth.] This discourse is supposed to have been delivered, after the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Concerning the dearth. We have no historic record of any dearth that may fall in with the time of this prophecy, and perhaps it does not refer to any particular dearth: but this was a calamity to which Judea was very liable. They had ordinarily very dry summers, for scarcely any rain fell from April to the middle of October; and during much of this time, the rivers were generally either very low or entirely dry. They kept the rain of the winter in tanks and reservoirs; and if little fell in winter, a dearth was unavoidable. See an account of a dearth in the time of Elijah, 1Kg 18:5, through which almost all the cattle were lost.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 13 Jer 14:1. The word of the Lord concerning the…
Jer 14:1. The word of the Lord concerning the dearth — Hebrew, על דברי הבצרות, respecting the matters of the restraints, that is, the drought, when the showers were restrained, or, as Moses and Solomon express it, when the heaven was shut up, and there was no rain. See Deu 11:17; 1Ki 7:35. Thus the LXX., περι της αβροχιας, concerning the want of rain. So also the Chaldee and Syriac versions: and thus our translators understand the word, Jer 17:8, rendering it, not dearth, as here, but drought: a calamity which, however, produced a dearth or famine, similar, it seems, to that in the time of Elijah. At what precise time this great drought took place, we are not informed in the records of history: nor whether it be the same with that of which an intimation is given chap Jer 3:3, where see the note. That it was a calamity very incident to the land of Israel, and applied as a punishment of sin, appears from many parts of the Old Testament. The effects of it are described in the next five verses in very elegant and moving language, and afterward earnestly deprecated.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16 The dearth - Really, the drought,
The dearth - Really, the drought,
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 Drought, during the last siege, (ver. 18.; St. Jerome)…
Drought, during the last siege, (ver. 18.; St. Jerome) or after the captivity of Jechonias; (chap. viii. 13.) though the famine might happen in the days of Josias, Joel i. (Calmet) --- This scourge was in punishment of sin, and signified the privation of grace. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 (Jer_14:1 to Jer_17:18)
THE FIFTH DISCOURSE
(Jer_14:1 to Jer_17:18)
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A fearful drought gives the prophet occasion to offer a hearty and touching intercession for his people. The twice-repeated decisive refusal of his petition, based on the revolt of the people (Jer_15:10 coll. Jer_3:3) compels him to take into view his own situation, rendered exceedingly dangerous in consequence of his prophetic ministry, and then also to present before the people the sad prospect, that from the present calamity which is not spoken of after Jer_14:22, there is no hope of escape, but that far worse, even a fearful punitive judgment ending in captivity, is impending.
As to the lime of composition no data are furnished by the mention of the drought (comp. rems. on Jer_14:1). That it was before the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and therefore before the decisive turning point in the history of the theocracy and in Jeremiah’s prophecies, is evident from the circumstance, already urged, that nowhere in the discourse is the enemy mentioned as known. Twice only and in passages critically suspicious, are the northern iron (Jer_15:12) and the north country as the place of exile (Jer_16:15) mentioned. On the other hand there are many traces that the discourse cannot have originated long before the fourth year of Jehoiakim or the discourse preserved in Jeremiah 25. The prophet, when he delivered this discourse, must have been a long time in office. For the hatred against him has become as much deeper as more general (Jer_15:10 sqq.): he is mocked, because the fulfilment of his prophecy is so long delayed (Jer_17:15): he moreover complains of the endless duration of his sufferings (Jer_15:18), while on the other hand he represents to the Lord that he has obtained universal recognition as a prophet of Jehovah (Jer_15:16). The command not to take a wife (Jer_16:2) further indicates that the prophet, who at his calling was only a נַעַר (Jer_1:6-7) has in the meantime reached a mature age. The words “this once” also (Jer_16:21) seem to indicate that the great catastrophe was very near. It is also seen that this discourse must belong to the same period as Jeremiah 13 Comp. the introduction to the fourth discourse.
The attempts to ascribe different parts of the discourse to different periods (comp. Graf, S. 208, 9) are rendered abortive by the fact that it is a well-compacted whole, as will be seen from the following table of contents.
FIRST MAIN DIVISION
The Twice Repeated Intercession Of The Prophet Concerning The Drought, And Its Twice Repeated Rejection
Jer_14:1 to Jer_15:9
1. The first petition, Jer_14:1-9.
2. The first refusal, Jer_14:10-18.
3. The second petition, Jer_14:19-22.
4. The second refusal, Jer_15:1-4.
5. Further portrayal of the sad fate which is impending over the thus rejected nation, Jer_15:5-9.
SECOND MAIN DIVISION
The Consequences Of Refusal With Respect To The Person Of The Prophet And Instruction Concerning His Further Course
Jer_15:10 to Jer_16:9
1. Complaint and petition of the prophet on account of the consequences of the refusal with respect to his own person, Jer_15:10-18.
2. Tranquilizing and consolatory answer of the Lord, Jer_15:19-21.
3. Instructions how the servant of the Lord should conduct himself among the people on whom the judgment has fallen, Jer_16:1-9.
THIRD MAIN DIVISION
Reason Of The Rejection And Announcement Of The Captivity
Jer_16:10 to Jer_21:9
1. Idolatry is the cause of the removal into exile, Jer_16:10-15.
2. More particular description of the removal announced in Jer_16:13, Jer_16:16-18.
3. Refutation of the objection (Jer_16:10) that the people had committed no sin by their idolatry, Jer_16:19-21.
4. Refutation of the objection (Jer_16:10) that the people generally had not served idols, Jer_17:1-4.
CONCLUSION.
Jer_12:5-17
1. Retrospective glance at the deep roots of the corruption, Jer_17:5-13.
2. Petition of the prophet for the safety of his person and the honor of his official ministrations, Jer_17:14-18.
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FIRST MAIN DIVISION
The Twice Repeated Intercession Of The Prophet Concerning The Drought, And Its Twice Repeated Rejection (Jer_14:1 to Jer_15:9.)
14
1. The first petition
Jer_14:1-9
1 1 The word which came to Jeremiah concerning the drought1:
2 Judah mourns and her gates are in trouble,
Covered by mourning2 even to the earth;
And the cry of Jerusalem goes up.
3 And their mighty ones have sent their mean ones3 for water.
They came to the cisterns, found no water;
Returned with their vessels empty.
Ashamed and confounded are they and cover their heads.
4 On account of the ground, which is dismayed, because there was no rain in the land,
The husbandmen are ashamed and cover their heads.
5 For the hind also in the field has brought forth
And—forsaken,4 for there is no green thing there.
6 And the wild asses stand on the high places,
They gasp for air like the jackals.
Their eyes have failed, for there is no herb there.
7 Though our sins testify against us, O Jehovah,
Acts 5 for thine own name’s sake;
For many are our apostasies, against thee have we sinned.
8 O thou Hope of Israel, his deliverer in distress;
Why wilt thou be as a stranger in the land,
Or as a traveller who pitches (his tent) for the night?
9 Why wilt thou be as a man taken by surprise,6
As a warrior who can give no help?
Yet thou art in our midst, O Jehovah!
And we bear thy name; forsake us not!7
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
A fearful drought prevails in the land. Proceeding from the whole to the particulars, from the higher to the lower, the prophet shows how the whole of Judah and Jerusalem mourns (Jer_14:2), how the rulers of the people send out their subjects in vain for water (Jer_14:3), how the husbandmen also in like distress stand in like consternation. Passing to the beasts he describes how the terrible thirst conquers even the maternal feeling of the hind (Jer_14:6) and how the wild asses seek the heights in order to obtain some mitigation at least from stronger currents of air (Jer_14:6). To this the prophet attaches a hearty prayer that the Lord will not have regard only to the acknowledged sins of Israel, but for the sake of His own glory (Jer_14:7), will no longer act towards His people as a stranger, who will not help (Jer_14:8), or as one who has become powerless and cannot help (Jer_14:9 a), but as one who is near, their shield and Father, and who accordingly will not forsake His people (Jer_14:9 b).
Jer_14:1. The word which … drought. Contraction of two sentences into one, the predicate of the main sentence having been attracted by the subordinate sentence and become its predicate, so that the subject of the subordinate sentence becomes the predicate. Comp. the same construction Jer_46:1; Jer_47:1; Jer_49:34.—Most commentators following the example of Jerome understand this of a future drought, which they believe to be intimated in 2Ki_25:3. The connection is, however, opposed to deferring the drought to the future, as well as that the historical accounts contain no data for the determination of any real time.
Jer_14:2-4. Judah mourns … cover their heads.—Gates = those assembled in the gates. Comp. Isa_3:26; Isa_14:31; Rth_3:11.—In dark, mourning-attire they seat themselves on the ground. Isa_3:26; Jer_8:21; Psa_35:14.—The cry of Jerusalem goes up, in contrast to covered to the earth.—They do not send their private servants, but as it is a matter of general interest, mean, common people generally.—חתה, dismayed, is a relative sentence (comp. Isa_51:1 Naegelsb. Gr., § 80, 6, 1). חַת, dismayed, forms a climax with בּוֹשׁ ashamed (comp. Fuerst, H. W. B. s. v.) and can therefore be used of impersonal objects like the latter. Comp. Jer_51:47; Isa_24:23; Joe_1:10.—The husbandmen are ashamed, etc. Comp. Joe_1:11.
Jer_14:5-6. For the hind also … no herb there. It is not necessary to take כִּי [with Hitzig and Henderson.—S. R. A.] in the insecure sense of Yea. It is causal: what is said of the distress of the men is confirmed by the distress of the beasts.—Forsaken. The hind is celebrated by the ancients for her tender maternal affection (Bochart, Hieroz, P. I., L. III., Cap. 17) to which may be added, that she is said to bring forth with difficulty (comp. Psa_29:9; Job_39:1).—Like the jackals. Hitzig and Graf suppose that jackals cannot be meant here, but that תַּנִים must stand for תַּנִּין (comp. Eze_29:3; Eze_32:2) = sea monsters. But I do not see why the open, panting wolf jaws (the jackal like the wolf belongs to the canine species) should not serve for a comparison in a case like the present. Comp. Jer_2:24.—Their eyes have failed. Comp. Job_11:20; Lam_2:11. [Henderson:—The wild asses betake themselves to the heights in order to discover some supply. They are very sharp-sighted, and travellers in the desert often avail themselves of their appearance, knowing that there must be herbage and water in the vicinity.—S. R. A.]
Jer_14:7-9. Though our sins … forsake us not!—Act for Thy name’s sake (comp. Jer_14:21) i. e., though we cannot ask that thou shouldest interpose actively for our sake, yet do it in behalf of Thine own glory, which is pledged partly for the sake of the election, partly for the sake of Thy renown among other nations. Comp. Num_14:13-16; Deu_5:28-29; Eze_20:14; Psa_109:21.—Pitches (his tent). Hitzig supposes, that the traveller does not trouble himself with a tent. But traveller (אֹרֵחַ) is collective, (comp. אֹרְחָה, the caravans). These certainly take tents with them. I do not think therefore that נָטָה is = to deviate from the way, to turn in (for the night). In this sense סוּר is elsewhere always used. (Gen_19:2; Jdg_4:18; Jdg_15:19, etc.) I supply with the elder commentators אהלי, his tent (comp. Gen_12:8).—Yet thou art in our midst (comp. Jer_10:21) i. e., thou art constantly and permanently with us (antithetic to נֵּר Jer_14:8).—We bear thy name, we are called the people of Jehovah. Comp. Exo_5:3; Deu_28:10, coll. Jer_7:10.
Footnotes:
[1]Jer_14:1.—הכצרות may be the plural of בַצרֶֹת Jer_17:8, which undoubtedly signifies drought, in case בַּצָרָה Psa_9:10; Psa_10:1 is to be otherwise rendered. Comp. עַשְׁתָּרֹת from עַשְׁתּרֶֹת. The plural does not necessarily imply many things, as Graf supposes. In Hebrew all things which have extension in time or space (comp. הֲשֵׁכִים בְּתוּלִיס, etc. Naegelsb. Gr., § 61, 2, c) may be in the plural. The word means a drought, which extends through a plurality of moments (perhaps also of points of space). [Hitzig: The plural stands here ad dasignandam diuturnam continuationem siccitatis, Ch. B. Mich.—S. R. A.]
[2]Jer_14:2—ל׳ קדרִו Const. prægnans. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 112, 7.
[3]Jer_14:3.—The form צעור is found here only, and Jer_48:4 in the Chethibh. Elsewhere צערד.
[4]Jer_14:5.—ועזוב, comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 92, 2, a; Exo_8:11; Gen_41:43; Jer_32:33; Jer_32:44.
[5]Jer_14:7.—On עשׂה comp. rems. on Jer_18:23.
[6]Jer_14:9.—נדהם ἅπ. λεγ, since Schultens, is by most commentators derived from the Arabic (dahama = to fall upon,
[7]Jer_14:9.—אל־הנחנו literally ne deponas, dejicias nos (comp. Num_19:9). From this are developed the meanings relinquere (Gen_42:33) and deserere.
2. THE FIRST REFUSAL
Jer_14:10-18
10 Thus saith Jehovah to this people:
They loved so to wander, their feet they restrained not;
Jehovah moreover hath no pleasure in them;
Now he will remember their guilt and visit their sin.
11 Then said Jehovah unto me:
Pray not on behalf of this people for good.
12 Though they fast, I hearken not to their cry,
And though they offer holocausts and oblations, I have no pleasure in them:
But by the sword, by hunger and pestilence I consume them
13 And I said:
Ah, Lord Jehovah! Behold the prophets say to them,
“Ye will not see the sword, and famine will not come to you,
For I will give you assured peace in this place.”
14 And Jehovah said unto me:
The prophets prophesy falsehood in my name,
I have not sent them nor commissioned them,
Nor have I spoken to them;
False vision and divination and nothingness
And the deceit8 of their heart they prophesy to you.
15 Therefore thus saith Jehovah concerning the prophets,
Who prophesy in my name though I have not sent them,
And who say, There shall be no sword or famine in this land:
By the sword and by famine shall these prophets perish.
16 And the people to whom they prophesy
Shall lie cast out in the streets of Jerusalem,
By reason of the famine and the sword.
And will have none to bury them,
Them, their wives, their sons and their daughters:
And I pour out over them their wickedness.
17 And thou shalt say to them this word:
Mine eyes shall flow with tears day and night and cease not,
For the virgin daughter of my people9 is stricken with a grievous stroke,
With a wound very incurable.
18 If I go forth into the field, behold! the slain with the sword,
If I return to the city, behold! the tortures10 of famine!
For even prophet and priest go into the country and know nothing.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The Lord answers the prophet’s petition, that in the description of the thirst-stricken beasts he only describes the conduct of the idolatrous people and has thus himself shown the reason why the Lord must punish them (Jer_14:10). Therefore he (the prophet) may cease his intercession (Jer_14:11), and the people their ceremonies, for their destruction by famine, sword and pestilence is determined upon (Jer_14:12). Thereupon the prophet ventures to interpose in behalf of the people from another side. He calls attention to the fact that the prophets have sustained the people in their errors by false promises (Jer_14:13). Upon this the Lord declares them to be false prophets (Jer_14:14), and pronounces their destruction (Jer_14:15). Moreover the same destruction is impending over the people who believe in them (Jer_14:16), from which it is seen that the prophet has accomplished nothing by his intervention. The wound is incurable (Jer_14:17); everywhere in the country, as he wanders hither and thither, the prophet meets with death in its most terrible forms. He learns that neither prophet nor priest is any longer in a condition to propitiate the Lord, or avert the calamity from the people (Jer_14:18).
Jer_14:10. Thus saith Jehovah … their sin. The commentators mistake the connection of this verse with the preceding, when they overlook, that in כֵן, thus, the Lord refers to the description of the animals tormented with thirst (Jer_14:5-6), and finds in it a description of the passionate, ungovernable lust of the people for idolatry, the true, final cause of the ruin now come upon Israel. As the hind, impelled by her desire for refreshment, abandons her newly born young in order to seek for food, so Israel forsakes the Lord in order to satisfy his lust for idolatry. As the wild-ass runs to the high places, in order there, with wide-open jaws, to drink in at least a cooler breath of air, so Israel pants for idols. We are justified in this interpretation the rather as the prophet has previously used essentially the same emblems of idolatry. In Jer_2:24 he compared idolatrous Israel with the wild-ass, who (there indeed in the heat of sexual impulse) gasps for breath (comp. Jer_14:6). Wandering (נוּעַ) is there also censured in the people, as a symptom of their lust for idols, as in those who cannot restrain the foot (comp. Jer_2:25). In Jer_14:10 a, then there is a statement of the reason, why He is compelled to refuse, as He does in Jer_14:10 b, the petition of the prophet (Jer_14:7 sqq.). This second half of the verse is moreover taken verbatim from Hos_8:13; Hos_9:9.
Jer_14:11-12. Then said Jehovah … I consume them. To this denial the Lord adds by way of climax as before (Jer_7:16) a prohibition of further intercession, at the same time announcing that the people also will accomplish nothing by the ceremonies of divine worship, which train of thought we found also in Jer_11:14 sqq.—For good. Comp. Deu_28:11; Deu_30:9; Jer_21:10; Jer_24:5-6.
Jer_14:13-16. And I said … pour out over them their wickedness.—Assured peace [lit., peace of truth]. Comp. right seed, Jer_2:21. So here genuine, lasting, secure prosperity. Comp. Isa_39:8; Jer_33:6. In general comp. Jer_6:14; Jer_4:10.—Divination (קֶסֶם) is used here in a bad sense, as almost always, comp. Num_23:23; 1Sa_15:23; Eze_13:6; Eze_13:23, etc.—With the description, cast out in the streets, comp. Jer_8:2; Jer_16:4; Jer_25:33.—I will pour out, etc. Comp. Jer_2:19; Hos_9:15.
Jer_14:17-18. And thou shalt say to them … know nothing. The formula in Jer_14:17 never introduces greater sections. It occurs verbatim as here only in Jer_13:12. Here certainly at the beginning of a strophe. But there is nothing in the tenor of the words to prevent their being used wherever a definite single word is to be marked. Comp. Jer_28:7.—Let mine eyes, etc. As before (Jer 8:23; Jer_13:17), the prophet here expresses the thought that nothing but weeping is left for him.—Stroke, etc. Comp. Jer_10:19; Jer_30:12.—For even prophet, etc. The prophet evidently wishes to say, that he has looked about everywhere, both in the country and the city, but has found only symptoms of irretrievable destruction. This moreover was not only his conclusion, for all the priests and prophets who, like him, had gone into the country, had also learned that there was nothing more to be done, so that it must be said of them: לא ידעו, i. e. non sapiunt (comp. Psa_73:22; Job_34:2), they know nothing.—סחר occurs only in Gen_34:10; Gen_34:21; Gen_42:34, as a finite verb, is contrasted in these passages with the Accusative and signifies at any rate not simply to go directly out, but (after the manner of business-people) to go hither and thither (commeare, ἐμπορεύεσναι). Here then at any rate we must suppose a journeying directed to several points. The אֵל explained by Jerusalem’s being considered as the central point from which they went now this way now that way. The omission of the article before ארץ is not uncommon (comp. on Jer_3:2)
Footnotes:
[8]Jer_14:14.—The forms אֱלוּל and תַּרְמוּת here only, everywhere else תרמית, אליל.
[9]Jer_14:17.—בתולת ב׳ ע׳. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr., § 64, 4; Isa_37:22.
[10]Jer_14:18.—תחלואי, sufferings, torments. Comp. Jer_16:4; Deu_29:21; Psa_103:3; 2Ch_21:19.
3. THE SECOND PETITION
Jer_14:19-22
19 Hast thou utterly rejected Judah, or has thy soul disgust at Zion?
Why then hast thou smitten us and there is no cure for us?
We hoped for peace but there came nothing good;—
For a time of healing, and behold terror!
20 We acknowledge, O Jehovah, our wickedness,
The guilt of our fathers, that we have sinned against thee.
21 Reject us not for thy name’s sake;
Disgrace not the throne of thy glory;
Hold in remembrance, break not thy covenant with us.
22 Are there then among the vain deities of the heathen rain dispensers?
Or will the heaven [itself] give rain?
Art not thou He, Jehovah, our God?
And our hope because thou hast made all these things?
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The prophet is not easily turned from his intercession. He here begins again the second time. He asks the Lord why He has rejected Judah and Zion (Jer_14:19). He then adduces three reasons why this cannot be. 1. Israel acknowledges his sins (Jer_14:20); 2. Jehovah must help for His own glory and for the sake of the covenant (Jer_14:21); 3. There is no other dispenser of rain and of blessing than He (Jer_14:22).
Jer_14:19. Hast thou utterly … terror.קוה ו repetition from Jer_8:15.
Jer_14:20; Jer_14:22. We acknowledge … made all these things. As in Jer_14:7, so also here (Jer_14:20), the prophet supports his petition on the confession of sin. Therefore he likewise adds, as in Jer_14:7, an appeal to the Lord’s own honor. Hence he further strengthens his appeal by urging (a) that Zion’s destruction would disgrace the throne of the Lord Himself, in so far as Zion in part is the throne of the Lord, and in part conceals Him in its midst (comp. on Jer_17:12); (b) he reminds the Lord of the covenant made with Israel, which is to be kept, not to be broken. Comp. Jer_11:1 sqq.; Lev_26:11-12, which passage seems to have been in the prophet’s mind.—From Jer_14:22 we perceive plainly the connection with the first petition, Jer_14:1 sqq.—Art not thou He?חוא is never a simple copula, not even in Eccles. (comp. Jer_1:17 with Jer_2:13). Here it is demonstrative, i. e. referring to the previously mentioned idea of rain-dispenser. Thou alone art He, who art at the same time our God and the object of our hope. God alone is the rain-dispenser, for He has made all things. Comp. Job_5:10; Job_38:25-26.—For thou hast made is the basis of Thou art he;—our God, etc., is therefore a parenthesis. Comp. Naegelsb. Gr. § 80, 3.—[Henderson: “From the commencement of Jer_14:19 to the end of the chapter the people are introduced as doing what the prophet was forbidden to do on their behalf.”—S. R. A.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Jer_14:7. “Medicina erranti confessio, qua de re Psa_32:3-4 et Ambrosius eleganter: Confessio verecunda suffragatur Deo, et pœnam, quam defensione vitare non possumus, pudore revelamus (lib. de Joseph., c. 36), et alibi idem: Cessat vindicta divina, si confessio præcurat humana. Etsi enim confessio non est causa meritoria remissionis peccatorum, est tamen necessarium quoddam antecedens.” Förster.
2. “In earnest and hearty prayer there is a conflict between the spirit and the flesh. The flesh regards the greatness of the sins, and conceives of God as a severe Judge and morose being, who either will not help further or cannot. The spirit, on the other hand, adheres to the name of God, i. e., to His promise; he apprehends God by faith as his true comfort and aid, and depends upon Him.” Cramer.
3. On Jer_14:9 a. “Ideo non vult Deus cito dare, ut discas ardentius orare.” Augustine.
4. On Jer_14:9 b. “Quia in baptismo nomen Domini, i. e., totius SS. et individuæ Trinitatis super nos quoque invocatum est, eo et ipso nos in fœdus Dei recepti sumus et inde populus Dei salutamur.” Förster.
5. On Jer_14:10. “So long as the sinner remains unchanged and uncontrite God cannot remove the punishment of the sin (Jer_26:13).” Starke.—“Quotidie crescit pœna, quia quotidie crescit et culpa.” Augustine.
6. On Jer_14:11-12. [“We further gather from this passage that fasting is not in itself a religious duty or exercise, but that it refers to another end. Except then they who fast have a regard to what is thereby intended—that there may be a greater alacrity in prayer—that it may be an evidence of humility in confessing their sins,—and that they may also strive to subdue all their lusts;—except these things be regarded, fasting becomes a frivolous exercise, nay, a profanation of God’s worship, it being only superstitious. We hence see that fastings are not only without benefit except when prayers are added, and those objects which I have stated are regarded, but that they provoke the wrath of God as all superstitions do, for His worship is polluted.” Calvin.—S. R. A.] “Unbelief is a mortal sin, so that by it the good is turned into evil. For fasting or praying is good; but when the man who does it has no faith it becomes sin (Psa_109:7).” Cramer.
7. On Jer_14:14. “He who would be a preacher must have a regular appointment. In like form for all parts of divine worship we must have God’s word and command for our support. If we have it not all is lost.” Cramer.
8. On Jer_14:14 (I have not sent them). “This does not come at all into the account now-a-days; and I do not know, whether to such a preacher, let him have obtained his office as he may, in preaching, absolution, marrying and exorcising, or on any other occasion, when he appeals to his calling before the congregation or against the devil, the thought once occurs, whether he is truly sent by God. Thus the example of the sons of Sceva (Act_19:14; Act_19:16) is no longer considered, and it appears that the devil is not yet disposed by such frightful occurrences to interrupt the atheistical carelessness of the teachers.” Zinzendorf.
9. On Jer_14:15. “The example of Pashur and others shortly afterwards confirms this discourse. This is an important point. One should however, with that modesty and prudence, which Dr. Wiesmann (Prof. of Theol. in Tübingen), who seems called of God to be a writer of church history, in his Introd. in Memorabilia historiæ sacræ N. T. (1731 and 1745) which I could wish were in the hands of all teachers, repeatedly recommends, have regard to this also, when so-called judgments on the wicked are spoken of, that when the Lord in His wisdom and omnipotence exercises justice on such transgressors by temporal judgments, these are often a blessing to them and the yet remaining means of their salvation. It is related that a certain clergyman in a Saxon village, about the year 1730, felt such a judgment upon himself and his careless ministry, and after happy and humble preparation on a usual day of fasting and prayer, presented himself before his church as an example, and exercised on himself what is called church discipline, whereupon he is said to have fallen down dead with the words,
‘My sin is deep and very great,
And fills my heart with grief.
O for thy agony and death,
Grant me, I pray, relief.’
He is no doubt more blessed, and his remembrance more honorable, than thousands of others, who are praised by their colleagues in funeral discourses as faithful pastors, and at the same time, or already before, are condemned in the first but invisible judgment as dumb dogs, wolves or hirelings.” Zinzendorf.
10. On Jer_14:16. “Although preachers lead their hearers astray, yet the hearers are not thus excused. But when they allow themselves to be led astray, the blind and those who guide them fall together into the ditch (Luk_6:39).” Cramer. [“When sinners are overwhelmed with trouble, they must in it see their own wickedness poured upon them. This refers to the wickedness both of the false prophets and the people; the blind lead the blind, and both fall together into the ditch, where they will be miserable comforters one to another.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
11. On Jer_14:19. Chrysostom refers to Rom_11:1 sqq., where the answer to the prophet’s question is to be found.
12. On Jer_14:21. “Satan has his seat here and there (Rev_2:13). I should like to know why the Saviour may not also have His cathedral. Assuredly He has, and where one stands He knows how to maintain it, and to preserve the honor of the academy.” Zinzendorf.
[“Good men lay the credit of religion, and its profession in the world, nearer their hearts than any private interest or concern of their own; and those are powerful pleas in prayer which are fetched from thence, and great supports to faith. We may be sure that God will not disgrace the throne of His glory, on earth; nor will He eclipse the glory of His throne by one providence, without soon making it shine forth, and more brightly than before, by another. God will be no loser in His honor in the long run.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
13. On Jer_14:22. “Testimony to the omnipotence of God, for His are both counsel and deed (Pro_8:14). Use it for consolation in every distress and for the true apodictica [demonstration] of all articles of Christian faith, however impossible they may appear.” Cramer.—[“The sovereignty of God should engage, and His all-sufficiency encourage, our attendance on Him, and our expectations from Him, at all times.” Henry.—“Hence may be learned a useful doctrine—that there is no reason why punishments, which are signs of God’s wrath, should discourage us so as to prevent us from venturing to seek pardon from Him; but on the contrary a form of prayer is here prescribed for us; for if we are convinced that we have been chastised by God’s hand, we are on this very account encouraged to hope for salvation; for it belongs to Him who wounds to heal, and to Him who kills to restore to life.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
14. On Jer_15:1. On the part of the Catholics it is maintained that “hoc loco refellitur hæreticorum error … orationes defunctorum sanctorum nihil prodesse vivis. Contrarium enim potius ex hisce arguendum suggeritur, nempe istiusmodi sanctorum mortuorum orationes et fieri coram Deo solere pro viventibus, et quando viventes ipsi non posuerint ex semet obicem, illas esse iis maxime proficuas. Ghisl. Tom. II. p. 296). To this it is replied on the part of the Protestants. 1. Enuntiatio isthæc plane est hypothetica. 2. Eo tantum spectat, ut si Moses et Samuel in vivis adhuc essent, adeoque in his terris pro populo preces interponerent suas, perinde ut ille, Exodus 32. hic vero 1 Samuel 7. (Förster, S. 86).” He also adds two testimonies of the fathers against the invocation of saints. One from Augustine, who (contra Maximin., L. 1), calls such invocation sacrilegium, the other from Epiphanius who (Hæres 2) names it an error seductorum, and adds “non sanctos colimus, sed sanctorum dominum.”—That the intercession of the living for each other is effective, Cramer testifies, saying “Intercession is powerful, and is not without fruit, when he who prays and he for whom he prays are of like spirit.” Comp. Rom_15:30; 2Co_1:11; Eph_6:18-19; 1Ti_2:1-2; 1Jn_5:16. [To the same effect also Calvin and Henry.—S. R. A.]
15. On Jer_15:4 b. “Scilicet in vulgus manant exempla regentum, utque ducum lituos, sic mores castra sequuntur.”—“Non sic inflectere sensus humanos edicta valent ut vita regentum.”—“Qualis rex talis grex.” Förster.
16. “God keeps an exact protocol [register] of sins, and visits them to the third and fourth generation.” Cramer. [“See what uncertain comforts children are; and let us therefore rejoice in them as though we rejoiced not.” Henry.—S. R. A]
17. On Jer_15:5. “When God abandons us we are abandoned also by the holy angels, and all creatures. For as at court when two eyes are turned away the whole court turns away; so when the Lord turns away all His hosts turn away also.” Cramer.
18. On Jer_15:7. “God as a faithful husbandman has all kinds of instruments for cleaning His grain. He has two kinds of besoms and two kinds of winnowing-fan. With one He cleanses, winnows the grain and sweeps the floor, so that the chaff may be separated from the good wheat. This is done by the Fatherly cross. But if this does not avail He takes in hand the besom of destruction.” Cramer.
19. On Jer_15:10. “The witnesses of Jesus have the name among others of being hard and rough people, from whom they cannot escape without quarreling. It is not only a reproach which Ahab and such like make to Elijah, ‘Art thou he that troubleth Israel?’ (1Ki_19:17). But even true-hearted people like Obadiah do not thoroughly trust to them; every one has the thought, if they would only behave more gently it would be just as well and make less noise. Meanwhile the poor Elijah is sitting there, knowing not what to do; a Jeremiah laments the day of his birth … why am I then such a monster? Why such an apple of discord? What manner have I? How do I speak? ‘For when I speak, they are for war’ (Psa_120:7). He does not at once remember that they called the master Beelzebub, and persecuted all the prophets before him; that his greatest sin is that he cares for the interests of Jesus in opposition to Satan.” Zinzendorf. [“Even those who are most quiet and peaceable, if they serve God faithfully, are often made men of strife. We can but follow peace; we have the making only of one side of the bargain, and therefore can but, as much as in us lies, live peaceably.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
20. On Jer_15:10 b. (I have neither lent nor borrowed at usury). “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. There is no instance of a preacher being persecuted because he cared for his household. But to take payment in such natural products as human souls, that is ground of distrust, that is going too far, that thou carriest too high, and thou must be more remiss therein, otherwise all will rise up against thee; thou wilt be suspended, removed, imprisoned or in some way made an end of, for that is pure disorder and innovation, that smacks of spiritual revolutionary movements.” Zinzendorf.
21. On Jer_15:15 a. (Thou knowest that for thy sake I have suffered reproach). “This is the only thing that a servant of the Lamb of God should care for, that he does indeed suffer not the least in that he has disguised and disfigured the doctrine of God and his Saviour. … It might be wished that no servant of the Lord, especially in small cities and villages, would now and then make a quarrel to relieve the tedium, which will occupy the half of his life, and of which it may be said in the end: vinco vel vincor, semper ego maculor.” Zinzendorf.
22. On Jer_15:16. “The sovereign sign of a little flock depending on Christ is such a hearty, spiritual tender disposition towards the Holy Scriptures, that they find no greater pleasure than in their simple but heart-searching truths. I, poor child, if I but look into the Bible, am happy for several hours after. I know not what misery I could not alleviate at once with a little Scripture.” Zinzendorf. [On Jer_17:17. “It is the folly and infirmity of some good people that they lose much of the pleasantness of their religion by the fretfulness and uneasiness of their natural temper, which they humor and indulge instead of mortifying it.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
23. On Jer_15:19, a. (And thou shalt stand before me: [Luther: thou shalt remain my preacher]) “Hear ye this, ye servants of the Lord! Ye may be suspended, removed, lose your income and your office, suffer loss of house and home, but ye will again be preachers. This is the word of promise. * * * And if one is dismissed from twelve places, and again gets a new place, he is a preacher to thirteen congregations. For in all the preceding his innocence, his cross, his faith preach more powerfully than if he himself were there.” Zinzendorf.
Note.—On this it may be remarked that in order to be the mouth of the Lord it is not necessary to have a church.
24. On Jer_15:19 b. (Before thou return to them) “We can get no better comfort than this, that our faithful Lord Himself assures us against ourselves. I will make thee so steady, so discreet, so well-founded, so immovable, that, hard as the human heart is, and dead and opposed, yet it will be rather possible that they all yield to thee, than that thou shouldest be feeble or slack and go over to them.” Zinzendorf.
25. On Jer_15:20. “A preacher must be like a bone, outwardly hard, inwardly full of marrow.” Förster. [“Ministers must take those whom they see to be precious into their bosoms, and not sit alone, as Jeremiah did, but keep up conversation with those they do good to, and get good by.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
26. On Jer_16:2. “It is well-known that in no condition is celibacy attended by so many evils as in that of the clergy and that this condition entails in a certain measure a present necessity of marrying. For if any one needs a helpmeet to be by his side, it is the man who must be sacrificed to so many different men of all classes. But all this must be arranged according to circumstances. Ye preachers! Is it made out that ye marry only for Jesus? … that you have the church alone as your object? and that you subject yourselves to all the hardships of this condition with its tribulations only for the profit of many? First, then, examine maturely in your offices, whether there is no word of the Lord, whether circumstances do not show, whether there is not an exception from the rule in your case, that you are to take no wife; whether Paul does not call to you in spirit, ‘I would that thou wert as I.’ May it not sometimes be said? ‘Take no wife at this time or at this place!’ or ‘Take not another!’ How does the matter look on closer examination? The rather, as it is known to the servants of Christ to be no hyperbolical speech, when it is said, ‘The minister has slain his thousands, but the minister’s wife her ten thousands.’ He that loves anything more than Christ is not worthy of Him. If it cannot be cured endure it. But see to it the more, that those who have wives be as those who have them not (1Co_7:29). Lead your wife in prayer diligently and plainly, as Moses with Zipporah (Exo_4:25, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me). If they would not have you dead they must leave you your Lord. I know not when anything was so pleasing to me as when I saw a certain minister’s wife weeping sorely from apprehension that her husband would not endure a certain trial. She saw clearly that he would retain his charge, but she feared the Saviour would make it hard to him.”Zinzendorf.
27. On Jer_16:2. “Ridiculi sunt Papicolæ, qui ex hoc typo articulum religionis suæ de cœlibatu saceraotum exstruere conantur. Nam. 1. tota hæc res fuit typica. Typica autem et symbolica theologia non est argumentativa juxta axioma Thomæ. 2. Non simpliciter interdicitur conjugium prophetæ in omni loco, sed tantum in hoc loco.” Förster.
28. On Jer_16:7. This passage (as also Isa_58:7) is used by the Lutheran theologians to prove that panem frangere may be equivalent to panem distribuere, as also Luther translates: “They will not distribute bread among them.” This is admitted by the Reformed, who, however, remark that it does not follow from this that frangere et distribuere also “in Sacramento æquipollere, quod esset a particulari ad particulare argumentari.” Comp. Turretin., Inst. Theol. Elencht. Tom. III., p. 499.
29. On Jer_16:8. “When people are desperately bad and will not be told so, they must be regarded as heathen and publicans (Mat_17:18; Tit_3:10; 1Co_5:9).” Cramer.
30. On Jer_16:19. “The calling of the heathen is very consolatory. For as children are rejoiced at heart when they see that their parents are greatly honored and obtain renown and praise in all lands, so do all true children of God rejoice when they see that God’s name is honored and His glory more widely extended.” Cramer.—This passage is one of those which predict the extension of the true religion among all nations, and are therefore significant as giving impulse and comfort in the work of missions. Comp. Deu_32:21; Hos. 2:1, 25; Joe_3:5; Isa_49:6; Isa_65:1; Rom_10:12 sqq.
31. On Jer_16:21. “Nothing can be learned from God without God. God instructs the people by His mouth and His hand, verbis et verberibus.” Cramer.
32. On Jer_17:1. “Scripta est et fides tua, scripta est et culpa tua, sicut Jeremias dixit: scripta est Juda culpa tua graphio ferreo et ungue adamantino. Et scripta est, inquit, in pectore et in corde tuo. Ibi igitur culpa est ubi gratia; sed culpa graphio scribitur, gratia spiritu designatur.” Ambros. de Sp. s. III. 2.
33. On Jer_17:1. “The devil is God’s ape. For when he sees that God by the writing of His prophets and apostles propagates His works and wonders to posterity, he sets his own pulpiteers to work, who labor with still greater zeal, and write not only with pens and ink, but also with diamonds, that such false religion may have the greater respect and not go down.” Cramer.
34. On Jer_17:5.
“O man in human help and favor
Trust not, for all is vanity,
The curse is on it,—happy he,
Who trusts alone in Christ the Saviour.”
[“When water is blended with fire, both perish; so when one seeks in part to trust in God and in part to trust in men, it is the same as though he wished to mix heaven and earth together, and to throw all things into confusion. It is then to confound the order of nature, when men imagine that they have two objects of trust, and ascribe half their salvation to God and the other half to themselves or to other men.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
35. On Jer_17:5. “A teacher is commanded to be the first to honor the authorities, to pray for them and be subject to them as God’s servants… But since the authorities, in all which pertains to the concerns of the soul, have part only as members, there is great occasion for this cursed dependence on flesh … when one from the hope of good personal protection … gives up the work of the Lord to the powers of the earth. … It is true the church is to have foster-parents who are kings. But nevertheless neither kings nor princes are its tutelar deities, much less lords and commanders of the church, but one is our Master, one our Judge, one our King, the Crucified.” Zinzendorf.
36. On Jer_17:5. Reformed theologians, ex. gr., Lambertus Danæus (ob. 1596) have applied this passage in the sense of Joh_6:63, in their controversies against the Lutheran doctrine of the Supper. But as Calvin declared, it is not the flesh of Christ, but only earthly flesh and that per contemtum which is here spoken of Comp. Förster, S. 97.
37. On Jer_17:7. “Blessed are those teachers, who have betaken themselves, to His protection, who once promised His Church, that even the gates of hell should not prevail against it …… Who has ever been put to shame who trusted in Him?” Zinzendorf.
38. On Jer_17:9. “This is a spiritual anatomy of the heart. Examples: Manasseh (2 Chronicles 33.); Hezekiah (38:39); the children of Israel (Numbers 14.). Alii sumus dum lætamur et omnia in vita nobis secundo vento succedunt; alii vero in temporibus calamitosis, ubi quid præter sententiam acciderit. Comp. Ser. Jer 11:27.” (MS. note in my copy of Cramer’s Bibel).
39. On Jer_17:9. Νᾶφε καὶ μέμνασο ἀπιστεῖν. This applies with respect to ourselves and others. For the defiant it avails as an extinguisher (Rom_12:3); but the despairing may be reassured by it (1Jn_3:19-20).
40. On Jer_17:14. (Thou art my praise)…… “When a teacher confines himself to the praise of the cross and lets all other matters of praise go, which might adorn a theologian of these times, and adheres immovably to this: ‘I am determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ the crucified’ (1Co_2:2),—amid all the shame of His cross He is victorious over the rest.” Zinzendorf.
41. On Jer_17:16. (That which I have preached was right before thee). “It is not difficult to know in these times what is right before the Lord. There is His word; he who adheres to this strictly, knows in thesi that he is right …… In all this it is the teacher’s chief maxim, not to make use of the application without need, but to make the truth so plain in his public discourse, that the hearers must necessarily make the application to themselves. … ‘Thus saying, thou reproachest us also,’ said the lawyer (Luk_11:45).… Others went away convicted in their consciences.” Zinzendorf.
42. On Jer_17:17. “That is a period which straitens the hearts of witnesses, when their rock, their protection, their consolation, their trust is a terror to them. But under this we must bow and faithfully endure, and we shall have a peaceable fruit of righteousness. Discipline always ends gloriously.” Zinzendorf.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
On Jer_14:7-9. Jeremiah a second Israel, who wrestles with the Lord in prayer. 1. In what the Lord is strong against the prophet: the sin of the people. 2. In what the prophet is strong against the Lord: the Name of the Lord (a) in itself. This compels him to show that He is not a desperate hero, or giant, who cannot help; (b) in that His name is borne by Israel. Thus the Lord is bound to show Himself as He who is in Israel (not a guest or stranger), and consequently the Comforter and Helper of Israel.—Heim und Hoffmann, The Major Prophets (Winnenden, 1839). As Daniel (Jer_9:6) prayed, We have sinned and committed iniquity, etc., so Jeremiah took his share in the sin and guilt of his people.—This is true penitence, when one no longer wishes to contend with God in tribulation, but confesses his sin and condemnation, when he sees that if God should treat us according to our misdeeds, He could find no ground for grace. But for His name’s sake He can show us favor. He Himself is the cause of the forgiveness of sin.—Calwer Handbuch [Manual]. Notwithstanding the ungodliness of the people the prophet may still say, “Thou art among us,” because the temple of the Lord and His word were still in the land, and the pious have never all died out. [On Jer_14:7-9. “Prayer hath within itself its own reward. The prayer of the prophet consists of confession and petition. 1. Confession fitly begins. It is the testimony of iniquity, and that this iniquity is against God. When we are to encounter any enemy or difficulty, it is sin weakens us. Now confession weakens it, takes off the power of accusation, etc. 2. Petition: For Thy name’s sake. This is the unfailing argument which abides always the same and hath always the same force. The children of God are much beholden to their troubles for clear experiences of themselves and God. Though thou art not clear in thy interest as a believer, yet plead thy interest as a sinner, which thou art sure of.” Leighton.—S. R. A.]
2. On Jer_14:13-16. Against false prophets. 1. They tell the world what it likes to hear (Jer_17:13); 2. The Lord denies them (Jer_17:14); 3. The Lord punishes them (Jer_17:15); 4. The Lord also punishes those who allow themselves to be deceived by them (Jer_17:16).—Tüb. Bibelw.: To enter the preacher’s office without divine calling, what an abomination is that! But mark this, ye hirelings! the sentence of condemnation is already pronounced over you (Jer_23:21; Mat_7:15).—Osiander Bibl.: God avenges the deception of false teachers most severely, if not in this world in the next (Act_13:10-11).—Starke: God punishes both deceivers and deceived, the latter cannot then lay all the guilt on the former (Jer 27:45).
3. On Jer_14:19-22. The church’s distress and consolation. 1. The distress is (a) outward (Jer_17:19), (b) inward (Jer_17:20, the reason of the outward, confession). 2. The consolation (a). The Lord’s Name, [α] It is called and is One (Jer_17:22): [β] His glory and that of the church (throne of glory) are one; (b) the Lord’s covenant (Jer_17:21).—What in the present circumstances should be our position towards God? 1. The divine providence, in which we are at present: 2. Our confession, which we make before God: 3. Our petition, which we should address to Him. Voelter in Palmer’s Ev. Casual-Reden. [Occasional Discourses], 4th Ed., 1865.
4. On Jer_15:16. Sermon on a Reformation or Bible-Anniversary. The candlestick of the Gospel has been rejected by more than one church. We therefore pray: Preserve to us Thy word (Ps. 109:43). 1. Why we thus pray (Thy Word is our hearts’ joy and comfort); 2. Why we hope to be heard (for we are named by Thy name).
5. On Jer_15:19. Caspari (Installation-sermon at Munich, Adv., 1855). These words treat; 1, of the firm endurance; 2, of the holy zeal; 3, of the joyful confidence, with which a preacher of God must come to an evangelical church.
6. Homilies of Origen are extant on Jer_15:5-6; (Hom. XII., Ed. Lommatzsch); Jer_15:10-19 (Hom. XIV.); Jer_15:10; Jer_17:5 (Hom. XV.). [On Jer_15:20. “I. God’s qualification to be an overseer of the church. The metaphor of a wall implies, (1) courage, (2) innocence and integrity, (3) authority. II. The opposition a church-governor will be sure to meet with, (1) by seditious preaching and praying, (2) by railing and libels; (3) perhaps by open force. III. The issue and success of such opposition (they shall not prevail).” South.—S. R. A.]
7. On Jer_16:19-21. Missionary Sermon. The true knowledge of God. 1. It is to be had in Christianity (Jer_17:19, a). 2. It will also make its way to the heathen, for (a) It is God’s will that they should be instructed (Jer_17:21); (b) they are ready to be instructed (Jer_17:19 b. 20).
8. On Jer_17:5-8. The blessing of faith and the curse of unbelief (comp. Ebal und Gerizim). 1. Why does the curse come upon the unbeliever? (He departs in his heart from the Lord). 2. Wherein this curse consists (Jer_17:6). 3. Why must blessing be the portion of the believer? (Jer_17:7). 4. Wherein this blessing consists (Jer_17:8).
9. On Jer_17:5-8, and Jer_18:7-10. Schleiermacher (Sermon on 28 Mar., 1813, in Berlin): We regard the great change (brought about by the events of the period) on the side of our worthiness before God. 1. What in this respect is its peculiar import and true nature. 2. To what we must then feel ourselves summoned.
10. On Jer_17:9-10. The human heart and its Judges 1. The antithesis in the human heart. 2. The impossibility of fathoming it with human eyes. 3. The omniscient God alone sees through it; and 4, judges it with justice. [“The heart is deceitful—it always has some trick or other by which to shuffle off conviction.” Henry.—“It is extremely difficult for sinners to know their hearts. I. What is implied in their knowing their own hearts. 1. It implies a knowledge of their selfishness. 2. Of their desperate incurable wickedness. 3. Of their extreme deceitfulness. II. Why it is so extremely difficult for them to know their own hearts. 1. They are unwilling to know them. 2. Because of the deceitfulness of sin. They love or hate, as they appear friendly or unfriendly to them: (a) God, (b) Christ, (c) good men, (d) one another, (e) the world, (f) their own hearts, (g) the means of grace, (h) their convictions, (i) heaven—Improvement. The only way to know the heart is to inquire whether it loves God or not, etc. 2. Saints can more easily ascertain their true character than sinners Song of Solomon 3. All changes in life are trials of the heart,” etc., etc. Emmons.—“I. The human heart exhibits great fraud and treachery. 1. We are changeable by that connection which the soul has with the body. 2. By its connection with external objects by our senses. 3. By its love of novelty and variety. 4. By its hasty resolutions. 5. By its self-love. II. Its excessive malice is seen in history and experience. III. Its deep dissimulation and hypocrisy render it inscrutable. Inferences: 1. We should entertain a sober diffidence of ourselves. 2. We should not be surprised when men use us ill or disappoint us. 3. We should take care and give good principles and a good example to those young persons under our guidance. 4. We should be ready to confess our offences to God. 5. We should bear in mind that we are under the inspection of one who searcheth the hearts,” etc. Jortin.—See also two Sermons by Jer. Taylor.—S. R. A.].
11. Rud. Kœgel (Court and Cathedral preacher at Berlin, 1865). Sermon on Jer_17:9; Jer_17:19, and Heb_13:9 : Two pictures: 1, the unregenerate; 2, the regenerate heart.
12. On Jer_17:12-13. Sermon for the dedication of a church, the anniversary of the Reformation, or on Whitsunday. The church of the Lord. 1. What it is in itself (place of sanctuary, throne of divine glory, house of Him, who is Israel’s hope). 2. What it will be (it will ever remain firm, Mat_16:18): 3. What they find who forsake it (Jer_17:19).
13. On Jer_17:14-18. Cry for help of a preacher tempted on account of the truth. 1. The temptation (Jer_17:15). 2. The demonstration of innocence (Jer_17:16). 3. The cry for help, (a) negative (Jer_17:17-18), (b) positive (Jer_17:19). [On Jer_17:14. The penitent’s prayer. 1. The words express an earnest desire for salvation. 2. He applies to Almighty God for it. 3. Through the medium of prayer. 4. With confidence that he will be heard. Dr. A. Thomson of Edinburgh.—S. R. A.].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 gates--The place of public concourse in each city looks…
gates--The place of public concourse in each city looks sad, as being no longer frequented (Isa 3:26; Isa 24:4).
black--that is, they mourn (blackness being indicative of sorrow), (Jer 8:21).
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unto the ground--bowing towards it.
cry--of distress (Sa1 5:12; Isa 24:11).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 THE DROUGHT, Jer_14:1-6.
THE DROUGHT, Jer_14:1-6.
1. The word of the Lord — The title, not only of the section immediately following, but of the whole four chapters to chap. 18.
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Dearth — Better, drought. The original word is in the plural, either to express emphasis or to indicate a succession of droughts.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16 2. the gates] put, as often in Hebrew, for…
2. the gates] put, as often in Hebrew, for cities, i.e. for the inhabitants, as being the place of general resort.
they sit in black upon the ground] Cp. Jer_8:21, Jer_13:18; also Psa_137:1; and Isa_47:1.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–15 (1) Concerning the dearth.—Literally, on the word or tidings…
XIV.
(1) Concerning the dearth.—Literally, on the word or tidings of the drought. This is clearly the opening of a new discourse, which continues to Jer_17:18; but as no special calamity of this kind is mentioned in the historical account of Jeremiah’s life, its date cannot be fixed with certainty. As Jer_15:15 -implies that he had already suffered scorn or persecution for his prophetic work, we may reasonably assume some period not earlier than the reign of Jehoiakim.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 This chapter must be read in connection with the…
This chapter must be read in connection with the following one. They describe chiefly Jeremiah"s twofold attempt at intercession (see Vers. 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 (Jer_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. (Jer_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. The dearth; rather, the drought, or, more literally, the droughts, the plural being used to indicate the length of time the drought lasted.
Vers. 1-6. A plague of drought.
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I A PLAGUE OF DROUGHT IS AN INSTANCE OF A NATURAL CALAMITY OCCASIONING GREAT DISTRESS. 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 PUNISHMENT 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 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 POSSIBILITY OF SPIRITUAL 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. (Psa_63:1)
IV A PLAGUE OF DROUGHT SHOULD MAKE US MORE THANKFUL FOR THE COMMON BLESSINGS 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.
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY Vers. 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 a field 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 hilltop, 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 (Ver. 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. (Ver. 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.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG Vers. 1-6. The miseries produced by lack of water.
I THE BITTER CONSCIOUSNESS THAT AN IMPERATIVE NEED CANNOT BE SATISFIED. Well might there be mourning, languishing, and crying. When we are speaking of need, one of the first questions to be asked is whether the need is natural or artificial. An artificial need, by continued self-indulgence, may come to be very keenly felt; and yet, when circumstances arise which prevent the satisfying of the need, the artificiality of it is clearly seen. But a natural need, when the supplies are stopped, soon shows how clamorous it can become, how productive of unendurable pain. These Israelites had been multiplying artificial needs. They thought they needed visible images, to he richly adorned and constantly worshipped. They thought they needed large external possessions, and so the land became full of covetousness. Rich men tried to increase their riches, and poor men wanted, above all things, to get out of their poverty. But all the while the difference between natural and artificial need was forgotten. The natural needs went on being satisfied, because God, who gives rain from heaven, was long-suffering; and the supply came so habitually that the people did not reckon how there was a hand upon the fountain of the waters which could seal them up in a moment. But now, no sooner is the supply stopped than there is deep and inconceivable misery. The idolater will go on living, even if you take his images away; a rich man need not die because he is stripped of his possessions; but what shall one do who cannot get water to drink? The unendurable pain of Dives in Hades came not from the lost wealth and splendor of earth, but because he could not get the least drop of water to cool his tongue.
II THE VANITY OF HUMAN RESOURCES. Jerusalem now abounds in pools and cisterns, and the probability is that in the time of Jeremiah there was a similar abundance, both within and without the city. Great cities have always had to see to the providing of water, according to their judgment of what was necessary. A due supply of water is one of the most important charges that can be entrusted to any municipality. The authorities of Jerusalem may have done their best according to their lights; but they had forgotten that the most they could do was to provide receptacles for the Divine bounty. They had hewn cisterns without considering that a time might come when there would be no water to put into the cisterns. That time has come, and where is now the wisdom of the wise and the strength of the mighty? Men may flatter themselves that they rule on earth; but it is very plain that the spaces above, where the clouds gather and whence the rains descend, are beyond their control.
III THE NULLIFYING OF HUMAN INDUSTRY. The work of the ploughman is in vain. God requires man to work and study in order to get the fruits of the earth; but it is only too easy for him in all his work and study to forget God. tie who expects a harvest will not omit ploughing, sowing, irrigating without these works expectation would be idiotic-but he may very easily omit faith in God. He may neglect the bestowment of the firstfruits, and all that service of God which the fruits of the earth give us strength to render. Well may such a one be ashamed when the ground is chapped and there is no rain in the earth. This is the sign of his own folly in attending to certain secondary requisites and forgetting the one requisite most important of all. When it is so required, God can feed thousands without any sowing and reaping at all; but no man is allowed to reckon that his sowing will assuredly be followed by reaping. He may sow wheat bountifully, only to reap thorns bountifully, because he has forgotten God. (Jer_12:13) If the sowing is in prayer and humility, in gratitude for the past and reasonable expectation for the future, then the sower will have no need to be ashamed. Whatever other things God"s servants may lack, God will put the true, abiding glory upon them.
IV THE LINKING OF MAN WITH THE BRUTE CREATION IN A COMMON SUFFERING, The hinds and the wild asses suffer, and doubtless they were prominent representatives of many other classes of the brute creation ("The Land and the Book," p. 172). A common thirst not only brings down the noble to the level of the mean man, but man in general to the level of the brute. It is well that we should have plain reminders, such as cannot be escaped, of the links that bind us to the lower creation. We cannot, at present at all events, get above some of the wants of the brute, although certainly it cannot rise to some of ours; but it is just the wants of the brute that seem to be the only wants many feel. They have enough if they can eat, drink, and be merry. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 They came to the pits, and found no water;…
Jer_14:1-9
They came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads.
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The drought of nature, the rain of grace, and the lesson therefrom
I. First, consider that man is a very dependent creature. He is, in some respects, the most dependent creature that God has made; for the range of his wants is very wide, and at a thousand points he is dependent upon something outside of himself.
1. Man, as a living creature, is peculiarly dependent upon God as to temporals. On what a feeble thread hangs human life! Water, though it be itself unstable, is needful to the establishment of human life, and without it man expires. Many an animal can bear thirst better than man. Other creatures carry their own garments with them; but we must be indebted to a plant, or to a sheep, for the covering of our nakedness. Many other creatures are endowed with sufficient physical force to win their food in fight; but we must produce our own food from the soil. We cannot produce food from the earth without the dew and the rain. However cleverly you have prepared your soil, however carefully you have selected your seed, all will fail without the rain of heaven. Even though your corn should spring up, yet will it refuse to come to the ear if the heavens be dry. Nor can you of yourself produce a single shower, or even a drop of dew. If God withholdeth the rain, what can the husbandman do? Yes, and life itself would vanish as the food of life ceased. It would be an instructive calculation if it could be accurately wrought out--to estimate how much bread food there is at any time laid up upon the surface of the earth. If all harvests were to fail from this date; if there were no harvests in Australia during our winter, no harvests early in the year in India and the warm regions, if there were no harvests in America and in Europe, I have been informed that, by the time of our own harvest months, there would be upon the face of the earth no more food than would last us for six weeks. God does, indeed, give us bread as we need it; even as, in the wilderness, He gave the manna; but we are every hour dependent upon His generous care.
2. In spiritual things this dependence is most evident. The priceless blessings of pardon and grace: how can we procure them apart from God in Christ Jesus? So is it with the life and the power of the Spirit of God, by which we are able to receive and enjoy the blessings of the covenant; the Holy Spirit, like the wind, bloweth where He listeth, and the order of His working is with the Lord alone. The new life whereby we receive the Lord Jesus: how can it come to us but from the living God Himself?
3. Here is the pity of it: against God, upon whom we are so dependent, we have sinned, and do sin. We are dependent upon Him, and yet rebellious against Him. If pardoned, it must be by the exercise of the sovereign prerogative which is vested in Jehovah, the Lord of all, who doeth as seemeth good in His sight. Provided it can be done justly, sovereignty may step in and rescue the guilty from his doom; but this is a matter which depends upon the will of the Lord alone. If you are executed, the condemnation is so well deserved, that not a word can be said against the severity which shall carry out the sentence.
II. Men may be reduced to dire distress. Men, being dependent upon God, may be reduced to dire distress if they disobey Him, and incur His just displeasure.
1. To proceed a little in detail with the words of my text: when the Lord causes sinners to feel the spiritual drought, pride is humbled. Their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters. The philosopher grows into a little child, and gladly accepts the cup which aforetime he sneered at.
2. But you observe that when humbled and made thirsty, these people went to secondary causes: they came to the pits, or reservoirs. Thus souls, when they are awakened, go to fifty things before they come to God. It is sad that, in superstition, or in scepticism, they look for living streams. They try reformation of manners--I have nothing to say against it; but apart from God reformation always ends in disappointment.
3. If you read on, you will find that when they went to these secondary supplies, they were disappointed: They came to the pits, and found no water. They thirsted to drink; but not a drop was found to cool their tongues. It is an awful thing to come home from sermon with the vessels empty; to rise from the communion table, having found no living water, and return with vessels empty. To close the Bible, and sigh, I find no comfort here, I must return with my vessel empty. When the ordinances, and the Word yield us no grace, things have come to an awful pass with us. Do you know what this disappointment means?
4. Now upon this disappointment, there followed great confusion of mind; they became distracted; they were ashamed and confounded. Thus have I met with many who, after going to many confidences, have been disappointed in all, and seem ready to lie down in despair, and put forth no more effort. They fear that God will never bless them, and they will never enter into life eternal; and so they sign their own death warrants. Shall I confess that I have been better pleased to see them in this condition than to hear their jovial songs at other times? It is by the gate of self-despair that men arrive at the Divine hope.
5. At last, when these people came to despair, it is very remarkable how everything about them seemed to be in unison with their misery. Listen to the third verse: They covered their heads. Did you hear the last words of the fourth verse? They were the very same: They covered their heads. Surely the second is the echo of the first. It is even so: earth has sympathy with man. Nature without reflects our inward feelings.
III. Mans only sure resort is his God. God is a refuge for us.
1. There is no help anywhere else. The very best of duties that you and I can perform, if we put our trust in them, are only false confidences, refuges of lies, and they can yield us no help.
2. Nay, look; according to the text there is no help for us even in the usual means of grace if we forget the Lord. O tried and anxious soul, the sacraments are all in vain, though they be ordained of heaven; and preaching and reading, liturgy and song, are all in vain to bring the refreshing dew of grace. Thou art lost, lost, lost if a stronger arm than mans be not stretched out to help thee!
3. But with God is all power. He is the Creator, making all things out of nothing; and He can create in thee at once the tender heart, the loving spirit, the believing mind, the sanctified nature.
4. Well, then, what follows from this? If God hath all this power, our wisdom is to wait upon Him, since He alone can help. We draw this inference: Therefore we will wait upon Thee.
5. Do I hear somebody say, How I would like to pray? Yes, that is the way to come to God. Come to Him by prayer in the name of Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Concerning the dearth
I. The effects of drought upon inanimate creation.
1. The pits were empty. Some of these were natural hollows in the hard rocks and in the caves where evaporation was less speedy. Others were dykes and cisterns, the work of man. But neither nature nor art could afford supplies when God dealt with them in His judgments.
2. The ground was chapt (Jer_14:4). Earths wounds for mans sin. Mute mouths crying to heaven for pity.
3. There was no grass (Jer_14:5). The world is complex, man is complex, God is complex. In complex systems harmony is essential to life,--discord is ruin. The shower can do nothing good without the sun. The sun can only scorch if the rain fall not. Earth can produce no fruit unless both sun and shower combine to aid.
II. The effects of drought upon the animal creation.
1. The hind calved in the field, and forsook it (Jer_14:5). The fact that the hind was in the field proves that pasture had failed on the higher lands. It was not unusual for the hind to drop her calf by reason of fright or grief (Psa_29:9). The maternal instinct in these creatures being strong, it was very unusual for them to forsake their young, and can only be accounted for by the entire failure of the mother to obtain food or drink.
2. The wild asses were in intense agony on account of hunger (Jer_14:6). These creatures were capable of great endurance, and needed but little to sustain life.
III. The effects of drought upon the human creation.
1. The husbandmen were ashamed.
2. The people generally were languishing.
3. The nobles were threatened with death through thirst.
IV. The effects of drought on the devout heart of Jeremiah.
1. He regarded it as a chastisement for sin.
2. He regarded God as their only hope.
3. He earnestly prayed for mercy.
Application--
1. In forsaking God, they forsook the fountain.
2. Earths broken cisterns cannot be a substitute for the Divine.
3. Jesus says, If any man thirst, etc. (W. Whale.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Jeremiah 14, 15 (17?)
CHAPTER IX
THE DROUGHT AND ITS MORAL IMPLICATIONS
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Jeremiah 14, 15 (17?)
VARIOUS opinions have been expressed about the division of these chapters. They have been cut up into short sections, supposed to be more or less independent of each other; and they have been regarded as constituting a well-organised whole, at least so far as the eighteenth verse of chapter 17. The truth may lie between these extremes. Chapters 14, 15 certainly hang together; for in them the prophet represents himself as twice interceding with Iahvah on behalf of the people, and twice receiving a refusal of his petition, {Jer_14:1-22; Jer_15:1-4} the latter reply being sterner and more decisive than the first. The occasion was a long period of drought, involving much privation for man and beast. The connection between the parts of this first portion of the discourse is clear enough. The prophet prays for his people, and God answers that He has rejected them, and that intercession is futile. Thereupon, Jeremiah throws the blame of the national sins upon the false prophets; and the answer is that both the people and their false guides will perish. The prophet then soliloquises upon his own hard fate as a herald of evil tidings, and receives directions for his own personal guidance in this crisis of affairs. {Jer_15:10-21; Jer_16:1-9} There is a pause, but no real break, at the end of chapter 15. The next chapter resumes the subject of directions personally affecting the prophet himself; and the discourse is then continuous so far as Jer_17:18, although, naturally enough, it is broken here and there by pauses of considerable duration, marking transitions of thought, and progress in the argument. The heading of the entire piece is marked in the original by a peculiar inversion of terms, which meets us again, Jer_46:1; Jer_47:1; Jer_49:34, but which, in spite of this recurrence, wears a rather suspicious look. We might render it thus: "What fell as a word of Iahvah to Jeremiah, on account of the droughts" (the plural is intensive, or it signifies the long continuance of the trouble-as if one rainless period followed upon another). Whether or not the singular order of the words be authentic, the recurrence at Jer_17:8 of the remarkable term for "drought" (Hebrews baccoreth of which baccaroth here is plur.) favours the view that that chapter is an integral portion of the present discourse. The exordium {Jer_14:1-9} is a poetical sketch of the miseries of man and beast, closing with a beautiful prayer. It has been said that this is not "a word of Iahvah to Jeremiah," but rather the reverse. If we stick to the letter, this no doubt is the case; but, as we have seen in former discourses, the phrase "Iahvahs word" meant in prophetic use very much more than a direct message from God, or a prediction uttered at the Divine instigation. Here, as elsewhere, the prophet evidently regards the course of his own religious reflection as guided by Him who "fashioneth the hearts of men," and "knoweth their thoughts long before"; and if the question had suggested itself, he would certainly have referred his own poetic powers-the tenderness of his pity, the vividness of his apprehension, the force of his passion, -to the inspiration of the Lord who had called and consecrated him from the birth, to speak in His Name.
There lies at the heart of many of us a feeling, which has lurked there, more or less without our cognisance, ever since the childish days when the Old Testament was read at the mothers knee, and explained and understood in a manner proportioned to the faculties of childhood. When we hear the phrase "The Lord spake," we instinctively think, if we think at all, of an actual voice knocking sensibly at the door of the outward ear. It was not so; nor did the sacred writer mean it so. A knowledge of Hebrew idiom-the modes of expression usual and possible in that ancient speech-assures us that this Statement, so startlingly direct in its unadorned simplicity, was the accepted mode of conveying a meaning which we, in our more complex and artificial idioms, would convey by the use of a multitude of words, in terms far more abstract, in language destitute of all that colour of life and reality which stamps the idiom of the Bible. It is as though the Divine lay farther off from us moderns; as though the marvellous progress of all that new knowledge of the measureless magnitude of the world, of the power and complexity of its machinery, of the surpassing subtlety and the matchless perfection of its laws and processes, had become an impassable barrier, at least an impenetrable veil, between our minds and God. We have lost the sense of His nearness, of His immediacy, so to speak; because we have gained, and are ever intensifying, a sense of the nearness of the world with which He environs us. Hence, when we speak of Him, we naturally cast about either for poetical phrases and figures, which must always be more or less vague and undefined, or for highly abstract expressions, which may suggest scientific exactness, but are, in truth, scholastic formulae, dry as the dust of the desert, untouched by the breath of life; and even if they affirm a Person, destitute of all those living characters by which we instinctively and without effort recognise Personality. We make only a conventional use of the language of the sacred writers, of the prophets and prophetic historians, of the psalmists, and the legalists, of the Old Testament; the language which is the native expression of a peculiar intensity of religious faith, realising the Unseen as the Actual and, in truth, the only Real.
"Judah mourneth and the gates thereof languish,
They are clad in black down to the ground;
And the cry of Jerusalem hath gone up.
And their nobles have sent their lesser folk for water;
They have been to the pits, and found no water:
Their vessels have come back empty;
Ashamed and confounded, they have covered their heads."
"Because the ground is chapt, for there hath not been rain in the land,
The ploughmen are ashamed, they have covered their heads.
For even the hind in the field hath yeaned and forsaken her fawn,
For there is no grass.
And the wild asses stand on the bare fells
They snuff the wind like jackals
Their eyes fall, for there is no pasturage."
"If our sins have answered against us,
Iahweh, act for Thine own Name sake;
For our relapses are many:
Against Thee have we trespassed."
"Hope of Israel, that savest him in time of trouble,
Wherefore wilt Thou be as a stranger in the land,
And as a traveller that leaveth the road but for the night?
Wherefore wilt Thou be as a man oerpowered with sleep,
As a warrior that cannot rescue?"
"Sith Thou art in our midst, O Iahvah,
And Thy Name upon us hath been called;
Cast us not down!"
How beautiful both plaint and prayer! The simple description of the effects of the drought is as lifelike and impressive as a good picture. The whole country is stricken; the city gates, the place of common resort, where the citizens meet for business and for conversation, are gloomy with knots of mourners robed in black from head to foot, or, as the Hebrew may also imply, sitting on the ground, in the garb and posture of desolation. {Lam_2:10; Lam_3:28} The magnates of Jerusalem send out their retainers to find water; and we see them returning with empty vessels, their heads muffled in their cloaks, in sign of grief at the failure of their errand. {1Ki_18:5-6} The parched ground everywhere gapes with fissures; the yeomen go about with covered heads in deepest dejection. The distress is universal, and affects not man only, but the brute creation. Even the gentle hind, that proverb of maternal tenderness, is driven by sorest need to forsake the fruit of her hard travail; her starved dugs are dry, and she flies from her helpless offspring. The wild asses of the desert, fleet, beautiful, and keen-eyed creatures, scan the withered landscape from the naked cliffs, and snuff the wind, like jackals scenting prey; but neither sight nor smell suggests relief. There is no moisture in the air, no glimpse of pasture in the wide sultry land.
The prayer is a humble confession of sin, an unreserved admission that the woes of man evince the righteousness of God. Unlike certain modern poets, who bewail the sorrows of the world as the mere infliction of a harsh and arbitrary and inevitable Destiny, Jeremiah makes no doubt that human sufferings are due to the working of Divine justice. "Our sins have answered against our pleas at Thy judgment seat; our relapses are many; against Thee have we trespassed," against Thee, the sovereign Disposer of events, the Source of all that happens and all that is. If this be so, what plea is left? None, but that appeal to the Name of Iahvah, with which the prayer begins and ends. "Act for Thine own Name sake." "Thy Name upon us hath been called." Act for Thine own honour, that is, for the honour of Mercy, Compassion, Truth, Goodness; which Thou hast revealed Thyself to be, and which are parts of Thy glorious Name. {Exo_34:6} Pity the wretched, and pardon the guilty: for so will Thy glory increase amongst men; so will man learn that the relentings of love are diviner affections than the ruthlessness of wrath and the cravings of vengeance.
There is also a touching appeal to the past. The very name by which Israel was sometimes designated as "the people of Iahvah," just as Moab was known by the name of its god as "the people of Chemosh," {Num_21:29} is alleged as proof that the nation has an interest in the compassion of Him whose name it bears; and it is implied that, since the world knows Israel as Iahvahs people, it will not be for Iahvahs honour that this people should be suffered to perish in their sins. Israel had thus, from the outset of its history, been associated and identified with Iahvah; however ill the true nature of the tie has been understood, however unworthily the relation has been conceived by the popular mind, however little the obligations involved in the call of their fathers have been recognised and appreciated. God must be true, though man be false. There is no weakness, no caprice, no vacillation in God. In bygone "times of trouble" the "Hope of Israel" had saved Israel over and over again; it was a truth admitted by all-even by the prophets enemies. Surely then He will save His people once again, and vindicate His Name of Saviour. Surely He who has dwelt in their midst so many changeful centuries, will not now behold their trouble with the lukewarm feeling of an alien dwelling amongst them for a time, but unconnected with them by ties of blood and kin and common country; or with the indifference of the traveller who is but coldly affected by the calamities of a place where he has only lodged one night. Surely the entire past shows that it would be utterly inconsistent for Iahvah to appear now as a man so buried in sleep that He cannot be roused to save His friends from imminent destruction. {cf. 1Ki_18:27, St. Mar_4:38} He who had borne Israel and carried him as a tender nursling all the days of old (Isa_63:9) could hardly without changing His own unchangeable Name, His character and purposes, cast down His people and forsake them at last.
Such is the drift of the prophets first prayer. To this apparently unanswerable argument his religious meditation upon the present distress has brought him. But presently the thought returns with added force, with a sense of utmost certitude, with a conviction that it is Iahvahs Word, that the people have wrought out their own affliction, that misery is the hire of sin.
"Thus hath Iahvah said of this people:
Even so have they loved to wander,
Their feet they have not refrained;
And as for Iahvah, He accepteth them not";
"He now remembereth their guilt,
And visiteth their trespasses.
And Iahvah said unto me,
Intercede thou not for this people for good!
If they fast, I will not hearken unto their cry;
And if they offer whole offering and oblation,
I will not accept their persons;
But by the sword, the famine, and the plague, will I consume them."
"And I said, Ah, Lord Iahvah!
Behold the prophets say to them,
Ye shall not see sword,
And famine shall not befall you
For peace and permanence will I give you in this place."
"And Iahvah said unto me:
Falsehood it is that the prophets prophesy in My Name.
I sent them not, and I charged them not, and I spake not unto them.
A vision of falsehood and jugglery and nothingness, and the guile of their own heart,
They, for their part, prophesy you."
"Therefore thus said Iahvah:
Concerning the prophets who prophesy in My Name, albeit I sent them not,
And of themselves say
Sword and famine there shall not be in this land;
By the sword and by the famine shall those prophets be fordone.
And the people to whom they prophesy shall lie thrown out in the streets of Jerusalem,
Because of the famine and the sword,
With none to bury them,"-
"Themselves, their wives, and their sons and their daughters:
And I will pour upon them their own evil.
And thou shalt say unto them this word:
Let mine eyes run down with tears, night and day,
And let them not tire;
For with mighty breach is broken
The virgin daughter of my people-
With a very grievous blow.
If I go forth into the field,
Then behold! the slain of the sword;
And if I enter the city,
Then behold! the pinings of famine:
For both prophet and priest go trafficking about the land,
And understand not."
It has been supposed that this whole section is misplaced, and that it would properly follow the close of chapter 13. The supposition is due to a misapprehension of the force of the pregnant particle which introduces the reply of Iahvah to the prophets intercession. "Even so have they loved to wander"; even so, as is naturally implied by the severity of the punishment of which thou complainest. The dearth is prolonged; the distress is widespread and grievous. So prolonged, so grievous, so universal, has been their rebellion against Me. The penalty corresponds to the offence. It is really "their own evil" that is being poured out upon their guilty heads (Jer_14:16; cf. Jer_4:18). Iahvah cannot accept them in their sin; the long drought is a token that their guilt is before His mind, unrepented, unatoned. Neither the supplications of another, nor their own fasts and sacrifices, avail to avert the visitation. So long as the disposition of the heart remains unaltered; so long as man hates, not his darling sins, but the penalties they entail, it is idle to seek to propitiate Heaven by such means as these. And not only so. The droughts are but a foretaste of worse evils to come; "by the sword, the famine, and the plague will I consume them." The condition is understood, If they repent and amend not. This is implied by the prophets seeking to palliate the national guilt, as he proceeds to do, by the suggestion that the people are more sinned against than sinning, deluded as they are by false prophets; as also by the renewal of his intercession (Jer_14:19). Had he been aware in his inmost heart that an irreversible sentence had gone forth against his people, would he have been likely to think either excuses or intercessions availing? Indeed, however absolute the threats of the prophetic preachers may sound, they must, as a rule, be qualified by this limitation, which, whether expressed or not, is inseparable from the object of their discourses, which was the moral amendment of those who heard them.
Of the "false," that is, the common run of prophets, who were in league with the venal priesthood of the time, and no less worldly and self-seeking than their allies, we note that, as usual, they foretell what the people wishes to hear; "Peace (Prosperity), and Permanence," is the burden of their oracles. They knew that invectives against prevailing vices, and denunciations of national follies, and forecasts of approaching ruin, were unlikely means of winning popularity and a substantial harvest of offerings. At the same time, like other false teachers, they knew how to veil their errors under the mask of truth; or rather, they were themselves deluded by their own greed, and blinded by their covetousness to the plain teaching of events. They might base their doctrine of "Peace and Permanence in this place!" upon those utterances of the great Isaiah, which had been so signally verified in the lifetime of the seer himself; but their keen pursuit of selfish ends, their moral degradation, caused them to shut their eyes to everything else in his teachings, and, like his contemporaries, they "regarded not the work of Iahvah, nor the operation of His hand." Jeremiah accuses them of "lying visions"; visions, as he explains, which were the outcome of magical ceremonies, by aid of which, perhaps, they partially deluded themselves, before deluding others, but which were none the less, "things of naught," devoid of all substance, and mere fictions of a deceitful and self-deceiving mind (Jer_14:14). He expressly declares that they have no mission: in other words, their action is not due to the overpowering sense of a higher call, but is inspired by purely ulterior considerations of worldly gain and policy. They prophesy to order; to the order of man, not of God. If they visit the country districts, it is with no spiritual end in view; priest and prophet alike make a trade of their sacred profession, and, immersed in their sordid pursuits, have no eye for truth, and no perception of the dangers hovering over their country. Their misconduct and misdirection of affairs are certain to bring destruction upon themselves and upon those whom they mislead. War and its attendant famine will devour them all.
But the day of grace being past, nothing is left for the prophet himself but to bewail the ruin of his people (Jer_14:17). He will betake himself to weeping, since praying and preaching are vain. The words which announce this resolve may portray a sorrowful experience, or they may depict the future as though it were already present (Jer_14:17-18). The latter interpretation would suit Jer_14:17, but hardly the following verse, with its references to "going forth into the field," and "entering into the city." The way in which these specific actions are mentioned seems to imply some present or recent calamity; and there is apparently no reason why we may not suppose that the passage was written at the disastrous close of the reign of Josiah, in the troublous interval of three months, when Jehoahaz was nominal king in Jerusalem, but the Egyptian arms were probably ravaging the country, and striking terror into the hearts of the people. In such a time of confusion and bloodshed, tillage would be neglected, and famine would naturally follow; and these evils would be greatly aggravated by drought. The only other period which suits is the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim; but the former seems rather to be indicated by Jer_15:6-9.
Heartbroken at the sight of the miseries of his country, the prophet once more approaches the eternal throne. His despairing mood is not so deep and dark as to drown his faith in God. He refuses to believe the utter rejection of Judah, the revocation of the covenant. (The measure is Pentameter).
"Hast Thou indeed cast off Judah?
Hath Thy soul revolted from Sion?
Why hast Thou smitten us past healing?
Waiting for peace, and no good came,
For a time of healing, and behold terror!"
"We know, Iahvah, our wickedness, our fathers guilt;
For we have trespassed toward Thee.
Scorn Thou not, for Thy Name sake
Disgrace not Thy glorious throne!
Remember, break not, Thy covenant with us!"
"Are there, in sooth, among the
Nothings of the nations senders of rain?
And is it the heavens that bestow the showers?
Is it not Thou, Iahvah our God?
And we wait for Thee,
For Thou it was that madest the world."
To all this the Divine answer is stern and decisive. "And Iahvah said unto me: If Moses and Samuel were to stand" (pleading) "before Me, My mind would not be towards this people: send them away from before Me" (dismiss them from My Presence), "that they may go forth!" After ages remembered Jeremiah as a mighty intercessor, and the brave Maccabeus could see him in his dream as a grey-haired man "exceeding glorious" and "of a wonderful and excellent majesty" who "prayed much for the people and for the holy city" (2 Macc. 15:14). And the beauty of the prayers which lie like scattered pearls of faith and love among the prophets soliloquies is evident at a glance. But here Jeremiah himself is conscious that his prayers are unavailing; and that the office to which God has called him is rather that of pronouncing judgment than of interceding for mercy. Even a Moses or a Samuel, the mighty intercessors of the old heroic times, whose pleadings had been irresistible with God, would now plead in vain Exo_17:11 sqq., Exo_32:11 sqq.; Num_14:13 sqq. for Moses; 1Sa_7:9 sqq., 1Sa_12:16 sqq.; Psa_99:6; Ecclus. 46:16 sqq. for Samuel. The day of grace has gone, and the day of doom is come. His sad function is to "send them away" or "let them go" from Iahvahs Presence; to pronounce the decree of their banishment from the holy land where His temple is, and where they have been wont to "see His face." The main part of his commission was "to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to overthrow" (Jer_1:10). "And if they say unto thee, Whither are we to go forth? Thou shalt say uno them, thus hath Iahvah said: They that belong to the Death" (i.e., the Plague; as the Black Death was spoken of in mediaeval Europe) "to death; and they that belong to the Sword, to the sword; and they that belong to the Famine, to famine: and they that belong to Captivity, to captivity!" The people were to "go forth" out of their own land, which was, as it were, the Presence chamber of Iahvah, just as they had at the outset of their history gone forth out of Egypt, to take possession of it. The words convey a sentence of exile, though they do not indicate the place of banishment. The menace of woe is as general in its terms as that lurid passage of the Book of the Law upon which it appears to be founded. {Deu_28:21-26} The time for the accomplishment of those terrible threatenings "is nigh, even at the doors."
On the other hand, Ezekiels "four sore judgments" {Eze_14:21} were suggested by this passage of Jeremiah.
The prophet avoids naming the actual destination of the captive people, because captivity is only one element in their punishment. The horrors of war-sieges and slaughters and pestilence and famine-must come first. In what follows, the intensity of these horrors is realised in a single touch. The slain are left unburied, a prey to the birds and beasts. The elaborate care of the ancients in the provision of honourable resting places for the dead is a measure of the extremity, thus indicated. In accordance with the feeling of his age, the prophet ranks the dogs and vultures and hyenas that drag and disfigure and devour the corpses of the slain, as three "kinds" of evil equally appalling with the sword that slays. The same feeling led our Spenser to write:
"To spoil the dead of weed
Is sacrilege, and doth all sins exceed."
And the destruction of Moab is decreed by the earlier prophet Amos, "because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime," thus violating a law universally recognised as binding upon the conscience of nations. {Amo_2:1} Cf. also Genesis 23.
Thus death itself was not to be a sufficient expiation for the inveterate guilt of the nation. Judgment was to pursue them even after death. But the prophets vision does not penetrate beyond this present scene. With the visible world, so far as he is aware, the punishment terminated. He gives no hint here, nor elsewhere, of any further penalties awaiting individual sinners in the unseen world. The scope of his prophecy indeed is almost purely national, and limited to the present life. It is one of the recognized conditions of Old Testament religious thought.
And the ruin of the people is the retribution reserved for what Manasseh did in Jerusalem. To the prophet, as to the author of the book of Kings, who wrote doubtless under the influence of his words, the guilt contracted by Judah trader that wicked king was unpardonable But it would convey a false impression if we left the matter here: for the whole course of his after preaching-his exhortations and promises, as well as his threats-prove that Jeremiah did not suppose that the nation could not be saved by genuine repentance and permanent amendment. What he intends rather to affirm is that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon children who are partakers of their sins. It is the doctrine of St. Mat_23:29 sqq.; a doctrine which is not merely a theological opinion, but a matter of historical observation.
"And I will set over them four kinds-It is an oracle of Iahvah-the sword to slay, and the dogs to hale, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and to destroy. And I will make them a sport for all the realms of earth; on account of Manasseh ben Hezekiah king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem."
Jerusalem!-the mention of that magical name touches another chord in the prophets soul; and the fierce tones of his oracle of doom change into a dirge-like strain of pity without hope.
"For who will have compassion on Thee, O Jerusalem? And who will yield thee comfort? And who will turn aside to ask of thy welfare? Twas thou that rejectedst Me (it is Iahvahs word); Backward wouldst thou wend: So I stretched forth My hand against thee and destroyed thee; I wearied of relenting. And I winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land; I bereaved, I undid My people: Yet they returned not from their own ways. His widows outnumbered before Me the sand of seas: I brought them against the Mother of Warriors a harrier at high noon; I threw upon her suddenly anguish and horrors. She that had borne seven sons did pine away; She breathed out her soul. Her sun did set, while it yet was day; He blushed and paled. But their remnant will I give to the sword Before their foes: (It is Iahvahs word)."
The fate of Jerusalem would strike the nations dumb with horror; it would not inspire pity, for man would recognise that it was absolutely just. Or perhaps the thought rather is, In proving false to Me, thou wert false to thine only friend: Me thou hast estranged by thy faithlessness; and from the envious rivals, who beset thee on every side, thou canst expect nothing but rejoicing at thy downfall. {Psalms 136; Lam_2:15-17; Oba_1:10 sqq.} The peculiar solitariness of Israel among the nations {Num_23:9} aggravated the anguish of her overthrow.
In what follows, the dreadful past appears as a prophecy of the yet more terrible future. The poet-seers pathetic monody moralises the lost battle of Megiddo-that fatal day when the sun of Judah set in what seemed the high day of her prosperity, and all the glory and the promise of good king Josiah vanished like a dream in sudden darkness. Men might think-doubtless Jeremiah thought, in the first moments of despair, when the news of that overwhelming disaster was brought to Jerusalem, with the corpse of the good king, the dead hope of the nation-that this crushing blow was proof that Iahvah had rejected His people, in the exercise of a sovereign caprice, and without reference to their own attitude towards Him. But, says or chants the prophet, in solemn rhythmic utterance,
"Twas thou that rejectedst Me;
Backward wouldst thou wend:
So I stretched forth My hand against thee, and wrought thee hurt;
I wearied of relenting."
The cup of national iniquity was full, and its baleful contents overflowed in a devastating flood. "In the gates of the land"-the point on the northwest frontier where the armies met-Iahvah doomed to fall from those who were to survive, as the winnowing fan separates the chaff from the wheat in the threshing floor. There He "bereaved" the nation of their dearest hope, "the breath of their nostrils, the Lords Anointed"; {Lam_4:20} there He multiplied their widows. And after the lost battle He brought the victor in hot haste against the "Mother" of the fallen warriors, the ill-fated city, Jerusalem, to wreak vengeance upon her for her ill-timed opposition. But, for all this bitter fruit of their evil doings, the people "turned not back from their own ways"; and therefore the strophe of lamentation closes with a threat of utter extermination: "Their remnant"-the poor survival of these fierce storms" Their remnant will I give to the sword before their foes."
If the thirteenth and fourteenth verses be not a mere interpolation in this chapter, {see Jer_17:3-4} their proper place would seem to be here, as continuing and amplifying the sentence upon the residue of the people. The text is unquestionably corrupt, and must be amended by help of the other passage, where it is partially repeated. The twelfth verse may be read thus:
"Thy wealth and thy treasures will I make a prey,
For the sin of thine high places in all thy borders."
Then the fourteenth verse follows, naturally enough, with an announcement of the Exile:
"And I will enthral thee to thy foes
In a land thou knowest not:
For a fire is kindled in Mine anger,
That shall burn for evermore!"
The prophet has now fulfilled his function of judge by pronouncing upon his people the extreme penalty of the law. His strong perception of the national guilt and of the righteousness of God has left him no choice in the matter. But how little this duty of condemnation accorded with his own individual feeling as a man and a citizen is clear from the passionate outbreak of the succeeding strophe.
"Woes me, my mother," he exclaims, "that thou barest me,
A man of strife and a man of contention to all the country!
Neither lender nor borrower have I been;
Yet all of them do curse me."
A desperately bitter tone, evincing the anguish of a man wounded to the heart by the sense of fruitless endeavour and unjust hatred. He had done his utmost to save his country, and his reward was universal detestation. His innocence and integrity were requited with the odium of the pitiless creditor who enslaves his helpless victim, and appropriates his all; or the fraudulent borrower who repays a too ready confidence with ruin.
The next two verses answer this burst of grief and despair:
"Said Iahvah, Thine oppression shall be for good;
I will make the foe thy suppliant in time of evil and in time of distress.
Can one break iron,
Iron from the north, and brass?"
In other words, faith counsels patience, and assures the prophet that all things work together for good to them that love God. The wrongs and bitter treatment which he now endures will only enchance his triumph when the truth of his testimony is at last confirmed by events, and they who now scoff at his message come humbly to beseech his prayers. The closing lines refer, with grave irony, to that unflinching firmness, that inflexible resolution, which, as a messenger of God, he was called upon to maintain. He is reminded of what he had undertaken at the outset of his career, and of the Divine Word which made him "a pillar of iron and walls of brass against all the land". {Jer_1:18} Is it possible that the pillar of iron can be broken, and the walls of brass beaten down by the present assault?
There is a pause, and then the prophet vehemently pleads his own cause with Iahvah. Smarting with the sense of personal wrong, he urges that his suffering is for the Lords own sake; that consciousness of the Divine calling has dominated his entire life, ever since his dedication to the prophetic office; and that the honour of Iahvah requires his vindication upon his heartless and hardened adversaries.
Thou knowest, Iahvah!
Remember me, and visit me, and avenge me on my persecutors.
Take me not away in thy long suffering;
Regard my bearing of reproach for Thee.
Thy words were found and I did eat them,
And it became to me a joy and mine hearts gladness;
For I was called by Thy Name, O Iahvah, God of Sabaoth!
I sate not in the gathering of the mirthful, nor rejoiced;
Because of Thine hand I sate solitary,
For with indignation Thou didst fill me.
"Why hath my pain become perpetual,
And my stroke malignant, incurable?
Wilt Thou indeed become to me like a delusive stream,
Like waters which are not lasting?"
The pregnant expression, "Thou knowest, Iahvah!" does not refer specially to anything that has been already said; but rather lays the whole case before God in a single word. The Thou is emphatic; Thou, Who knowest all things, knowest my heinous wrongs: Thou knowest and seest it all, though the whole world beside be blind with passion and self-regard and sin. {Psa_10:11-14} Thou knowest how pressing is my need; therefore "Take me not away in Thy long suffering": sacrifice not the life of Thy servant to the claims of forbearance with his enemies and Thine. The petition shows how great was the peril in which the prophet perceived himself to stand: he believes that if God delay to strike down his adversaries, that longsuffering will be fatal to his own life.
The strength of his case is that he is persecuted because he is faithful; he bears reproach for God. He has not abused his high calling for the sake of worldly advantage; he has not prostituted the name of prophet to the vile ends of pleasing the people, and satisfying personal covetousness. He has not feigned smooth prophecies, misleading his hearers with flattering falsehood; but he has considered the privilege of being called a prophet of Iahvah as in itself an all-sufficient reward; and when the Divine Word came to him, he has eagerly received, and fed his inmost soul upon that spiritual aliment, which was at once his sustenance and his deepest joy. Other joys, for the Lords sake, he has abjured. He has withdrawn himself even from harmless mirth, that in silence and solitude he might listen intently to the inward Voice, and reflect with indignant sorrow upon the revelation of his peoples corruption. "Because of Thine Hand"-under Thy influence; conscious of the impulse and operation of thy informing Spirit; -"I sate solitary; for with indignation Thou didst fill me." The man whose eye has caught a glimpse of eternal Truth, is apt to be dissatisfied with the shows of things; and the lighthearted merriment of the world rings hollow upon the ear that listens for the Voice of God. And the revelation of sin-the discovery of all that ghastly evil which lurks beneath the surface of smooth society-the appalling vision of the grim skeleton hiding its noisome decay behind the mask of smiles and gaiety; the perception of the hideous incongruity of revelling over a grave; has driven others, besides Jeremiah, to retire into themselves, and to avoid a world from whose evil they revolted, and whose foreseen destruction they deplored.
The whole passage is an assertion of the prophets integrity and consistency, with which, it is suggested, that the failure which has attended his efforts, and the serious peril in which he stands, are morally inconsistent, and paradoxical in view of the Divine disposal of events. Here, in fact, as elsewhere, Jeremiah has freely opened his heart, and allowed us to see the whole process of his spiritual conflict in the agony of his moments of doubt and despair. It is an argument of his own perfect sincerity; and, at the same time, it enables us to assimilate the lesson of his experience, and to profit by the heavenly guidance he received, far more effectually than if he had left us ignorant of the painful struggles at the cost of which that guidance was won.
The seeming injustice or indifference of Providence is a problem which recurs to thoughtful minds in all generations of men.
"O, goddes cruel, that governe
This world with byndyng of your word eterne
What governance is in youre prescience
That gilteles tormenteth innocence?
Alas! I see a serpent or a theif,
That many a trewe man hath doon mescheif,
Gon at his large, and wher him luste may turne;
But I moste be in prisoun."
That such apparent anomalies are but a passing trial, from which persistent faith will emerge victorious in the present life, is the general answer of the Old Testament to the doubts which they suggest. The only sufficient explanation was reserved, to be revealed by Him, who, in the fulness of time, "brought life and immortality to light."
The thought which restored the failing confidence and courage of Jeremiah was the reflection that such complaints were unworthy of one called to be a spokesman for the Highest; that the supposition of the possibility of the Fountain of Living Waters failing like a winter torrent, that runs dry in the summer heats, was an act of unfaithfulness that merited reproof; and that the true God could not fail to protect His messenger, and to secure the triumph of truth in the end.
To this Iahvah said thus:
If thou come again, I will make thee again to stand before Me;
And if thou utter that is precious rather than that is vile,
As My mouth shalt thou become:
They shall return unto thee,
But Thou shalt not return unto them.
"And I will make thee to this people an embattled wall of brass;
And they shall fight against thee, but not overcome thee,
For I will be with thee to help thee and to save thee;
It is Iahvahs word.
And I will save thee out of the grasp of the wicked,
And will ransom thee out of the hand of the terrible."
In the former strophe, the inspired poet set forth the claims of the psychic man, and poured out his heart before God. Now he recognises a Word of God in the protest of his better feeling. He sees that where he remains true to himself, he will also stand near to his God. Hence springs the hope, which he cannot renounce, that God will protect His accepted servant in the execution of the Divine commands. Thus the discords are resolved; and the prophets spirit attains to peace, after struggling through the storm.
It was an outcome of earnest prayer, of an unreserved exposure of his inmost heart before God. What a marvel it is-that instinct of prayer. To think that a being whose visible life has its beginning and its end, a being who manifestly shares possession of this earth with the brute creation, and breathes the same air, and partakes of the same elements with them for the sustenance of his body; who is organised upon the same general plan as they, has the same principal members discharging the same essential functions in the economy of his bodily system; a being who is born and eats and drinks and sleeps and dies like all other animals; -that this being and this being only of all the multitudinous kinds of animated creatures, should have and exercise a faculty of looking off and above the visible which appears to be the sole realm of actual existence, and of holding communion with the Unseen! That, following what seems to be an original impulse of his nature, he should stand in greater awe of this Invisible than any power that is palpable to sense; should seek to win its favour, crave its help in times of pain and conflict and peril; should professedly live, not according to the bent of common nature and the appetites inseparable from his bodily structure, but according to the will and guidance of that Unseen Power! Surely there is here a consummate marvel. And the wonder of it does not diminish when it is remembered that this instinct of turning to an unseen Guide and Arbiter of events is not peculiar to any particular section of the human race. Wide and manifold as are the differences which characterise and divide the families of man, all races possess in common the apprehension of the Unseen and the instinct of prayer. The oldest records of humanity bear witness to its primitive activity, and whatever is known of human history combines with what is known of the character and workings of the human mind to teach us that as prayer has never been unknown, so it is never likely to become obsolete. May we not recognise in this great fact of human nature a sure index of a great corresponding truth? Can we avoid taking it as a clear token of the reality of revelation; as a kind of immediate and spontaneous evidence on the part of nature that there is and always has been in this lower world some positive knowledge of that which far transcends it, some real apprehension of the mystery that enfolds the universe? a knowledge and an apprehension which, however imperfect and fragmentary, however fitful and fluctuating, however blurred in outline and lost in infinite shadow, is yet incomparably more and better than none at all. Are we not, in short, morally driven upon the conviction that this powerful instinct of our nature is neither blind nor aimless; that its Object is a true, substantive Being; and that this Being has discovered, and yet discovers, some precious glimpses of Himself and His essential character to the spirit of mortal man? It must be so, unless we admit that the souls dearest desires are a mocking illusion, that her aspirations towards a truth and a goodness of superhuman perfection are moonshine and madness. It cannot be nothingness that avails to evoke the deepest and purest emotions of our nature; not mere vacuity and chaos, wearing the semblance of an azure heaven. It is not into a measureless waste of outer darkness that we reach forth trembling hands.
Surely the spirit of denial is the spirit that fell from heaven, and the best and highest of mans thoughts aim at and affirm something positive, something that is, and the soul thirsts after God, the Living God.
We hear much in these days of our physical nature. The microscopic investigations of science leave nothing unexamined, nothing unexplored, so far as the visible organism is concerned. Rays from many distinct sources converge to throw an ever-increasing light upon the mysteries of our bodily constitution. In all this, science presents to the devout mind a valuable subsidiary revelation of the power and goodness of the Creator. But science cannot advance alone one step beyond the things of time and sense; her facts belong exclusively to the. material order of existence; her cognition is limited to the various modes and conditions of force that constitute the realm of sight and touch; she cannot climb above these to a higher plane of being. And small blame it is to science that she thus lacks the power of overstepping her natural boundaries. The evil begins when the men of science venture, in her much-abused name, to ignore and deny realities not amenable to scientific tests, and immeasurably transcending all merely physical standards and methods.
Neither the natural history nor the physiology of man, nor both together, are competent to give a complete account of his marvellous and many-sided being. Yet some thinkers appear to imagine that when a place has been assigned him in the animal kingdom, and his close relationship to forms below him in the scale of life has been demonstrated: when every tissue and structure has been analysed, and every organ described and its function ascertained; then the last word has been spoken, and the subject exhausted. Those unique and distinguishing faculties by which all this amazing work of observation, comparison, reasoning, has been accomplished, appear either to be left out of the account altogether, or to be handled with a meagre inadequacy of treatment that contrasts in the strongest manner with the fulness and the elaboration which mark the other discussion. And the more this physical aspect of our composite nature is emphasised; the more urgently it is insisted that, somehow or other, all that is in man and all that comes of man may be explained on the assumption that he is the natural climax of the animal creation, a kind of educated and glorified brute-that and nothing more; -the harder it becomes to give any rational account of those facts of his nature which are commonly recognised as spiritual, and among them of this instinct of prayer and its Object.
Under these discouraging circumstances, men are fatally prone to seek escape from their self-involved dilemma by a hardy denial of what their methods have failed to discover and their favourite theories to explain. The soul and God are treated as mere metaphysical expressions, or as popular designations of the unknown causes of phenomena; and prayer is declared to be an act of foolish superstition which persons of culture have long since outgrown. Sad and strange this result is; but it is also the natural outcome of an initial error, which is none the less real because unperceived. Men "seek the living among the dead"; they expect to find the soul by post mortem examination, or to see God by help of an improved telescope. They fail and are disappointed, though they have little right to be so, for "spiritual things are discerned spiritually," and not otherwise.
In speculating on the reason of this lamentable issue, we must not forget that there is such a thing as an unpurified intellect as well as a corrupt and unregenerate heart. Sin is not restricted to the affections of the lower nature; it has also invaded the realm of thought and reason. The very pursuit of knowledge, noble and elevating as it is commonly esteemed, is not without its dangers of self-delusion and sin. Wherever the love of self is paramount, wherever the object really sought is the delight, the satisfaction, the indulgence of self, no matter in which of the many departments of human life and action, there is sin. It is certain that the intellectual consciousness has its own peculiar pleasures, and those of the keenest and most transporting character; certain that the incessant pursuit of such pleasures may come to absorb the entire energies of a man, so that no room is left for the culture of humility or love or worship. Everything is sacrificed to what is called the pursuit of truth, but is in sober fact a passionate prosecution of private pleasure. It is not truth that is so highly valued; it is the keen excitement of the race, and not seldom the plaudits of the spectators when the goal is won. Such a career may be as thoroughly selfish and sinful and alienated from God as a career of common wickedness. And thus employed or enthralled, no intellectual gifts, however splendid, can bring a man to the discernment of spiritual truth. Not self-pleasing and foolish vanity and arrogant self-assertion, but a self-renouncing humility, an inward purity from idols of every kind, a reverence of truth as divine, are indispensable conditions of the perception of things spiritual.
The representation which is often given is a mere travesty. Believers in God do not want to alter His laws by their prayers-neither His laws physical, nor His laws moral and spiritual. It is their chief desire to be brought into submission or perfect obedience to the sum of His laws. They ask their Father in heaven to lead and teach them, to supply their wants in His own way, because He is their Father; because "It is He that made us, and His we are." Surely, a reasonable request, and grounded in reason.
To a plain man, seeking for arguments to justify prayer may well seem like seeking a justification of breathing or eating and drinking and sleeping, or any other natural function. Our Lord never does anything of the kind, because His teaching takes for granted the ultimate prevalence of common sense, in spite of all the subtleties and airspun perplexities in which a speculative mind delights to lose itself. So long as man has other wants than those which he can himself supply, prayer will be their natural expression.
If there be a spiritual as distinct from a material world, the difficulty to the ordinary mind is not to conceive of their contact but of their absolute isolation from each other. This is surely the inevitable result of our own individual experience, of the intimate though not indissoluble union of body and spirit in every living person.
How, it may be asked, can we really think of his Maker being cut off from man, or man from his Maker? God were not God, if He left man to himself. But not only are His wisdom, justice, and love manifested forth in the beneficent arrangements of the world in which we find ourselves; not only is He "kind to the unjust and the unthankful." In pain and loss lie quickens our sense of Himself. {cf. Jer_14:19-22} Even in the first moments of angry surprise and revolt, that sense is quickened; we rebel, not against an inanimate world or an impersonal law, but against a Living and Personal Being, whom we acknowledge as the Arbiter of our destinies, and whose wisdom and love and power we affect for the time to question, but cannot really gainsay. The whole of our experience tends to this end-to the continual rousing of our spiritual consciousness. There is no interference, no isolated and capricious interposition or interruption of order within or without us. Within and without us, His Will is always energising, always manifesting forth His Being, encouraging our confidence, demanding our obedience and homage.
Thus prayer has its Divine as well as its human side; it is the Holy Spirit drawing the soul, as well as the soul drawing nigh unto God. The case is like the action and reaction of the magnet and the steel. And so prayer is not a foolish act of unauthorised presumption, not a rash effort to approach unapproachable and absolutely isolated Majesty. Whenever man truly prays, his Divine King has already extended the sceptre of His mercy, and bidden him speak.
Jeremiah 16-17
After the renewal of the promise there is a natural pause, marked by the formula with which the present section opens. When the prophet had recovered his firmness, through the inspired and inspiring reflections which took possession of his soul after he had laid bare his inmost heart before God (Jer_15:20-21), he was in a position to receive further guidance from above. What now lies before us is the direction, which came to him as certainly Divine, for the regulation of his own future behaviour as the chosen minister of Iahvah at this crisis in the history of his people. "And there fell a word of Iahvah unto me, saying: Thou shalt not take thee a wife: that thou get not sons and daughters in this place." Such a prohibition reveals, with the utmost possible clearness and emphasis, the gravity of the existing situation. It implies that the "peace and permanence," so glibly predicted by Jeremiahs opponents, will never more be known by that sinful generation. "This place," the holy place which Iahvah had "chosen, to establish His name there," as the Book of the Law so often describes it; "this place," which had been inviolable to the fierce hosts of the Assyrian in the time of Isaiah, {Isa_37:33} was now no more a sure refuge, but doomed to utter and speedy destruction. To beget sons and daughters there was to prepare more victims for the tooth of famine, and the pangs of pestilence, and the devouring sword of a merciless conqueror. It was to fatten the soil with unburied carcases, and to spread a hideous banquet for birds and beasts of prey. Children and parents were doomed to perish together; and Iahvahs witness was to keep himself unencumbered by the sweet cares of husband and father, that he might be wholly free for his solemn duties of menace and warning, and be ready for every emergency.
For thus hath Iahvah said:
Concerning the sons and concerning the daughters that are born in this place,
And concerning their mothers that bear them,
And concerning their fathers that beget them, in this land:
By deaths of agony shall they die;
"They shall not be mourned nor buried;
For dung on the face of the ground shall they serve;
And by the sword and by the famine shall they be for done:
And their carcase shall serve for food
To the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the earth." {Jer_16:3-4}
The "deaths of agony" seem to indicate the pestilence, which always ensued upon the scarcity and vile quality of food, and the confinement of multitudes within the narrow bounds of a besieged city (see Josephus well known account of the last siege of Jerusalem).
The attitude of solitary watchfulness and strict separation, which the prophet thus perceived to be required by circumstances, was calculated to be a warning of the utmost significance, among a people who attached the highest importance to marriage and the permanence of the family.
It proclaimed more loudly than words could do, the prophets absolute conviction that offspring was no pledge of permanence; that universal death was hanging over a condemned nation. But not only this. It marks a point of progress in the prophets spiritual life. The crisis, through which we have seen him pass, has purged his mental vision. He no longer repines at his dark lot; no longer half envies the false prophets, who may win the popular love by pleasing oracles of peace and well-being; no longer complains of the Divine Will, which has laid such a burden upon him. He sees now that his part is to refuse even natural and innocent pleasures for the Lords sake; to foresee calamity and ruin; to denounce unceasingly the sin he sees around him; to sacrifice a tender and affectionate heart to a life of rigid asceticism; and he manfully accepts his part. He knows that he stands alone-the last fortress of truth in a world of falsehood; and that for truth it becomes a man to surrender his all.
That which follows tends to complete the prophets social isolation. He is to give no sign of sympathy in the common joys and sorrows of his kind.
For thus hath Iahvah said:
Enter thou not into the house of mourning,
Nor go to lament, nor comfort thou them:
For I have taken away My friendship from this people (Tis Iahvahs utterance!)
The lovingkindness and the compassion;
And old and young shall die in this land,
They shall not be buried, and men shall not wail for them;
Nor shall a man cut himself, nor make himself bald, for them:
Neither shall men deal out bread to them in mourning,
To comfort a man over the dead;
Nor shall they give them to drink the cup of consolation,
Over a mans father and over his mother.
"And the house of feasting thou shalt not enter,
To sit with them to eat and to drink.
For thus hath Iahvah Sabaoth, the God of Israel, said:
Lo, I am about to make to cease from this place,
Before your own eyes and in your own days,
Voice of mirth and voice of gladness,
The voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride."
Acting as prophet, that is, as one whose public actions were symbolical of a Divine intent, Jeremiah is henceforth to stand aloof, on occasions when natural feeling would suggest participation in the outward life of his friends and acquaintance. He is to quell the inward stirrings of affection and sympathy, and to abstain from playing his part in those demonstrative lamentations over the dead, which the immemorial custom and sentiment of his country regarded as obligatory; and this, in order to signify unmistakably that what thus appeared to be the state of his own feelings, was really the aspect under which God would shortly appear to a nation perishing in its guilt. "Enter not into the house of mourning for I have taken away My friendship from this people, the lovingkindness and the compassion." An estranged and alienated God would view the coming catastrophe with the cold indifference of exact justice. And the consequence of the Divine aversion would be a calamity so overwhelming that the dead would be left without those rites of burial which the feeling and conscience of all races of mankind have always been careful to perform. There should be no burial, much less ceremonial lamentation, and those more serious modes of evincing grief by disfigurement of the person, which, like tearing the hair and rending the garments, are natural tokens of the first distraction of bereavement. Not for wife or child, {me: Gen_23:3} nor for father or mother should the funeral feast be held; for mens hearts would grow hard at the daily spectacle of death, and at last there would be no survivors.
In like manner, the prophet is forbidden to enter as guest "the house of feasting." He is not to be seen at the marriage feast, -that occasion of highest rejoicing, the very type and example of innocent and holy mirth; to testify by his abstention that the day of judgment was swiftly approaching, which would desolate all homes, and silence for evermore all sounds of joy and gladness in the ruined city. And it is expressly added that the blow will fall "before your own eyes and in your own days"; showing that the hour of doom was very near, and would no more be delayed.
In all this, it is noticeable that the Divine answer appears to bear special reference to the peculiar terms of the prophets complaint. In depairing tones he had cried, {Jer_15:10} "Woes me, my mother, that thou didst bear me!" and now he is himself warned not to take a wife and seek the blessing of children. The outward connection here may be: "Let it not be that thy children speak of thee, as thou hast spoken of thy mother!" But the inner link of thought may rather be this, that the prophets temporary unfaithfulness evinced in his outcry against God and his lament that ever he was born is punished by the denial to him of the joys of fatherhood-a penalty which would be severe to a loving, yearning nature like his, but which was doubtless necessary to the purification of his spirit from all worldly taint, and to the discipline of his natural impatience and tendency to repine under the hand of God. His punishment, like that of Moses, may appear disproportionate to his offence; but Gods dealings with man are not regulated by any mechanical calculation of less and more, but by His perfect knowledge of the needs of the case; and it is often in truest mercy that His hand strike hard. "As gold in the furnace doth He try them"; and the purest metal comes out of the hottest fire.
Further, it is not the least prominent, but the leading part of a mans nature that most requires this heavenly discipline, if the best is to be made of it that can be made. The strongest element, that which is most characteristic of the person, that which constitutes his individuality, is the chosen field of Divine influence and operation; for here lies the greatest need. In Jeremiah this master element was an almost feminine tenderness; a warmly affectionate disposition, craving the love and sympathy of his fellows, and recoiling almost in agony from the spectacle of pain and suffering. And therefore it was that the Divine discipline was specially applied to this element in the prophets personality. In him, as in all other men, the good was mingled with evil, which, if not purged away, might spread until it spoiled his whole nature. It is not virtue to indulge our own bent, merely because it pleases us to do so; nor is the exercise of affection any great matter to an affectionate nature. The involved strain of selfishness must be separated, if any naturally good gift is to be elevated to moral worth, to become acceptable in the sight of God. And so it was precisely here, in his most susceptible point, that the sword of trial pierced the prophet through. He was saved from all hazard of becoming satisfied with the love of wife and children, and forgetting in that earthly satisfaction the love of his God. He was saved from absorption in the pleasures of friendly intercourse with neighbours, from passing his days in an agreeable round of social amenities; at a time when ruin was impending over his country, and well-nigh ready to fall. And the means which God chose for the accomplishment of this result were precisely those of which the prophet had complained; {Jer_15:17} his social isolation, which though in part a matter of choice, was partly forced upon him by the irritation and ill will of his acquaintance. It is now declared that this trial is to continue. The Lord does not necessarily remove a trouble when entreated to do it. He manifests His love by giving strength to bear it, until the work of chastening be perfected.
An interruption is now supposed, such as may often have occurred in the course of Jeremiahs public utterances. The audience demands to know why all this evil is ordained to fall upon them. "What is our guilt and what our trespass, that we have trespassed against Iahvah our God?" The answer is a twofold accusation. Their fathers were faithless to Iahvah, and they have outdone their fathers sin; and the penalty will be expulsion and a foreign servitude.
"Because your fathers forsook Me (It is Iahvahs word!)
And went after other gods, and served them, and bowed down to them,
And Me they forsook, and My teaching they observed not:
And ye yourselves (or, as for you) have done worse than your fathers;
And lo, ye walk each after the stubbornness of his evil heart,
So as not to hearken unto Me.
Therefore will I hurl you from off this land,
On to the land that ye and your fathers knew not;
And ye may serve there other gods, day and night,
Since I will not grant you grace."
The damning sin laid to Israels charge is idolatry, with all the moral consequences involved in that prime transgression. That is to say, the offence consisted not barely in recognising and honouring the gods of the nations along with their own God, though that were fault enough, as an act of treason against the sole majesty of Heaven; but it was aggravated enormously by the moral declension and depravity which accompanied this apostasy. They and their fathers forsook Iahvah "and kept not His teaching"; a reference to the Book of the Law, considered not only as a collection of ritual and ceremonial precepts for the regulation of external religion, but as a guide of life and conduct. And there had been a progress in evil; the nation had gone from bad to worse with fearful rapidity: so that now it could be said of the existing generation that it paid no heed at all to the monitions which Iahvah uttered by the mouth of His prophet, but walked simply in stubborn self-will and the indulgence of every corrupt inclination. And here too, as in so many other cases, the sin is to be its own punishment. The Book of the Law had declared that revolt from Iahvah should be punished by enforced service of strange gods in a strange land; {Deu_4:28; Deu_28:36; Deu_28:64} and Jeremiah repeats this threat, with the addition of a tone of ironical concession: there, in your bitter banishment, you may have your wish to the full; you may serve the foreign gods, and that without intermission (implying that the service would be a slavery).
The whole theory of Divine punishment is implicit in these few words of the prophet. They who sin persistently against light and knowledge are at last given over to their own hearts lust, to do as they please, without the gracious check of Gods inward voice. And then there comes a strong delusion, so that they believe a lie, and take evil for good and good for evil, and hold themselves innocent before God, when their guilt has reached its climax; so that, like Jeremiahs hearers, if their evil be denounced, they can ask in astonishment: "What is our iniquity? or what is our trespass?"
They are so ripe in sin that they retain no knowledge of it as sin, but hold it virtue.
"And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before."
And not only do we find in this passage a striking instance of judicial blindness as the penalty of sin. We may see also in the penalty predicted for the Jews a plain analogy to the doctrine that the permanence of the sinful state in a life to come is the penalty of sin in the present life. "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still!" and know himself to be what he is.
The prophets dark horizon is here apparently lit up for a moment by a gleam of hope. The fourteenth and fifteenth verses (Jer_16:14-15), however, with their beautiful promise of restoration, really belong to another oracle, whose prevailing tones are quite different from the present gloomy forecast of retribution. {Jer_23:7 sqq.} Here they interrupt the sense, and make a cleavage in the connection of thought, which can only be bridged over artificially, by the suggestion that the import of the two verses is primarily not consolatory but minatory; that is to say, that they threaten Exile rather than promise Return; a mode of understanding the two verses which does manifest violence to the whole form of expression, and, above all, to their obvious force in the original passage from which they have been transferred hither. Probably some transcriber of the text wrote them in the margin of his copy, by way of palliating the otherwise unbroken gloom of this oracle of coming woe. Then, at some later time, another copyist, supposing the marginal note indicated an omission, incorporated the two verses in his transcription of the text, where they have remained ever since. {See on Jer_23:7-8}
After plainly announcing in the language of Deuteronomy the expulsion of Judah from the land which they had desecrated by idolatry, the prophet develops the idea in his own poetic fashion; representing the punishment as universal, and insisting that it is a punishment, and not an unmerited misfortune.
"Lo, I am about to send many fishers (It is Iahvahs word!)
And they shall fish them;
And afterwards will I send many hunters,
And they shall hunt them,
From off every mountain,
And from off every hill,
And out of the clefts of the rocks."
Like silly fish, crowding helplessly one over another into the net, when the fated moment arrives, Judah will fall an easy prey to the destroyer. And "afterwards," to ensure completeness, those who have survived this first disaster will be hunted like wild beasts, out of all the dens and caves in the mountains, the Adullams and Engedis, where they have found a refuge from the invader.
There is clearly reference to two distinct visitations of wrath, the latter more deadly than the former; else why the use of the emphatic note of time "afterwards"? If we understand by the "fishing" of the country the so-called first captivity, the carrying away of the boy-king Jehoiachin and his mother and his nobles and ten thousand principal citizens, by Nebuchadrezzar to Babylon; {2Ki_24:10 sqq.} and by the "hunting" the final catastrophe in the time of Zedekiah; we get, as we shall see, a probable explanation of a difficult expression in the eighteenth verse, which cannot otherwise be satisfactorily accounted for. The next words (Jer_16:17) refute an assumption, implied in the popular demand to know wherein the guilt of the nation consists, that Iahvah is not really cognisant of their acts of apostasy.
For Mine eyes are upon all their ways,
They are not hidden away from before My face
Nor is their guilt kept secret from before Mine eyes.
The verse is thus an indirect reply to the questions of Jer_16:10; questions which in some mouths might indicate that unconsciousness of guilt which is the token of sin finished and perfected; in others, the presence of that unbelief which doubts whether God can, or at least whether He does regard human conduct. But "He that planted the ear, can He not hear? He that formed the eye, can He not see?". {Psa_94:9} It is really an utterly irrational thought, that sight, and hearing, and the higher faculties of reflection and consciousness, had their origin in a blind and deaf a senseless and unconscious source such as inorganic matter, whether we consider it in the atom or in the enormous mass of an embryo system of stars.
The measure of the penalty is now assigned.
"And I will repay first the double of their guilt and their trespass
For that they profaned My land with the carcases of their loathly offerings,
And their abominations filled Mine heritage."
"I will repay first." The term "first," which has occasioned much perplexity to expositors, means "the first time," {Gen_38:28; Dan_11:29} and refers, if I am not mistaken, to the first great blow, the captivity of Jehoiachin, of which I spoke just now; an occasion which is designated again (Jer_16:21), by the expression "this once" or rather "at this time." And when it is said "I will repay the double of their guilt and of their trespass," we are to understand that the Divine justice is not satisfied with half measures; the punishment of sin is proportioned to the offence, and the cup of self-entailed misery has to be drained to the dregs. Even penitence does not abolish the physical and temporal consequences of sin; in ourselves and in others whom we have influenced they continue-a terrible and ineffaceable record of the past. The ancient law required that the man who had wronged his neighbour by theft or fraud should restore double; {Exo_22:4; Exo_22:7; Exo_22:9} and thus this expression would appear to denote that the impending chastisement would be in strict accordance with the recognised rule of law and justice, and that Judah must repay to the Lord in suffering the legal equivalent for her offence. In a like strain, towards the end of the Exile, the great prophet of the captivity comforts Jerusalem with the announcement that "her hard service is accomplished, her punishment is held sufficient; for she hath received of Iahvahs hand twofold for all her trespasses". {Isa_40:2} The Divine severity is, in fact, truest mercy. Only thus does mankind learn to realise "the exceeding sinfulness of sin," only as Judah learned the heinousness of desecrating the Holy Land with "loathly offerings" to the vile Nature gods, and with the symbols in wood and stone of the cruel and obscene deities of Canaan; viz. by the fearful issue of transgression, the lesson of a calamitous experience, confirming the forecasts of its inspired prophets.
Iahvah my strength and my stronghold and my refuge in the day of distress!
Unto Thee the very heathen will come from the ends of the earth, and will say:
Mere fraud did oar fathers receive as their own,
Mere breath, and beings among whom is no helper.
Should man make him gods,
When such things are not gods?
"Therefore, behold I am about to let them know-
And this time will I let them know My hand and My might,
And they shall know that my name is Iahvah!"
In the opening words Jeremiah passionately recoils from the very mention of the hateful idols, the loathly creations, the lifeless "carcases," which his people have put in the place of the Living God. An overmastering access of faith lifts him off the low ground where these dead things lie in their helplessness, and bears him in spirit to Iahvah, the really and eternally existing, Who is his "strength and stronghold and refuge in the day of distress." From this height he takes an eagle glance into the dim future, and discerns-O marvel of victorious faith!-that the very heathen, who have never so much as known the Name of Iahvah. must one day be brought to acknowledge the impotence of their hereditary gods, and the sole deity of the Mighty One of Jacob. He enjoys a glimpse of Isaiahs and Micahs glorious vision of the latter days, when "the mountain of the Lords House shall be exalted as chief of mountains, and all nations shall flow unto it."
In the light of this revelation, the sin and folly of Israel in dishonouring the One only God, by associating Him with idols and their symbols, becomes glaringly visible. The very heathen (the term is emphatic by position), will at last grope their way out of the night of traditional ignorance, and will own the absurdity of manufactured gods. Israel, on the other hand, has for centuries sinned against knowledge and reason. They had "Moses and the prophets"; yet they hated warning and despised reproof. They resisted the Divine teachings, because they loved to walk in their own ways, after the imaginings of their own evil hearts. And so they soon fell into that strange blindness. which suffered them to see no sin in giving companions to Iahvah, and neglecting His severer worship for the sensuous rites of Canaan.
A rude awakening awaits them. Once more will Iahvah interpose to save them from their infatuation. "This time" they shall be taught to know the nothingness of idols, not by the voice of prophetic pleadings, not by the fervid teachings of the Book of the Law, but by the sword of the enemy, by the rapine and ruin, in which the resistless might of Iahvah will be manifested against His rebellious people. Then, when the warnings which they have ridiculed find fearful accomplishment, then will they know that the name of the One God is IAHVAH-He Who alone was and is and shall be for evermore. In the shock of overthrow, in the sorrows of captivity, they will realise the enormity of assimilating the Supreme Source of events, the Fountain of all being and power, to the miserable phantoms of a darkened and perverted imagination.
Jer_17:1-18. Jeremiah, speaking for God, returns to the affirmation of Judahs guiltiness. He has answered the popular question (Jer_16:10), so far as it implied that it was no mortal sin to associate the worship of alien gods with the worship of Iahvah. He now proceeds to answer it with an indignant contradiction, so far as it suggested that Judah was no longer guilty of the grossest forms of idolatry.
Jer_17:1-2. "The trespass of Judah," he affirms, "is written with pen of iron, with point of adamant; Graven upon the tablet of their heart, And upon the horns of their altars: Even as their sons remember their altars, And their sacred poles by the evergreen trees, Upon the high hills."
Jer_17:3-4. O My mountain in the field! Thy wealth and all thy treasures will I give for a spoil, For the trespass of thine high places in all thy borders. And thou shalt drop thine hand from thy demesne which I gave thee; And I will enslave thee to thine enemies, In the land that thou knowest not; For a fire have ye kindled in Mine anger; It shall burn for evermore."
It is clear from the first strophe that the outward forms of idolatry were no longer openly practised in the country. Where otherwise would be the point of affirming that the national sin was "written with pen of iron, and point of adamant"-that it was "graven upon the tablet of the peoples heart?" Where would be the point of alluding to the childrens memory of the altars and sacred poles, which were the visible adjuncts of idolatry? Plainly it is implied that the hideous rites, which sometimes involved the sacrifice of children, are a thing of the past; yet not of the distant past, for the young of the present generation remember them; those terrible scenes are burnt in upon their memories, as a haunting recollection which can no more be effaced, than the guilt contracted by their parents as agents in those abhorrent rites can be done away. The indelible characters of sin are graven deeply upon their hearts; no need for a prophet to remind them of facts to which their own consciences, their own inward sense of outraged affections, and of nature sacrificed to a dark and bloody superstition, bears irrefragable witness. Rivers of water cannot cleanse the stain of innocent blood from their polluted altars. The crimes of the past are unatoned for, and beyond reach of atonement; they cry to heaven for vengeance, and the vengeance will surely fall. {Jer_15:4}
Hitzig rather prosaically remarks that Josiah had destroyed the altars. But the stains of which the poet-seer speaks are not palpable to sense; he contemplates unseen realities.
"Will all great Neptunes ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand?
No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red."
The second strophe declares the nature of the punishment. The tender, yearning, hopeless love of the cry with which Iahvah resigns His earthly seat to profanation and plunder and red-handed ruin, enhances the awful impression wrought by the slow, deliberate enunciation of the details of the sentence-the utter spoliation of temple and palaces; the accumulated hordes of generations-all that represented the wealth and culture and glory of the time-carried away forever; the enforced surrender of home and country; the harsh servitude to strangers in a far off land.
It is difficult to fix the date of this short lyrical outpouring, if it be assumed, with Hitzig, that it is an independent whole. He refers it to the year B.C. 602, after Jehoiakim had revolted from Babylon-"a proceeding which made a future captivity well nigh certain, and made it plain that the sin of Judah remained still to be punished." Moreover, the preceding year (B.C. 603) was what was known to the Law as a Year of Release or Remission (shenath shemittah); and the phrase "thou shalt drop thine hand," i.e., "loose thine hold of" the land, {Jer_17:4} appears to allude to the peculiar usages of that year, in which the debtor was released from his obligations, and the corn lands and vineyards were allowed to lie fallow. The Year of Release was also called the Year of Rest; {shenath shabbathon, Lev_25:5} and both in the present passage of Jeremiah, and in the book of Leviticus, the time to be spent by the Jews in exile is regarded as a period of rest for the desolate land, which would then "make good her sabbaths". {Lev_26:34-35; Lev_26:43} The Chronicler indeed seems to refer to this very phrase of Jeremiah; at all events, nothing else is to be found in the extant works of the prophet with which his language corresponds. {2Ch_36:21}
If the rendering of the second verse, which we find in both our English versions, and which I have adopted above, be correct, there arises an obvious objection to the date assigned by Hitzig; and the same objection lies against the view of Naegelsbach, who translates:
"As their children remember their altars,
And their images of Baal by (i.e., at the sight of) the green trees, by the high hills."
For in what sense could this have been written "not long before the fourth year of Jehoiakim," which is the date suggested by this commentator for the whole group of chapters, Jeremiah 14-17, 18? The entire reign of Josiah had intervened between the atrocities of Manasseh and this period; and it is not easy to suppose that any sacrifice of children had occurred in the three months reign of Jehoahaz, or in the early years of Jehoiakim. Had it been so, Jeremiah, who denounces the latter king severely enough, would certainly have placed the horrible fact in the forefront of his invective; and instead of specifying Manasseh as the king whose offences Iahvah would not pardon, would have thus branded Jehoiakim, his own contemporary. This difficulty appears to be avoided by Hitzig, who explains the passage thus: "When they (the Jews) think of their children, they remember, and cannot but remember, the altars to whose horns the blood of their immolated children cleaves. In the same way, by a green tree on the hills, i.e., when they come upon any such, their Asherim are brought to mind, which were trees of that sort." And since it is perhaps possible to translate the Hebrew as this suggests, "When they remember their sons, their altars, and their sacred poles, by" (i.e., by means of) "the evergreen trees" (collective term) "upon the high hills," and this translation agrees well with the statement that the sin of Judah is "graven upon the tablet of their heart," his view deserves further consideration. The same objection, however, presses again, though with somewhat diminished force. For if the date of the section be 602, the eighth year of Jehoiakim, more than forty years must have elapsed between the time of Manassehs bloody rites and the utterance of this oracle. Would many who were parents then, and surrendered their children for sacrifice, be still living at the supposed date? And if not, where is the appropriateness of the words "When they remember their sons, their altars, and their Asherim?"
There seems no way out of the difficulty, but either to date the piece much earlier, assigning it, e.g., to the time of the prophets earnest preaching in connection with the reforming movement of Josiah, when the living generation would certainly remember the human sacrifices under Manasseh; or else to construe the passage in a very different sense, as follows. The first verse declares that the sin of Judah is graven upon the tablet of their heart, and upon the horns of their altars. The pronouns evidently show that it is the guilt of the nation, not of a particular generation, that is asserted. The subsequent words agree with this view. The expression, "Their sons" is to be understood in the same way as the expressions "their heart," "their altars." It is equivalent to the "sons of Judah" (bene Jehudah), and means simply the people of Judah, as now existing, the present generation. Now it does not appear that image worship and the cultus of the high places revived after their abolition by Josiah. Accordingly, the symbols of impure worship mentioned in this passage are not high places and images, but altars and Asherim, i.e., the wooden poles which were the emblems of the reproductive principle of Nature. What the passage therefore intends to say would seem to be this: "The guilt of the nation remains, so long as its children are mindful of their altars and Asherim erected beside the evergreen trees on the high hills"; i.e., so long as they remain attached to the modified idolatry of the day.
The general force of the words remains the same, whether they accuse the existing generation of serving sun pillars (macceboth) and sacred poles (asherim), or merely of hankering after the old, forbidden rites. For so long as the popular heart was wedded to the former superstitions, it could not be said that any external abolition of idolatry was a sufficient proof of national repentance. The longing to indulge in sin is sin; and sinful it is not to hate sin. The guilt of the nation remained, therefore, and would remain, until blotted out by the tears of a genuine repentance towards Iahvah.
But understood thus, the passage suits the time of Jehoiachin, as well as any other period.
"Why," asks Naegelsbach, "should not Moloch have been the terror of the Israelitish children, when there was such real and sad ground for it, as is wanting in other bugbears which terrify the children of the present day?" To this we may reply,
(1) Moloch is not mentioned at all, but simply altars and, asherim;
(2) would the word "remember" be appropriate in this case?
The beautiful strophes which follow (Jer_17:5-13) are not obviously connected with the preceding text. They wear a look of self-completeness, which suggests that here and in many other places Jeremiah has left us, not whole discourses, written down substantially in the form in which they were delivered, but rather his more finished fragments; pieces which being more rhythmical in form, and more striking in thought, had imprinted themselves more deeply upon his memory.
Thus hath Iahvah said:
Cursed is the man that trusteth in human kind,
And maketh flesh his arm,
And whose heart swerveth from Iahvah!
And he shall become like a leafless tree in the desert,
And shall not see when good cometh;
And shall dwell in parched places in the steppe,
A salt land and uninhabited.
"Blessed is the man that trusteth in Iahvah,
And whose trust Iahvah becometh!
And he shall become like a tree planted by water,
That spreadeth its roots by a stream,
And is not afraid when heat cometh,
And its leaf is evergreen;
And in the year of drought it feareth not,
Nor leaveth off from making fruit."
The form of the thought expressed in these two octostichs, the curse and the blessing, may have been suggested by the curses and blessings of that Book of the Law of which Jeremiah had been so faithful an interpreter; {Deuteronomy 27:15 - Deuteronomy 28 20} while both the thought and the form of the second stanza are imitated by the anonymous poet of the first psalm.
The mention of "the year of drought" in the penultimate line may be taken, perhaps, as a link of connection between this brief section and the whole of what precedes it so far as chapter 14, which is headed "Concerning the droughts." If, however, the group of chapters thus marked out really constitute a single discourse, as Naegelsbach assumes, one can only say that the style is episodical rather than continuous; that the prophet has often recorded detached thoughts, worked up to a certain degree of literary form, but hanging together as loosely as pearls on a string. Indeed, unless we suppose that he had kept full notes of his discourses and soliloquies, or that, like certain professional lecturers of our own day, he had been in the habit of indefinitely repeating to different audiences the same carefully elaborated compositions, it is difficult to understand how he would be able without the aid of a special miracle, to write down in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the numerous utterances of the previous three and twenty years. Neither of these suppositions appears probable. But if the prophet wrote from memory, so long after the original delivery of many of his utterances, the looseness of internal connection, which marks so much of his book, is readily understood.
The internal evidence of the fragment before us, so far as any such is traceable, appears to point to the same period as what precedes, the time immediately subsequent to the death of Jehoiakim. The curse pronounced upon trusting in man may be an allusion to that kings confidence in the Egyptian alliance, which probably induced him to revolt from Nebuchadrezzar, and so precipitate the final catastrophe of his country. He owed his throne to the Pharaohs appointment, {2Ki_23:34} and may perhaps have regarded this as an additional reason for defection from Babylon. But the chastisement of Egypt preceded that of Judah; and when the day came for the latter, the king of Egypt durst no longer go to the help of his too trustful allies. {2Ki_24:7} Jehoiakim had died, but his son and successor was carried captive to Babylon. In the brief interval between those two events, the prophet may have penned these two stanzas, contrasting the issues of confidence in man and confidence in God. On the other hand, they may also be referred to some time not long before the fourth year of Jehoiakim, when that king, egged on by Egypt, was meditating rebellion against his suzerain; an act of which the fatal consequences might easily be foreseen by any thoughtful observer, who was not blinded by fanatical passion and prejudice, and which might itself be regarded as an index of the kindling of Divine wrath against the country.
"Deep is the heart above all things else:
And sore diseased it is: who can know it?
I, Iahvah, search the heart, I try the reins,
And that, to give to a man according to his own ways,
According to the fruit of his own doings."
"A partridge that gathereth young which are not hers,
Is he that maketh wealth not by right.
In the middle of his days it will leave him,
And in his end he shall prove a fool."
"A throne of glory, a high seat from of old,
Is the place of our sanctuary.
Hope of Israel, Iahvah!
All that leave Thee shall be ashamed;
Mine apostates shall be written in earth;
For they left the Well of Living Waters, even Iahvah."
"Heal Thou me, Iahvah, and I shall be healed,
Save Thou me, and I shall be saved,
For Thou art my praise."
"Lo, they say unto me,
Where is the Word of Iahvah?
Prithee, let it come!
Yet I, I hasted not from being a shepherd after Thee,
And woeful day I desired not-
Thou knowest;
The issue of my lips, before Thy face it fell."
"Become not a terror to me!
Thou art my refuge in the day of evil.
Let my pursuers be ashamed, and let not me be ashamed!
Let them be dismayed, and let not me be dismayed;
Let Thou come upon them a day of evil,
And doubly with breaking break Thou them!"
In the first of these stanzas, the word "heart" is the connecting link with the previous reflections. The curse and the blessing had there been pronounced not upon any outward and visible distinctions, but upon a certain inward bent and spirit. He is called accursed, whose confidence is placed in changeable, perishable man, and "whose heart swerveth from Iahvah." And he is blessed, who pins his faith to nothing visible; who looks for help and stay not to the seen, which is temporal, but to the Unseen, which is eternal.
The thought now occurs that this matter of inward trust, being a matter of the heart, and not merely of the outward bearing, is a hidden matter, a secret which baffles all ordinary judgment. Who shall take upon him to say whether this or that man, this or that prince confided or not confided in Iahvah? The human heart is a sea, whose depths are beyond human search; or it is a shifty Proteus, transforming itself from moment to moment under the pressure of changing circumstances, at the magic touch of impulse, under the spell of new perceptions and new phases of its world. And besides, its very life is tainted with a subtle disease, whose hereditary influence is ever interfering with the will and affections, ever tampering with the conscience and the judgment, and making difficult a clear perception, much more a wise decision. Nay, where so many motives press, so many plausible suggestions of good, so many palliations of evil, present themselves upon the eve of action; when the colours of good and evil mingle and gleam together in such rich profusion before the dazzled sight that the mind is bewildered by the confused medley of appearances, and wholly at a loss to discern and disentangle them one from another; is it wonderful, if in such a case the heart should take refuge in the comfortable illusion of self-deceit, and seek, with too great success, to persuade itself into contentment with something which it calls not positive evil but merely a less sublime good?
It is not for man, who cannot see the heart, to pronounce upon the degree of his fellows guilt. All sins, all crimes, are in this respect relative to the intensity of passion, the force of circumstances, the nature of surroundings, the comparative stress of temptation. Murder and adultery are absolute crimes in the eye of human law, and subject as such to fixed penalties; but the Unseen Judge takes cognisance of a thousand considerations, which, though they abolish not the exceeding sinfulness of these hideous results of a depraved nature, yet modify to a vast extent the degree of guilt evinced in particular cases by the same outward acts. In the sight of God a life socially correct may be stained with a deeper dye than that of profligacy or bloodshed; and nothing so glaringly shows the folly of inquiring what is the unpardonable sin as the reflection that any sin whatever may become such in an individual case.
Before God, human justice is often the liveliest injustice. And how many flagrant wrongs, how many monstrous acts of cruelty and oppression, how many wicked frauds and perjuries, how many of those vile deeds of seduction and corruption, which are, in truth, the murder of immortal souls; how many of those fearful sins, which make a sorrow-laden hell beneath the smiling surface of this pleasure-wooing world, are left unheeded, unavenged by any earthly tribunal! But all these things are noted in the eternal record of Him who searches the heart, and penetrates mans inmost being, not from a motive of mere curiosity, but with fixed intent to award a righteous recompense for all choice and all conduct.
The calamities which marked the last years of Jehoiakim, and his ignominious end, were a signal instance of Divine retribution. Here that kings lawless avarice is branded as not only wicked, but foolish. He is compared to the partridge, which gathers and hatches the eggs of other birds, only to be deserted at once by her stolen brood. "In the middle of his days, it shall leave him" (or "it may leave him," for in Hebrew one form has to do duty for both shades of meaning). The uncertainty of possession, the certainty of absolute surrender within a few short years, this is the point which demonstrates the unreason of making riches the chief end of ones earthly activity. "Truly man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain: he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them." It is the point which is put with such terrible force in the parable of the Rich Fool. "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for thyself for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." "And the Lord said unto him, Thou fool! this night shall thy soul be required of thee."
The covetousness, oppression, and bloodthirstiness of Jehoiakim are condemned in a striking prophecy, {Jer_22:13-19} which we shall have to consider hereafter. A vivid light is thrown upon the words, "In the middle of his days it shall leave him," by the fact recorded in Kings, {2Ki_23:36} that he died in the thirty-sixth year of his age; when, that is, he had fulfilled but half of the threescore years and ten allotted to the ordinary life of man. We are reminded of that other psalm which declares that "bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days." {Psa_55:23}
Apart indeed from all consideration of the future, and apart from all reference to that loyalty to the Unseen Ruler which is mans inevitable duty, a life devoted to Mammon is essentially irrational. The man is mostly a "fool"-that is, one who fails to understand his own nature, one who has not attained to even a tolerable working hypothesis as to the needs of life, and the way to win a due share of happiness; -who has not discovered that
"riches have their proper stint
In the contented mind, not mint";
and that
"those who have the itch
Of craving more, are never rich";
and who has missed all apprehension of the grand secret that
"Wealth cannot make a life, but love."
From the vanity of earthly thrones, whether of Egypt or of Judah, thrones whose glory is transitory, and whose power to help and succour is so ill-assured, the prophet lifts his eyes to the one throne whose glory is everlasting, and whose power and permanence are an eternal refuge.
"Thou Throne of Glory,
High Seat from of old,
Place of our Sanctuary,
Hope of Israel, Iahvah!
All who leave Thee blush for shame:
Mine apostates are written in earth;
For they have forsaken the Well of Living Water, even Iahvah!"
It is his concluding reflection upon the unblest, unhonoured end of the apostate Jehoiakim. If Isaiah could speak of Shebna as a "throne of glory," i.e., the honoured support and mainstay of his family, there seems no reason why Lahvah might not be so addressed, as the supporting power and sovereign of the world.
The terms "Throne of Glory" "Place of our Sanctuary" seem to be used much as we use the expressions, "the Crown." "the Court," "the Throne," when we mean the actual ruler with whom these things are associated. And when the prophet declares "Mine apostates are written in earth," he asserts that oblivion is the portion of those of his people, high or low, who forsake Iahvah for another god. Their names are not written in the Book of Exo_32:32; Psa_69:28, but in the sand whence they are soon effaced. The prophets do not attempt to expose
"The sweet strange mystery
Of what beyond these things may lie."
They do not in express terms promise eternal life to the individual believer.
But how often do their words imply that comfortable doctrine! They who forsake Iahvah must perish, for there is neither permanence nor stay apart from IAHVAH, whose very Name denotes "He who Is," the sole Principle of Being and Fountain of Life. If they-nations and persons-who revolt from Him must die, the implication, the truth necessary to complete this affirmation, is that they who trust in Him, and make Him their arm, will live; for union with Him is eternal life.
In this Fountain of Living Water Jeremiah now seeks healing for himself. The malady that afflicts him is the apparent failure of his oracles. He suffers as a prophet whose word seems idle to the multitude. He is hurt with their scorn, and wounded to the heart with their scoffing. On all sides men press the mocking question, "Where is the word of Iahvah? Prithee, let it come to pass!" His threats of national overthrow had not been speedily realised; and men made a mock of the delays of Divine mercy. Conscious of his own integrity, and keenly sensitive to the ridicule of his triumphant adversaries, and scarcely able to endure longer his intolerable position, he pours out a prayer for healing and help. "Heal me," he cries, "and I shall be healed, Save me and I shall be saved" (really and truly saved, as the form of the Hebrew verb implies); "for Thou art my praise," my boast and nay glory, as the Book of the Law affirms. {Deu_10:21} I have not trusted in man, but in God; and if this my sole glory be taken away, if events prove me a false prophet, as my friends allege, applying the very test of the sacred Law, {Deu_18:21 sq.} then shall I be of all men most forsaken and forlorn. The bitterness of his woe is intensified by the consciousness that he has not thrust himself without call into the prophetic office, like the false prophets whose aim was to traffic in sacred things; {Jer_14:14-15} for then the consciousness of guilt might have made the punishment more tolerable, and the facts would have justified the jeers of his persecutors. But the case was far otherwise. He had been most unwilling to assume the function of prophet; and it was only in obedience to the stress of repeated calls that he had yielded. "But as for me," he protests, "I hasted not from being a shepherd to follow Thee." It would seem, if this be the correct, as it certainly is the simplest rendering of his words, that, at the time when he first became aware of his true vocation, the young prophet was engaged in tending the flocks that grazed in the priestly pasture grounds of Anathoth. In that case, we are reminded of David, who was summoned from the sheepfold to camp and court, and of Amos, the prophet herdsman of Tekoa. But the Hebrew term translated "from being a shepherd" is probably a disguise of some other original expression; and it would involve no very violent change to read "I made no haste to follow after Thee fully" or "entirely" {Deu_1:36} a reading which is partially supported by the oldest version. Or it may have been better, as involving a mere change in the punctuation, to amend the text thus: "But as for me, I made no haste, in following Thee," more literally, "in accompanying Thee". {Jdg_14:20} This, however, is a point of textual criticism, which leaves the general sense the same in any case.
When the prophet adds: "and the ill day I desired not," some think that he means the day when he surrendered to the Divine calling, and accepted his mission. But it seems to suit the context better, if we understand by the "ill day" the day of wrath whose coming was the burden of his preaching; the day referred to in the taunts of his enemies, when they asked, "Where is the word of Iahvah?" adding with biting sarcasm: "Prithee, let it come to pass." They sneered at Jeremiah as one who seized every occasion to predict evil, as one who longed to witness the ruin of his country. The utter injustice of the charge, in view of the frequent cries of anguish which interrupt his melancholy forecasts, is no proof that it was not made. In all ages, Gods representatives have been called upon to endure false accusations. Hence the prophet appeals from mans unrighteous judgment to God the Searcher of hearts. "Thou knowest; the utterance of my lips" {Deu_23:24} "before Thy face it fell": as if to say, No word of mine, spoken in Thy name, was a figment of my own fancy, uttered for my own purposes, without regard of Thee. I have always spoken as in Thy presence, or rather, in Thy presence. Thou, who hearest all, didst hear each utterance of mine; and therefore knowest that all I said was truthful and honest and in perfect accord with my commission.
If only we who, like Jeremiah, are called upon to speak for God, could always remember that every word we say is uttered in that Presence, what a sense of responsibility would lie upon us; with what labour and prayers should we not make our preparation! Too often alas! it is to be feared that our perception of the presence of man banishes all sense of any higher presence; and the anticipation of a fallible and frivolous criticism makes us forget for the time the judgment of God. And yet "by our words we shall be justified, and by our words we shall be condemned."
In continuing his prayer, Jeremiah adds the remarkable petition, "Become not Thou to me a cause of dismay!" He prays to be delivered from that overwhelming perplexity, which threatens to swallow him up, unless God should verify by events that which His own Spirit has prompted him to utter. He prays that Iahvah, his only "refuge in the day of evil," will not bemock him with vain expectations; will not falsify His own guidance; will not suffer His messenger to be "ashamed," disappointed and put to the blush by the failure of his predictions. And then once again, in the spirit of his time, he implores vengeance upon his unbelieving and cruel persecutors: "Let them be ashamed," disappointed in their expectation of immunity, "let them be dismayed," crushed in spirit and utterly overcome by the fulfilment of his dark presages of evil. "Let Thou come upon them a day of evil, And doubly with breaking break Thou them!" This indeed asks no more than that what has been spoken before in the way of prophecy-"I will repay the double of their guilt and their trespass" {Jer_16:18} -may be forthwith accomplished. And the provocation was, beyond all question, immense. The hatred that burned in the taunt "where is the word of Iahvah? Prithee, let it come to pass!" was doubtless of like kind with that which at a later stage of Jewish history expressed itself in the words "He trusted in God, let Him deliver Him!" "If He be the Son of God, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe on Him!"
And how much fierce hostility that one term "my pursuers" may cover, it is easy to infer from the narratives of the prophets evil experience in chapters 20, 26, and 38. But allowing for all this, we can at best only affirm that the prophets imprecations on his foes are natural and human; we cannot pretend that they are evangelical and Christ-like. Besides, the latter would be a gratuitous anachronism, which no intelligent interpreter of Scripture is called upon to perpetrate. It is neither necessary to the proper vindication of the prophets writings as truly inspired of God, nor helpful to a right conception of the method of revelation.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—1. Chronology of the Chapter. This…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.—1. Chronology of the Chapter. This and chapter 15 form one prophecy (although Lange, Keil, and others connect chapters 14 to 17, regarding them as interwoven and synchronous). From evidence of personal hardship towards Jeremiah (Jer_15:10), most probably these prophecies were delivered during the early years of Jehoiakim’s reign. (See on chapter 7) Also for Contemporary Scriptures: National Affairs, Contemporaneous History, see chapter 7.
2. Natural History.—Jer_14:1. “Dearth:” batstsoreth, restraint, sc. of rain. Although Palestine is a very fruitful land, famine naturally followed close upon failure of rain (1 Kings 17; Josephus, Ant. xv. 9, 1) See on chapter 2 Jer_14:16; and specially Historic Events, cf. “The Land withered by Drought,” p. 62. Jer_14:2. “Gates languish.” (See Addenda on verse). Jer_14:5. “The hind:” the female of the hart or stag:אַיֶּלֶת. The Ayeleth is a frequent Scripture figure suggesting gentleness (Pro_5:19), fleetness end agility (Psa_18:33; Hab_3:19), delicate modesty (Son_2:7; Son_3:5), and in this verse, maternal affection, she being adduced as an extreme illustration of the effects of the famine on one of the most ardent creatures. Jer_14:6. “Wild asses:” cf. notes on Jer_2:24. “Dragons:” cf. notes on Jer_9:11.
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3. Manners and Customs. Jer_14:3. “Nobles have sent their little ones to the voters:” i.e., to the tanks for holding water; pits or cisterns. (See notes on Jer_2:13.) “Covered their heads:” (See on Jer_2:37). Jer_14:8. “Wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night:” i.e., that pitcheth his tent to tarry: in recognition of the custom of travellers to carry their tent with them, and in which they tarried for the night. Jer_14:12. “An oblation:” i.e., meat-offering (cf. Lev_2:1); the minchah, which was not a sacrificial offering, but was usually offered as supplementary thereto, and consisted of articles of food, or of oil.
4. Literary Criticisms.—Jer_14:1. “Dearth:” occurring here in the plural, הַבַּצָּרוֹת, restraints, it does not necessarily imply a numerical succession of dearths, but is used idiomatically (a common form in the Heb.) for intensity and continuance. Whatever has extension of time or space is expressed by the Heb. pl. Jer_14:2. “Black unto the ground:” “covered by mourning even to the earth” (Naeg.); “they bow mourning towards the earth” (Hend.). Jer_14:3. “Nobles sent their little ones:” the word rendered “little ones,” צָעוֹר, = to be mean, inferior, as well as little: and in this instance more correctly should be, their servants or inferiors. Jer_14:4. “Ground is chapt:” lit. dismayed. Jer_14:5. “No grass:” comp. with Jer_14:6, “no grass.” The two words are different, דֶשֶׁא (Jer_14:5), = green-grass: עֵשֶׂב, (Jer_14:6), = under-shrubs, or bushes (Gen_1:11, = herb). Jer_14:8. “Turneth aside to tarry for a night:” נָטָה לָלון; the simple meaning of נָטָה here rendered “turneth aside,” is to stretch out, unfo’d, i.e., to spread a tent: lit. to stretch (his tent) to pass the night. Jer_14:9. “A man astonied;” a word which occurs only here, נִדְהָם; Syriac gives feeble, Vulgate, vagus; but the LXX (either mistaking the word for נִרְדָם, or changing it) render it by ὑπνῶν, in deep sleep; but the word is by all critics traced to the Arabic dahama, to confound, take unawares, stupify, strike dumb. Jer_14:13. “Give you assured peace:” lit. peace of truth, i.e., true, durable peace. Jer_14:14. “A thing of nought:” אֱלִיל, “elil is probably a diminution of el, God, and signifies a small idol made of the more precious metals (Isa_2:20; Isa_19:3). But as the Jews habitually called idols vanity, falsehood, and the like, the word elil soon suggested a derivation from the negative particle al. not: and there are two places where it has the secondary meaning of worthlessness (Job_13:4; Zec_11:17). A.V. Idol shepherd. Elul (in text) may be an oracle given by an Elil.”—Dr. Payne Smith. Jer_14:17. “A very grievous blow:” cf. notes on Jer_10:19. Jer_14:18. “Behold them that are sick with famine:” lit. the sickness, or tortures of famine,תַּחֲלוּאֵי, torments. “Go about into a land that they know not:” Hend. = “shall migrate into a land which they know not;” Naeg., “go into the country and know nothing;” Speaker’s Com., “go about into a land and know not;” Rosen. Umbreit, “wander about in the land and know not what to do;” Graf. “shall go as beggars into a strange land;” Hitzig. “they move into a land which they know not.”
HOMILIES ON SECTIONS OF CHAPTER 14
Sections
Jer_14:1-9.
PLEADING WITH GOD OVER A CALAMITOUS DEARTH.
Sections
Jer_14:16-19.
Jehovah’s refusal to allow intercession to prevail.
Sections
Jer_14:17-22.
A piteous lament for the nation’s woe.
Jer_14:1-9. PLEADING WITH GOD OVER A CALAMITOUS DEARTH
The first verse is the title to the whole chapter: it does indeed all concern the dearth, but much of it consists of the prophet’s prayers,—not unfitly said to be “The word of the Lord which came to him;” for every acceptable prayer God puts into our hearts; our word that goes to Him is His word that comes to us.
I. The language of nature lamenting the calamity.
1. The people of the land were all in tears. “Judah mourns;” not for the sin but for the trouble, not for the withholding of God’s favour but of rain. “The gates languish,” those who pass through them, or assemble there are pale with want and fear. “They are black unto the ground;” as mourners, they sit on the ground. “The cry of Jerusalem is gone up;” not the cry of their prayer but of their complaint.
2. The great men of the land felt the judgment. “The nobles sent,” &c.; perhaps having had to part with their servants through scarcity, they had to send their own “children” (comp. 1Ki_18:5-6). Rather, their inferior officers. But they “returned with their vessels empty.” Not “ashamed” for their sins but unsuccess.
3. The husbandmen suffered most severely (Jer_14:4). The ground was so parched and hard, nothing could be done. How dependent are husbandmen upon the Divine providences!
4. The case even of the wild beasts was very pitiable (Jer_14:5-6). Man’s sins bring judgments upon the earth which make even the inferior creatures groan. “The hinds,” what have they done? Lovely and loving creatures; yet they were driven to act contrary to natural instincts. “The wild asses” cannot breathe in the parched land, so climb to “highest places,” and there “snuff up the wind like dragons.”
II. The language of grace lamenting the iniquity, and complaining to God of the calamity.
The people are not forward to pray, but the prophet prays for them, to excite them to pray for themselves.
1. Sin is humbly confessed (Jer_14:7). Our sins are witnesses against us, and true penitents see them as such: too numerous to be concealed, for they “are many:” too heinous to be excused, for they are “against Thee.”
2. Mercy is earnestly begged. “Though our iniquities testify against us, yet do Thou it for Thy name’s sake” (Jer_14:7). Not particularising what, leaving that to God. Our best pleas in prayer are fetched from the glory of God’s own name—we have nothing to plead in ourselves, but everything in Him. Also, “Leave us not” (Jer_14:9). We should dread and deprecate God’s departure more than every loss.
3. Their relation to God is most pathetically pleaded. Their interest in Him and expectations from Him grounded thereon (Jer_14:8-9).
(1.) They look upon Him as One they have reason to expect should deliver them in distress. He pleads, “Thou art the Hope of Israel;” God had encouraged His people to hope in Him. “The Saviour thereof in time of truth;” since God is their all-sufficient Saviour they ought to look to Him in their greatest straits. “Thou art in the midst of us;” we have the special tokens of Thy presence, temple, ark, oracles. “We are called by Thy name:” therefore, what evils we are under reflect dishonour upon Thee, as if Thou wert not able so relieve Thine own.
(2.) It, therefore, grieves them that He does not appear for their deliverance. Because He will seem (a.) Unconcerned for His own people; as “a stranger in the land,” who does not interest himself in its interests; “as a wayfaring man,” &c., instead of “resting here for ever.” Though God never is, yet He sometimes seems careless of His Church. Christ slept when His disciples were in a storm. (b.) Incapable of giving them relief. (Comp. Num_14:16.) “As a man astonied,” at a loss what to do, or “as a mighty man” overpowered by others more mighty, and therefore “cannot save.” Either conception was an insult to the Divine perfections. It becomes us thus in prayer to be equally concerned for God’s glory. (Comp. Henry. See also Noticeable Topics to chap. 14 infra.)
Jer_14:10-16. JEHOVAH’S REFUSAL TO ALLOW INTERCESSION TO PREVAIL
See Addenda on Jer_14:8, “Intercessory Prayer;” and on Jer_14:12, “Fasting offensive.” Comp. Section chap. Jer_11:14-17; also on chap. Jer_7:16-20.
I. The Lord’s answer to the prophet’s prayer.
1. He points to the backsliding of the people, for which He now punishes them (Jer_14:10). In the “thus have they loved to wander” lies a backward reference: not to the vain wanderings for water (Jer_14:3), nor to the restless movements of the thirsty animals (Jer_14:5-6), but to the substance of Jeremiah’s prayer, in which he complained of God’s seeming alienation and indifference: thus, in like degree as Jehovah has estranged Himself from His people (Jer_14:8-9), have they estranged themselves from their God. They loved to wander after strange gods, therefore He punishes them (Hos_8:13).
2. He refuses the prophet’s prayer because He loathes the people’s soulless fastings and sacrifices (Jer_14:11-12). They turn to Him in their need, but only in lip service and formality; their hearts are with their idols. By bringing sacrifices, these hollow-hearted hypocrites thought to give “pleasure” to God, and win His leniency and mercy.
3. He specifies the means by which He will destroy this backsliding people. Threefold: battle, famine, and pestilence, when their cities are besieged by the nearing foe (cf. Lev_26:25, f.).
II. The prophet renews his endeavours to entreat God’s favour.
1. He lays stress on the fact that they had been deceived (Jer_14:13). He offers the excuse for this people that the delusive forecastings of false prophets who promised peace had confirmed them in their infatuation.
2. But they are not excused on that account; for they gave credit to lies. (1) God had not commissioned these prophets (Jer_14:14). The cumulation of these words, “lying vision,” &c., shows God’s indignation against the wicked practices of these men. (2) Their easy and willing dupes are condemned to ignominy. The lies of these false prophets flattered the sinful passions of the people, who therefore would not hear nor take to heart the word of the true prophets who preached repentance and return to God.
3. Seducers should perish with those they seduced. They should perish “by sword and famine” who affirmed these should not come upon the people. And with the specification of the various classes of the people upon whom judgments should fall, must be compared the account of their participation in idolatry (Jer_7:18).—Arranged from Keil.
Jer_14:18-20. A PITEOUS LAMENT FOR THE NATION’S WOE
“Thou shalt say unto them this word;” but actually no word from God follows. What then? Is there a message here lost from God’s book? Nay. Jehovah bids His prophet utter his cries and prayers in the hearing of the hardened nation and pour out his tears of grief; that his pain in contemplating Judah’s nearing ruin may touch and arouse them.
I. Doleful scenes. Depicted vividly by the prophet, whose shocked and appalled gaze rests, by prevision, upon them.
1. Occasions for grief. The miseries the Chaldeans would inflict are all arrayed under his eye: “broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow.” (See Section, Jer_10:17-25; and Homilies on Jer_10:19-20.) “In the field,” the slain; “in the city,” the starved.
2. Profusion of tears. For one he tenderly cherishes—“the virgin daughter of my people;” and in whose miseries he poignantly shares. “Let mine eyes run down with tears,” &c. (See Homilies and Notes on Jer_9:1, and Jer_13:17.)
II. Painful conjectures. He lifts his eyes from the scene of stricken Judah to Judah’s God, and assays to interpret God’s reason,—the dreadful explanation that lay behind the appalling facts: “Hast thou utterly rejected?” &c. (Jer_14:19).
1. That God had abandoned His people. It seemed incredible. Paul asked in equal amaze and shrinking, “Hath God then cast away His people?” (Rom_11:1). True, Judah merited such abandonment: but is the rejection final, hopeless: “utterly rejected”?
2. That Zion should be “loathed” by Him. The word means, to throw away as worthless. And can Zion have become thus obnoxious to Jehovah? No yearning pity left in the “soul” of Him who had said, “I remember for thy sake the kindness of thy youth, and the love of thine espousals?” (See Notes and Homilies on Jer_2:2-3.)
III. Frustrated hopes. Here the prophet expresses the people’s delusive expectations: “We looked for peace,” &c.
1. Flattering hopes. Easily and gladly cherished. Sinners are ready to believe in coming good.
2. False hopes. Unfounded expectations bring bitter awakenings: the delusions yield to desolations. (See Notes and Homilies on Jer_8:16.)
IV. Penitent confessions. This is language spoken for them which should have been spoken by them (Jer_14:20).
1. Personal transgression. “Our wickedness;” their own individual outrage of righteousness, violation of covenants, provocations of Divine wrath. No evading the directness of their criminality.
2. Perpetuated iniquity. “The iniquity of our fathers.” Not that they acknowledged their ancestors’ sin, they might leave that; but we acknowledge our wickedness, the iniquity of our fathers,” i.e., which is the repetition of their iniquity.
3. Inexcusable wickedness. “Sinned against Thee!” Against a God so holy, munificent, faithful. (See Addenda on Jer_14:20, “Sin acknowledged.”)
IV. Wrestling prayers. Jeremiah had been prohibited by God to pray (Jer_14:11), but he returns to his knees in impassioned importunity and pathos.
1. He pleads that God will not alienate His heart from Judah. Afflict with Thine hand if need be, but do not shut us from Thine heart: “do not abhor us.”
2. He appeals to the honour and fidelity of Jehovah. The honour of His name: “For Thy name’s sake.” The honour of His temple; “the throne of Thy glory,” preserve that from defamation and spoliation. The honour of His promises: “break not Thy covenant with us.” Remember Thy word unto Thy servants, &c.
3. He casts all hope implicitly on God. No other object of worship availed for their help: “Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause lain?” No regard to Nature or heed of second causes would now suffice: “Can the heavens give showers?” Nay, God “made all these things.” Therefore, on Him alone and trustfully they would wait (Zec_10:1). And this was the encouragement of their trust; not only in God’s power as Creator, but in this fact, “Art not Thou He, O Lord our God?” “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made both heaven and earth.”
HOMILIES AND COMMENTS ON VERSES OF CHAPTER 14
Jer_14:1. “Concerning the dearth:” see HISTORIC EVENTS. Cf. The land withered by drought, chap. Jer_3:3; and Notes and Homily on Jer_9:12.
Jer_14:3. Theme: VAIN SEARCH FOR WATER.
For explanation of “pits and no water,” see Notes, Manners and Customs, Jer_2:13 : and for General Comments, see Section Jer_2:9-13. See also Addenda on verse.
I. God’s vital drink: “water.” In God’s hand to give or withhold.
1. Water, a physical necessity. Cannot exist without it. A common commodity, despised as a drink by those of vitiated taste, but nevertheless imperative for all.
2. Water, a spiritual emblem. Water of life = (a.) the Gospel of Jesus—“If any thirst, come to Me and drink:” (b.) the sanctifying Spirit “be in you a well of water:” (c.) the sacred refreshings—Draw, water out of the wells of salvation.” Without these none can live. “Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.”
II. Man’s urgent thirst. The drought caused misery and mourning everywhere: “Judah mourneth, gates languish” (Jer_14:2). Suggests: what appalling woe would ensue were the Gospel withdrawn from man: the Spirit’s sanctifying ministry recalled by Jesus; and the “wells of salvation” closed against the pilgrims to Zion!
1. Without drink man must perish So spiritually.
2. Unless he drink SOON he must die. Therefore “the nobles” bestirred themselves: as once king Ahab and his lord chamberlain Obadiah had to do (1Ki_18:5-6): for all ranks of mankind are dependent on water for life—must drink or die.
III. Search utterly vain. “Found no water.”
1. Fruitless efforts. “They came to the pits, and returned with their vessels empty.” So men who seek happiness, and self-justification, and peace of spirit, and eternal hopes, in dry pits.
2. Mocking sources. These “pits” were the nation’s sole supplies—their reservoirs. “Broken cisterns which hold no water.” (See on chap. Jer_2:13; specially Noticeable Topics.)
3. Desolating shame. “Returned, ashamed, covered heads:” sign of very great grief (2Sa_15:30; 2Sa_19:4). What shame and grief will cover souls who return to their Lord, never having found living water, at the great judgment! And what anguish will overwhelm those who, in the eternal world, never have “a drop of water to cool their tongues!”
(a.) When God withholds rain man’s effort and hopes perish amid natural drought.
(b.) When the era of grace closes, water will nowhere, never be found for man’s spiritual needs.
Jer_14:3. Theme: CISTERNS AND THE FOUNTAIN. “They came to the pits, and found no water.”
Jeremiah describes the anxiety of the nobles for their own safety. They and their families were in imminent peril. The claims of nature were urgent and the supply doubtful. In the hour of their anguish, both children and servants were sent forth to see if perchance any water might yet remain in the natural hollows, or in the artificial dykes and cisterns. Their effort was vain, neither nature nor art responded to their cry nor rewarded their effort. Failure and disappointment made their hearts sad. They covered their heads with shame, confusion, and sorrow. It is a struggle for life, and death appeared to be gaining the victory. Their boasting was hushed, their folly was made clear, their sin was finding them out, as God declared it would. They now realised that it was a mournful and fatal error in them to forsake the Fountain of Living Waters.
[God is the Fountain. The arm of flesh, the fancies of the human brain, the energies of human life are not such as to enable man to do without God. Man’s reason is a useful cistern, but fails most when most required. God’s word of promise is the fountain whence flows our hope when reason’s efforts fail. Creeds are cisterns holding for practical and ready use portions of knowledge, but Christ is the Fountain in which all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are to be found, and from whom alone they are to be obtained. Science hews out her hollows in the rock, explores the cave, descends the valley, or scales the mountain height if she may but satisfy the thirst of man, but faith, knowing that man thirsts for the living God, listens for the voice of Him who says “Come unto Me and drink.”]
I. Cisterns are human, the Fountain is Divine.
Human fancies, speculations, attainments, achievements, inventions, and works are insufficient. The love of God, the work of Christ, the fellowship of the Spirit, the exercise of faith, these are Divine, saving, comforting.
II. Cisterns are dependent, the Fountain is self-sustaining.
Our thoughts and experiences depend on many circumstances, but God revealed, approachable, loved, obeyed, adored, is in us an ever-springing well, &c.
III. Cisterns are superficial, the Fountain deep.
Things earthly and human easily dried up, or by constant demand exhausted. Things Divine imperishable, inexhaustible. God’s love, word, glory The well is deep. The waterpot is small.
IV. Cisterns are fullest when least needed, the Fountain always full.
The Prodigal found it so. It was so at the marriage in Cana. The wine was exhausted, but Christ and His power were then best displayed.
V. Cisterns are useful only as connected with the fountain.
Solomon’s pools. Water-supply of our large towns. Cisterns, when rightly used, receive and cherish that which flows from the fountain. A cistern instead of, or apart from, a fountain is the work of presumption and folly, of unbelief and sin.
VI. Cisterns need to be kept in good condition as well as being connected with the fountain.
Broken cisterns can hold no water. The means of grace, the throne of grace, the obedience of faith, and all God’s methods of communicating good should be kept in proper repair, and constant use. The wretched and selfish pursuits of unbelief and sin are incapable of holding any divine blessing.
VII. Come to the Fountain. Christ is the Fountain. “If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink.” Come and wash. Come and drink.
APPLICATION—
1. Avoid the follies of those who forsake God.
2. Know that all earthly comforts are insufficient and transient.
3. At the time of your deepest need go not to pits, but to THE FOUNTAIN.—W. Whale.
Jer_14:7. Theme: MAN PERISHES; GOD MUST WORK.
Jews in great distress by reason of drought. Every temporal calamity was viewed by them as a Divine judgment. No rain, blighted country, cattle perishing, people languishing in gates, what all this but proof of God’s displeasure?
Close analogy between temporal and spiritual: dearth on land = desolation of soul; no gracious rain = no heavenly blessing. This their case: through sin alienated God; Jer_14:8, implying fellowship, had ceased, God withdrawn. While Jer_14:9 suggests that in their distress God did not arise.
Desolate lot. Yet many cry, Why as a Stranger to our souls? Why lost fellowship with Thee? “Where is the blessedness I knew?” O Lord, Saviour of Israel, why as cannot save? Men need salvation, from sin, perils, care. The cry of perishing rises, “O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, do Thou it for Thy name’s sake.”
I. A trustful prayer: “O Lord, do Thou it!” Whatever the prayer sought, it is clear that the prophet knew—
1. God could answer it. If favour lost, He could renew. Aid needed, God could exert power. Their case could not surpass Him. Hence asked Jer_14:9. Knew God could “do it.” We know “nothing is too hard for the Lord.” Deep misery, extreme need, great iniquity, ready to perish; yet God can “do” all our case requires.
2. God alone could answer that prayer. Appeal direct to “Lord: do Thou it.” (See Jer_14:22). Prophet learned the vanity of every other trust, but God was “Hope of Israel.” He was his exclusive trust, to none other would he seek. Misery great, yet if Lord not relieve, none could. The Lord is our only source of hope or help. Look not elsewhere, though He seem to withhold.
II. A mournful confession: “Our iniquities testify against us.” Sad that prayer must ever open with this acknowledgment!
1. Their evil condition. “Iniquities,” the guilt and curse of sin was on them. Many in number; though they had received warning, and might have shunned them. “Testified against them”—conscience reproached; pursued by them. Hearts cry out against us. Evil lives rise up in witness against us, and call for our condemnation.
2. Their ill desert. The prayer was for God’s favour, but sins were against them, menaced them. Mercy was asked, but iniquities cried out for judgment. “My sins are ever before me;” “Our iniquities are gone up into the heavens.”
3. Their stricken spirit. Prayer offered with shame and contrition. No extenuation, no excuses. Confession ought thus to be made in a spirit of deep sorrow, and humble sense of demerit. (See Addenda Jer_14:7, Contrite Prayer.)
III. A prevailing plea: “Do it, for Thy name’s sake.”
1. Recognises the total absence of any claim to mercy. Could solicit nothing for their sakes.
2. Forgoes all allusion to mitigating circumstances. Nothing mentioned to soften their criminality and propitiate God. “Just as I am.”
3. Bases the hope of compassion on the Name of God. His name was “The Lord merciful and gracious,” &c. On the ground that God’s name declares Him forgiving and loving, ask forgiveness and love divine! “For Thy name’s sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great.” “If we confess our sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us,” &c. In this Gospel dispensation we have the great Name of Jesus, “Saviour,” to plead; and “whatever ye shall ask the Father, in my name, He will give it.”
Theme: GOD’S NAME THE SINNER’S PLEA.
The prophet, though forbidden to pray (Jer_7:16; Jer_11:14, and Jer_14:11), could not forbear, but urged his prayers with all imaginable tenderness and compassion. Though he could find no excuse for Israel, he could find a plea in the very character of God.
I. The sinner’s acknowledgment.
1. The prophet’s confession is precisely such as befits the world at large. (Comp. Hos_7:10; Psa_36:1; Hos_5:4-5.)
2. With too great reason, also, may it be adopted, even by the best of men. The world are willing slaves of sin, whilst the godly resist spiritual enemies. Yet much amiss within them: sins of commission, omission, and defect (Isa_59:12).
II. The sinner’s plea. The request is not specified, but seems to be for restoration of God’s favour. This all may ask, not for what is in us, but for the sake of God’s honour, and the glory of His name.
1. His plea is open to all. His exercise of mercy is His highest glory (Deu_9:5; Eze_20:9; Eze_20:14; Eze_20:22). Even when we have provoked God to anger, we may approach Him with this plea (see Jos_7:8-9).
2. This plea shall never be urged in vain. In Joshua’s case it brought immediate success (Jos_7:10-11). So with Moses (Exo_32:9-14). Surely when we plead the name of Jesus! (Joh_14:13-14).
APPLICATION—
1. What should be the effect of sin upon the soul? Conviction of sin should not keep us from God, but bring us to Him: “though our iniquities testify,” &c. (Comp. Psa_25:11.) Sin is a just ground for humiliation, but not for discouragement.
2. What shall surely be effectual to remove it from the soul? Prayer: penitential weeping; humble and contrite (Jer_3:12-13; Jer_3:25) fervent and persevering (Dan_9:18-19); offered in dependence on God’s promised mercies in Christ Jesus (Jer_14:20-21). God has solemnly engaged not to cast out one who comes to Him in His Son’s name (Joh_6:37).—Simeon.
(See Noticeable Topic on Jer_14:8, infra).
Jer_14:8. Theme: GOD AND TROUBLED HUMANITY.
The troubles of Judah were overwhelming at this period. Indicated in preceding verses. Text is a patriotic wail: “O Hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof,” &c. We have to notice two things—
I. What God always is to troubled humanity.
1. He is “the Hope.” The Hope of Israel. Men in trouble want hope. Hope alone can buoy up amidst the surging sea of sorrow. Of all true hope God is the author. (1) He is the Inspirer of true hope. He implanted the instinct in the human soul. He calls it forth by trial, makes the spark blaze in the dark night. (2) He is the Sustainer of all true hope. Oftentimes the lamp would go out did He not feed the waning flame, and shelter it from the gust. (3) He is the Realiser of all true hope. If ever the anticipated deliverance comes, it comes from Him. The storm-tossed mariner “He bringeth to the desired haven.”
2. He is the Saviour. “The Saviour thereof.” He has a claim to this title. (1) The redemption system He has given to the world attests this. The Gospel is an infallible antidote for all the sorrows of humanity. (2) The experience of all who had attended to His directions testifies this. It is no objection to this that men are not saved. The physician may have an infallible antidote, yet if the patient partake not of it, of what value is it to him? He alone can attest the full value of a nautical chart who has sailed by it. All the shipwrecks of those who neglected it is no argument against its infallibility. Every man that has adopted God’s remedial scheme has been saved. He is the Saviour of the world.
II. What God sometimes seems to troubled humanity. “A stranger and a wayfaring man in the land.” A stranger in the land is one more or less unacquainted with what is local and uninterested in it. There are times when God seems to be a “stranger” in these respects. He seems as if He did not know what was going on; or, if He knew it, was absolutely indifferent. When does He appear as if a stranger to the good?
1. When Christlike enterprises are frustrated. When great plans of social philanthropy and evangelical propagandism break down and disappoint the hopes of piety, the good man is likely to feel that God is “a stranger,” that He is either ignorant of or indifferent to what is going on.
2. When the most useful men are cut down in the very zenith of their life. When the statesman with a measure for the liberties of a nation, an author with a book for the mental quickening of a whole people, a preacher with a power to attract and interest listening thousands, is struck down in a moment, the good are likely to look on and cry out to the great God, “Why art Thou a stranger in the land?”
3. When prosperity attends the wicked and adversity the good. This has ever been felt to be a trial. “Wherefore do the wicked become rich?” Asaph said, “My foot well nigh slipped, when,” &c. Who that sees the wicked rising to fortune and eminence, and the good sinking to penury and want, does not often exclaim within himself, “Why art Thou a stranger?”
4. When enormous outrages are rampant in society. Such as the crucifixion of Christ, tremendous wars, &c. At such seasons the good look up to heaven and cry, “Why art Thou a stranger?” Why not interpose, break the sword, and strike evil down?—Homilist.
Jer_14:7-9. Theme: JEREMIAH A WRESTLER WITH THE LORD IN PRAYER.
In this he is a second Jacob who was called “Israel.”
I. In what the Lord is strong against the prophet. The sin of the people. “Iniquities testify against us.”
II. In what the prophet is strong against the Lord. The name of the Lord. “Though iniquities testify against us, do Thou it for Thy name’s sake.”
1. In itself: God’s name compels Him to show He is not a desperate hero, a giant who cannot save (Jer_14:9).
2. In that His name is borne by Israel: thus He is bound to show Himself as He who is in Israel (not a guest or a “stranger,” Jer_14:9), and consequently the comforter and helper of Israel.—Heim and Hoffman, “The Major Prophets. (See Addenda on Jer_14:8, “Intercessory Prayer.”)
Theme: PRAYER HAS WITHIN ITSELF ITS OWN REWARD.
The prayer of the prophet consists of confession and petition:
I. Confession. This fitly begins. It is the testimony of iniquity; and that this iniquity is against God Himself. When we are to encounter any enemy or difficulty, it is sin weakens us. Now confession weakens it,—takes off the power of accusation.
II. Petition. “For Thy name’s sake.” This is the unfailing argument which abides always the same and hath always the same force. The children of God are much beholden to their troubles for clear experiences of themselves and God. Though thou art not clear in thy interest as a believer, yet plead thy interest as a sinner, which thou art sure of.—Leighton, quoted in Lange.
Comments—
In earnest and hearty prayer there is a conflict between the spirit and the flesh. The flesh regards the greatness of the sins (Jer_14:7), and conceives of God as a severe Judge, who either will not help further or cannot help (Jer_14:9). The spirit, on the other hand, adheres to the name of God (Jer_14:7), i.e., to His promises; apprehends God by faith as his true comfort and aid, and depends upon Him.—Cramer.
“Ideo non vult Deus cito dare, ut discas ardentius orare.”—Augustine.
The name of God is the manifestation of God’s being. From Moses’ time, Jehovah has revealed Himself as the Redeemer and Saviour of the children of Israel and as God who is merciful and gracious, &c. (Exo_34:6). As such, He is besought to reveal Himself now that they confess their backsliding and sin, and seek His grace. Not for the sake of His honours in the eyes of the world, lest the heathen believe He has no power to help (as Graf. holds), for all reference to the heathen nations is foreign to this connection; but He is entreated to help, not to belie the hope of His people, because Israel sets its hope on Him as Saviour in time of need (Jer_14:9). If by withholding rain He makes His land and people to pine, then He does not reveal Himself as the Lord and owner of Judah, not as the God that dwells amidst His people, but He seems a stranger passing through the land, who sets up his tent there only to spend the night, who “feels no share in the weal or woe of the dwellers therein” (Hitzig).… The pleader makes further appeal to God’s almighty power. It is impossible that God can let Himself look like a man at his wit’s end, or as a nerveless warrior, as He would seem if He should not give help to His people in their present need.… The passage closes with an appeal to the relation of grace which Jehovah sustains towards His people: “Yet art Thou in our midst,” i.e., present to Thy people. “Thy name is named upon us,” i.e., Thou hast revealed Thyself to us as God of salvation: “Lay us not down,” i.e., let us not sink.—Keil.
“Leave us not;” lit. lay us not down. Jeremiah evidently had in mind the magnificent words of Deu_32:11-12.—Speaker’s Commentary. (See Noticeable Topic, “Triumphant Prayer,” on Jer_14:7-9.
Jer_14:8-9. Theme: GOD’S SEEMING DISREGARD OF MAN. “O hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldst Thou be as a stranger?” &c.
A sore perplexity that God appears to dwell so far off and so apart from human affairs. Appalling crises come and go, dreadful occurrences transpire in the nation, in the church, in the home, in individual life, and hearts are dismayed and paralysed, yet God appears not in Providence nor manifests Himself in grace. And this seeming disregard compels to the cry, “O hope of Israel,” (&c.
I. It contradicts God’s character and name.
1. “Hope.” A name implying that Israel had learned to hope in Him when all else failed. That is the character God bears.
2. “Saviour.” He had saved, was THE Saviour: “Beside Him there was no Saviour.” And men believed him to be so.
3. “Mighty man.” “Able to save to the uttermost.” With great power He redeemed Israel from Egyptian bondage. “Mighty to save.” All revelation has declared God to be man’s hope, man’s Saviour, man’s mighty Redeemer; and when God seems heedless, it covers His name with obscurity.
II. It baffles the godly soul. To Jeremiah it was painfully perplexing that “the hope of Israel, and its Saviour,” should act towards His people thus: as
1. “A stranger.” Indifferent, therefore, having no acquaintance or sympathy with Israel, no knowledge of their distresses or needs; wholly unconcerned in their forlorn and imperilled state.
2. “A wayfaring man.” Inconstant, therefore: passing through the land instead of as of old, “Here will I dwell, for I have desired it,” alienated, no longer attached to the Holy Land and Temple; about to depart.
3. “A man that cannot save.” Impotent, therefore: the power of His arm gone, the zeal of His heart expired.
When the godly see God thus inactive for human weal and His people’s rescue, faith trembles and the cry rises from amid terrifying gloom.
III. It leaves man in a deplorable case.
1. His condition is distressing. It is “a time of trouble,” and in such a time, if “the Hope of Israel” forsake and fail him, he has “no hope.”
2. His relief is urgent. Without it man will sink and perish amid “trouble,” which means peril. If the “Saviour” relieve him not, he has no helper, no salvation.
3. His sole expectation is in God. Man can turn nowhere else. These people have no other “hope” or “Saviour,” or “mighty man.” And, amid sore troubles, no appeal rises but to Him. If He be a “wayfaring man,” and depart, doom rests on them!
IV. It arouses to wrestling prayer. It drove Jeremiah to God in earnest supplication: a good result.
1. Expostulating. “Why shouldst Thou be? why shouldst Thou be?” He could not rest amid such contradictions. He went “with boldness to the throne of grace,” and entreated God to arise and help.
2. Protesting. “Yet Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us,” although Thou art as a stranger and wayfaring man. He puts God in mind of precious facts, and bases firm arguments and appeals thereon. “We are called by Thy name,” help and save Thine own.
3. Entreating. “Leave us not!” “Thou art in our midst; be not even as a wayfarer; abide with us!” He would detain God. “I will not let Thee go!” “Constrain Him, saying, Abide with us!” When thus entreated, Jesus “went in to tarry with them.” (See Addenda on Jer_14:8, “God’s withdrawings.”)
Jer_14:9. Theme: A PRAYER FOR ALL SEASONS. “Leave us not!”
God sometimes hides Himself from us, as a friend withdraws when slighted, or a father when grieved.
I. Here is a prayer for all seasons. There is “a time for everything,” but every time is for this. This prayer should rise in—
1. Times of joy. Need pillar of cloud by day. Our prosperity will ruin us if God be not with us. Uzziah fell “when he was strong” (2Ch_26:16).
2. Times of adversity. 3. Times of labour. 4. Times of perplexity, &c.
II. Here is a prayer for all saints.
1. All need to pray thus. For all deserve to be abandoned.
2. All must pray thus. For all desire continuances of His presence.
3. All will pray thus. For all know the bitterness of soul consequent upon His withdrawal.
III. Here is a prayer always answered. If it come from sincere and penitential hearts.
1. Always answered, for it is according to His will. He delights to remain with His own.
2. Always answered, for it honours His name. It implies that we know and prize His presence.—Sermon Framework.
Jer_14:10. Theme: RECKLESS WANDERERS REFLECTED. “Thus have they loved to wander … the Lord doth not accept them,” &c. [On the reference of “thus have they,” &c., see Homily on Section 10–16, supra.] “Thus” means just so. Rashi suggests, in addition to those given in Section by Lange, that the point of comparison is, “For as determined as I am to punish them, just so they love to continue their offence.” (See Addenda on Jer_14:10.)
I. A covenant people heedless of their privileges.
1. Having Jehovah as their God. Their conception of what their, God was to them is given in Jer_14:7-9.
2. Having bounteous blessings. In their country, “a goodly land;” their social advantages, their spiritual distinctions.
3. Having assured prosperity and peace. God had covenanted their security against foes and enjoyment of unmeasured good.
Yet withal they depreciated their eminent blessings.
II. A heedless people yielding to inconstancy. “They loved to wander,” &c.
1. There was within them a delight in backsliding. A “love” of it. See Notes on chap. Jer_2:23-25; Jer 14:31.
2. Upon their inclination to apostasy they put no restraint. “They have not refrained their feet.” We may have wrong dispositions, may “love to wander,” yet are called to control, and check, and correct our wrong desires and delights. But these surrendered themselves unrestrained, “followed the devices and desires of their own hearts.”
III. An inconstant people rejected from God’s favour. “Therefore the Lord doth not accept them.”
1. Even though the prophet pleaded for them. As he did in Jer_14:7-9, as an intercessor, yet God refused (Jer_14:11). (See Notes on chap. Jer_7:16; Jer_11:14.)
2. Even though they themselves might cry to Him (Jer_14:12). There is a time when God’s mercy closes.
IV. A rejected people consigned to sore distress.
1. Buried memories of sin will be recalled against them. God “will remember their iniquity,” which He would have let remain in oblivion had they sought Him opportunely. Oh, to find all that God recollects against us arrayed for our doom!
2. Due recompense of sin will be brought upon them. He “will visit their sins.” Fain would He have made “grace much more to abound where sin abounded.” But repudiation of His goodness brings the inevitable stroke of anger: it is “the wrath of the Lamb.”
Jer_14:11. See Notes and Homilies on chap. Jer_7:16; Jer_11:14.
Jer_14:12. See Notes and Homilies on Jer_2:28; and Homilies on Sections 14–28; also Outlines on chap. Jer_11:11; Jer_11:14-15.
Theme: FASTING RENDERED OFFENSIVE. “When they fast I will not hear their cry; … but I will consume them,” &c.
Hypocrites, void of all sincerity, yet professed to be true worshippers of God, and by external rites wished to prove themselves to be so. They profaned the name of God when they thus grossly dissembled with Him.
I. Pious demeanour is not what God desires, but faith.
1. God abominates a double and false heart, and the greater the fervour hypocrites display in external rites, the more they provoke Him.
2. Fasting is observed as giving intensity to prayer. Reverted to when there is danger, or when there appears evidence of God’s wrath, or when we are under heavy affliction.
3. They who “fast” professedly avow that they deprecate God’s disfavour. It is an acknowledgment of conscious guilt, and a declaration of penitence.
4. But God values not outward appearance. He regards the faith of the heart. Pretentious penitence must be specially offensive to Him.
III. Fasting is not in itself a religious duty, but a mere index to a humble spirit.
1. What is intended by fasting? (a.) That there may be greater alacrity in prayer. (b.) That it may be an evidence of humility in confessing sins. (c.) As indicative of a purpose to subdue lust.
2. What is fasting apart from these intents? (a.) A frivolous exercise. (b.) A profanation of God’s worship. (c.) It provokes God’s wrath as being a superstition by which His worship is polluted. Fastings are not only without benefit, except when prayers are added, but they incur Divine displeasure unless indicating a humble and reverent spirit.
III. No value is in fasting to merit God’s favour.
Papists seek to pacify God by fasting as by a sort of satisfaction, deem it a work of merit and a kind of expiation.
Yet though hypocrites joined prayer to their fasting they were rejected (comp. Mat_17:21; Mar_9:29; 1Co_7:5). There was no sincerity in their hearts, but only an outward appearance, a mere disguise.
But God regards the heart, and only sincerity pleases Him.
IV. Mocking profanation was intolerable, and should be punished. “I will consume them,” &c.
1. God shows Himself armed with various kinds of punishment: “sword, famine, pestilence.”
2. He forewarns that they who had provoked Him should surely suffer. From the impending destructions none could deliver himself.
3. God does not disregard or reject religious signs, but when what they signify is separated from them, there is then an intolerable profanation.—Arranged from Calvin: see Commentary in loc. (See Addenda on Jer_14:12, “Fasting offensive.”
Jer_14:14. Theme: ASSURED PEACE. “I will give you assured peace in this place.”
Hitzig and Graf. render the sentence, “I will give you peace and continuance,” &c.; Septuagint, “truth and peace;” Vulgate and Targum, “true peace;” Syriac, “peace and security;” Lit. “peace of truth.” Real and lasting peace, not delusive, not evanescent.
I. Human life wants it.
Sin robbed man of it. All sinned; and wicked, like troubled sea, which cannot rest. Oh, how man craves for peace!
1. Uncertainty troubles our life. Transient hours of repose come to us, but tumult rushes in. No calculating on restful days and years. Want “assured peace” in this uncertain world.
2. Delusions embitter our heart. We have heeded false prophets, have “looked for peace, and behold trouble.” Seems no reliance on any promising thing. Mocked at every turn. It is not gay and fleeting enjoyments we need, but something “assured.”
3. Misgivings weary our souls. Are we safe, saved? Is death nearing? Is God propitious? Have we a “right to enter through the gates into the city?” “’Tis a point I long to know,” &c. The soul asks certitude, not conjecture, nor even hope, but “full assurance,” firm anchorage, “a title clear,” “strong consolation,” “the peace of God which shall keep our hearts and minds.” The cry of humanity is for “assured peace,” which will not elude, will never be lost.
“Oh where can rest be found,
Rest for the weary soul?”
II. God alone can give it. “I will give you assured peace.”
1. Peace is not a human commodity, but a Divine boon. Man cannot buy it of man, he must beg it of God. Priests cannot bestow it on penitents, sinners must get it direct from heaven.
2. Peace comes only to divinely-prepared hearts. It cannot dwell where sin lurks, sin unrepented or unforgiven. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God.” “There is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus.” “In Me ye have peace.”
3. Peace is specifically the Saviour’s benefaction. For He only can remedy the evils, and remove the impurities which ruin man’s peace. “My peace I give unto you—let not your hearts be troubled.”
III. Lying voices offer it. “Prophecy lies.”
1. False prophets preach peace still. In our churches promising it through ceremonies, confession, righteous works, &c. In pleasure’s scenes, assuring the gay and frivolous of satisfaction, &c.
2. Beguiled dupes are ensnared still. Won by false promises souls follow. But “destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known.”
3. Yet assured peace is available still. May be found by all. “Come unto me, all ye that labour,” &c., “Learn of me, and ye shall find rest to your soul.”
Jer_14:13-16. Theme: RUINOUS PROPHESYINGS.
How lone the voice which bewails the currency of religious frauds and ecclesiastical deceits! None but Jeremiah’s cry of lament over his beguiled people rose to God. Lying prophets were and are more in number than the faithful witnesses and preachers of truth. The world “believes a lie,” because it loves not the truth: and, upon this prevalent mood of self-deception and credulity, scheming priests and plausible preachers are ready to trade, saying, “Peace, peace; where there is no peace.”
I. Delusive declarations. “Behold the prophets say unto them, Ye shall not see the sword, neither shall ye have famine; but I will give you assured peace in this place” (Jer_14:13).
1. This kind of preaching had early and evil origin: “The serpent said, Ye shall not surely die, but your eyes shall be opened, &c.” (Gen_3:4-5).
2. Modern reproductions are rife. Priestly teaching of the saving value of sacraments, &c. Broad theology which minimises human sin and spiritual peril. A subtle Socinianism which denies man’s fall or need of redemption. Annihilationism, which destroys a hereafter for the unchristian soul.
II. Repudiated preachers. “I sent them not, neither have I commended them, neither spake unto them” (Jer_14:14).
1. Pleasant preaching may be in God’s esteem “lies.” The people liked it, but Jehovah denounced it.
2. Plausible prophets do not always have authority for their messages. Because a preacher teaches what men want to hear, and flock to learn, he does not on that account possess Divine warrant. Popularity is not a seal of authority. Indeed the truth most unwelcome, and the preacher most deserted, may have the highest sanction. “Who hath believed our report,” &c. Jeremiah was now deserted for these plausible prophets: yet who preached Divine truth?
III. Deceptions disclosed. “They prophesy unto you a false vision, and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their hearts” (Jer_14:14).
Thus are these delusive teachings disowned by God, they have no origin in Him, neither in prayerful contemplation of His Word, neither in any spiritual illumination: they are traced to the dark caverns of a deceitful heart.
1. “Visions and divinations” may have a bad origin. A preacher may be “clear” and “clever” in his presentation of doctrine, but his “visions” may be “false,” and his “divination” a “deceit.” Does he “prophesy in My name?”
2. It is possible for the human “heart” to suggest falsehood. Yes; the “heart” may forge a “deceit,” and thus impose upon the prophet himself; and the fancy or theory he has framed within himself may so enamour him that he may come to believe it true and authoritative. Then he will in turn impose upon heedless hearers, who desire “a thing of nought” rather than the serious message of God.
IV. Retributive ruin.
1. On deceivers (Jer_14:15). The very evils from which they decoyed men’s just fears should come upon themselves. Forbearing to warn men of the coming “sword” (see Ezekiel 33), that sword should smite the faithless watchman himself.
2. On the deceived (Jer_14:16). Who were willingly beguiled (comp. Jer_5:31. see supra, Jer_14:10). Men still “turn their ears from the truth, and are turned into fables.” But they do not escape the threatenings of the truth because they “believe a lie.” Self-deception is self-ruin.
Comments—
“Although preachers lead their hearers astray, yet the hearers are not thus excused. But when they allow themselves to be led astray, the blind and those who guide them fall together into the ditch” (Luk_6:39).—Cramer.
“The false prophets are thus described as deceiving the people in three ways—(1) by asserting that they had seen a vision; (2) by using conjuring tricks; (3) by professing to consult these small idols [Elil; see Lit. Crit. on “thing of naught”], in the same way that they divined by the Teraphim (Comp. Zec_10:2, where these three modes of divination occur again, only the Teraphim takes the place of the Elilim. Probably they were much the same). All these three methods the prophet declares to be the deceit of their heart, i.e., not self-deceit, but a fraud suggested by their heart or mind, i.e., a wilful and intentional fraud.”—Speaker’s Com.
“To Hitzig it seems surprising that, in describing the punishment which is to fall on seducers and seduced, there should not be severer judgment, in words at least, levelled against the seducers as being those involved in deeper guilt; whereas the very contrary is the case in the Hebrew text. But it was necessary to set before the people the terrors of this judgment in all their horror, in order not to fail of effect.”—Keil.
Jer_14:17. “Let mine eyes run down with tears,” &c. See Homilies on Chaps. Jer_9:1, Jer_13:17, supra.
“The virgin daughter of my people,” see on Chap. Jer_8:21, &c. In Oriental households virgins are carefully secluded and guarded; so had God watched over and protected Judah.
“Broken with a great breach, with a very grievous blow,” see on Chap. Jer_10:19.
“Those cities are called ‘virgins’ which never came into a conqueror’s hands. In the same sense the prophet here calls Jerusalem a ‘virgin,’ because she had been hitherto under God’s immediate protection, and preserved by Him from all attempts of her enemies (Comp. Amo_5:2). The dissolution of a government or body politic, is called a ‘breach,’ by way of allusion to the breaking or disjointing of the limbs of a human body (see Chap. Jer_8:21, Lam_2:13).”—W. Lowth.
Jer_14:18. Theme: THE WOES OF WAR.
I. Scenes on the field of battle. “If I go forth into the field, then behold the slain with the sword.”
II. Miseries within the besieged city. “If I enter into the city, then behold them that are sick with famine!” Yes, and heart sick with grief over sons, husbands, and fathers, slain.
III. Captives carried into alien scenes. “Yea, both the prophet and the priest [even those, and therefore the people, whom the conqueror would be less likely to leave] go about into a land that they know not.” “By the rivers of Babylon we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.”
Note on “go about into a land that they know not.” These words are variously rendered (See Lit. Crit. on verse), and variously interpreted. Graf and Keil suggest for “go about” the meaning “beg their way.” A. V. in margin gives “make merchandise.” But Rosenmüller and Umbreit give the interpretation that these prophets and priests move to and fro, go over their own desolated country (Judea) baffled and bewildered and impotent; “they wander about it, the land, and know not what to do.” But the simplest meaning is, they go into exile in a strange land.
Jer_14:19. Theme: PATRIOTIC PRAYERS IRREPRESSIBLE.
See Addenda on Jer_14:19, “Wrestling prayers.” Jehovah had prohibited Jeremiah’s intercession for His people (Jer_14:11); had wholly discouraged all propitiation by His people (Jer_14:12). What then? nothing could be done by man for them, nor aught by themselves for themselves. It is in bold desperation that the prophet now besieges God on the plea of His gracious interest in, and covenant relationship to, Judah. Can it be that there is “no healing” even in Jehovah for “the virgin daughter” on whom has fallen “a very grievous blow” (Jer_14:17).
*** For homiletic arrangement of this and following verses, see section, Jer_14:17-22, supra. Also Homily on chap. Jer_8:15.
I. Agonising inquiries addressed to God. Is there no room for hope, no place left for Judah and Zion within Divine pity? Are we abandoned to our miseries without any alleviation available; smitten by Thee, yet “no healing” procurable, none possible?
II. Desolated hopes arrayed before God.
1. Our expectations misled us. Illprepared for such a reverse of our hopes and desires.
2. Our desolation amazes us. “There is no good;” not one solace or respite shows itself, blank misery. “Behold trouble!” It rises upon our gaze, and we are terrified!
III. Astonishment expressed at the severity of God.
1. After so much grace from God. Judah cherished; Zion long beloved.
2. After frequent healings by God.
For oft He had smitten and then bound up.
3. Now utterly loathed and abandoned. Yet God can be severe. It will amaze those who calculated upon His love, and trifled with it.
Jer_14:20. Theme: SIN ACKNOWLEDGED.
To a right acknowledgment of our iniquity, and in order that sin may be pardoned, there are required three things—
I. Contrition. Iniquity truly and duly deplored. A poignant sense of the evil of sin in itself, and our evil state in having committed sin. A real grief for the wrong we have done God, and the woe we have merited on ourselves.
II. Confession. Which should be unfeigned, self-abhorrent, lamentable, specific, unreserved. The heart should utter itself in our words, and deep shame should fill our souls as we prostrate ourselves before the most Holy God.
III. Conversion. Repentance should issue in reformation. Forsaking the sin we acknowledge and lament, we should hereafter live a righteous, sober, and godly life. “Bring forth fruits meet for repentance.” Moved by gratitude to God for being “ready to forgive,” and constrained by love to the Atoning Mediator by whose redemption we may escape both guilt and its penalty, our afterlife should be humble, obedient, devoted, and holy. See Addenda on Jer_14:20, “Sin acknowledged.” Comp. Homily on chap. Jer_3:25.
Note.—The “and” is not in the Hebrew, and corrupts the sense. National sin is the sin of the “fathers” perpetuated generation after generation by the children. When thus successive opportunities for repentance had been rejected—for each generation had its own probation—the nation is ripe for chastisement.—Speaker’s Com.
Theme: DREADING GOD’S ABHORRENCE. “Do not abhor us, for Thy name’s sake.”
The occasion of the prayer (Jer_14:2-6). Prayer for removal of calamity (Jer_14:7-9). Though visited with judgment and threatened, the false prophets preached peace (Jer_14:13-14). The prophet, however, continued to plead with God.
I. The petition.
1. These words imply that it is possible for creatures once the objects of Divine favour to become the objects of Divine displeasure.
2. The solicitude of the prophet indicated how real and near those Divine judgments were. He was commanded not to pray that the threatened judgment should not be inflicted, but was assured the sword and famine should overtake them (Jer_14:15). Where impiety and irreligion prevail among a people favoured with religious advantages, Divine abhorrence will certainly express itself in punishment.
3. There is nothing which godly men more vehemently dread and deprecate than that God should abhor and reject a people once distinguished by His favour and by religious privileges. Jeremiah knew his people must be scattered, but he dreaded nothing so much as their being utterly cast off. Against this he prayed, “Do not abhor us, Lord, &c.
II. The argument used as enforcing his petition.
“Do not abhor us, for thy name’s sake”. This argument has been used with the Most High before. When God thinks to destroy the children of Israel, Moses pleaded what God had done for them (Exo_32:11-13). Joshua also pleaded, “What wilt Thou do for Thy great Name?” (Jos_8:9). “Should the Egyptians say,” &c. &c. This argument Jeremiah used to support his petition. God had made a covenant with His servant Jacob—if, then, Jacob had been abhorred so as to be utterly cast off—how could that economy be maintained? “Remember, break not Thy covenant with us, for Thy name’s sake.”
God’s name is His character, including all the glorious perfections that encompass it. Some of the perfections, considered apart from others, would cause only fear when our guilt as individuals or the guilt of communities is realised. If the prophet had dwelt only upon the holiness justice, and power of God when he considered the guilt of his country, he would have had no encouragement to pray; and if we dwelt only upon some attributes, we shall be more likely to sink into despair than to be encouraged with hope. But there are other perfections in the divine attributes, such as boundless mercy, unparalleled love, infinite wisdom, and inviolable faithfulness.
This argument may be used in prayer under personal distress, and under general calamity either endured or apprehended.
1. Under personal distress, to be considered as coming from guilt or from particular trouble, and in both cases can the name of God furnish us with a suitable or a powerful argument in prayer.
(1.) We may use it under a sense of guilt, either when first convinced of sin or when we may have wounded our conscience. A life spent without the fear of God, in open disaffection to and rebellion against Him, calls forvengeance. The glory of God requires that He should resist such impiety and manifest His displeasure against it. He might justly abhor us and utterly reject us. But His name affords us a plea. “God is Love,” He delighteth in mercy. He is the Lord God merciful and gracious. This is in perfect harmony with the perfections of God.
2. The believer may adopt it under particular trouble and the tribulations through which he may pass. The covenant of grace affords encouragement to use it. “If thy children forsake my law,” &c. &c. “Do not abhor us.” If Thou art pleased to chastise us, cast us not off—let all Thy glorious perfections of mercy, pardon, wisdom, and faithfulness be displayed in supporting, sanctifying, and in over-ruling all things for our good. “Do not abhor us, for Thy name’s sake,” &c.
(2.) This argument may be used by the righteous under general calamities; calamities experienced or apprehended.
1. Under national trouble. Such were the circumstances under which the prophet presented the prayer. A dearth was experienced—the swarm of the Chaldeans was threatened. He prayed that the sheep might not be abandoned. “Do not abhor us.”
Under national calamity the name of God affords encouragement for prayer. The godly at such times, when they can see that prevailing iniquity calls for vengeance, though professing submission, yet find the name of God a plea.
2. This plea may be used by the godly when apprehensive of spiritual judgments upon spiritual account.
There is nothing more offensive to God than a lukewarm spirit. “I would that thou wert either cold or hot,” &c. Now where lukewarmness prevails, the Spirit of God will be grieved and be withdrawn; the prayer is then most important, “Do not abhor,” &c., “Take not Thy Holy Spirit,” &c.
3. It is a plea that may be used in reference to churches at large. How much is there in Christendom to be deplored! How much that is religious only in name! How little Christian charity among different denominations! Though it is admitted that efforts are made to do good by churches of different denominations, and upon these efforts God has smiled, yet these evils must be offensive to Him who prayed that His Church might be kept from the evil that was in the world; and we may fear the expression of Divine displeasure until they are removed.
We learn from the subject that the proper plea to be used in all our prayers is the name of God. His mercy and grace displayed as harmonising with holiness and justice through the mediation of Jesus Christ. In our own name, as a ground of righteousness, we can never be accepted.
If God hears and answers prayer, it must be in a way that will be for His glory. And though in some measure His glory may require judgment, yet if the prayer is offered in reliance upon the mediation of Christ, the mercy and faithfulness of God assure us of acceptance. “Mercy and truth meet together—righteousness and peace,” &c.
And that prayer for others should be incessant. “The effectual fervent prayer of the righteous man availeth much.”—Anon.
Jer_14:21. Theme: THE ULTIMATE ARGUMENT WITH GOD FOR MERCY. See Addenda on Jer_14:21. “Do not disgrace the throne of Thy glory.” Nothing may be found to extenuate man’s spiritual criminality, so heinous may be his sin, as was Judah’s. Nothing acceptable or propitiatory may exist in his self-mortifications and oblations (Jer_14:12). His guilt and insincerity may even justify God’s refusal of intercession on his behalf (Jer_14:11). Yet there remain the highest arguments still by which to plead with God, viz., His NAME, His HONOUR, and His COVENANT.
I. Explanation of the language.
1. God’s name: it was a pledge of pardon (Exo_34:6). But more, God’s name was identified with His people; hence what befell them would reflect credit or discredit on God. If Thou dost “abhor us,” Thy name as “the God of Israel” will be forfeit.
2. God’s honour: “disgrace not the throne of Thy glory.” Jerusalem, or the Temple wherein God dwelt there (chap. Jer_3:17), was God’s glorious throne: if He suffered it to fall into the hands of heathen conquerors, it would be disgraced, and God’s glory dishonoured.
3. God’s covenant: He had chosen the race of Abraham, had pledged to David a lasting throne, had promised that Messiah should come of Judah. Though they, the guilty people, merited abhorrence, yet for the covenant’s sake, spare them, that the Word of God may stand.
II. Application of the argument.
Jeremiah turns from the people’s evil state and deserts, and appeals to God’s attributes.
1. That God’s name is a tower of defence for the guiltiest. Not only may “the righteous run into it and be safe,” but sinners may plead it as a basis of hope, as an argument for mercy (see Jer_14:7). Though nothing else can be found on which to rest prayer for Divine pity, yet God, who is the “Father of mercies,” the “God of our salvation,” and whom the only begotten Son has declared as the “God who so loved the world,” may be entreated for His name’s sake to spare “sinners, even the chief.”
2. That God’s glory is involved in His administration of mercy. He would “disgrace His throne” did He allow the enemy to triumph and despoil His temple. If Satan vanquishes the Church, or wrests a sinner from the grace of Christ, the High Majesty of Heaven is dishonoured. True, we may merit abandonment, as did profane Jerusalem, yet “let not the enemy prevail”—where sin abounds, grace shall much more abound!
3. That God’s covenant outlives man’s disloyalty. Man may violate his part in that covenant: yet shall the Righteous and Gracious God therefore break His word? No! Man’s falsity cannot obliterate God’s graciousness. The infinitely pitiful Jehovah, who keepeth covenants and never faileth, will still remember His promises. He has assured of “salvation even to the uttermost,” pledged Himself “in nowise to cast out;” and on that covenant we may ever rest. Calvin remarks, “God did, according to the common apprehension of men, abolish the covenant by which the Jews thought Him to be bound to them; and yet He remained true; for His truth shone forth at length from darkness, after the time of exile was completed.” (See Noticeable Topic on Jer_14:21. “God’s covenant an argument in prayer.”)
Jer_14:22. Theme: THE LONE HOPE OF MAN IN MISERY.
The misery was from the “dearth” (Jer_14:1-6); the dearth was consequent upon Judah’s iniquity (Jer_14:7). And that iniquity consisted largely in God’s people turning from Him to “the vanities of the Gentiles.”
I. To choose others for God is to court hopeless misery. Not one of these “vanities of the Gentiles” could alleviate the calamities which had come upon them through their desertion of Jehovah.
1. Sin will entail appalling disaster.
2. In disaster we shall need help and deliverance.
3. Deliverance cannot come from the “vanities” for which we have surrendered God.
Therefore we create for ourselves a desolate future.
II. No secondary causes can suffice us in calamity. “Showers” do indeed fall from “the heavens,” but it is God who “gives” them.
1. Behind all sources of comfort God dwells.
2. If He be alienated He dries up these sources of comfort.
3. Hence to look to these sources and ignore the Divine spring is to ensure mocking disappointment. (Comp. chaps. Jer_2:12-13, Jer_3:23.)
III. God Himself is man’s true need. Read the words—“Art Thou not Jehovah our God?”
1. Our one only Saviour (Isa_45:21-25).
2. The Creator of all the channels of comfort. “Thou hast made all these things”—the heavens with their showers.
3. The hope of man in the day of his distress.
For He who hath torn can heal; He who hath impoverished with “drought” can replenish with luxury. Ye shall receive of the Lord’s hand double for all your sins.
IV. The attitude of a troubled soul. “Therefore we will wait upon Thee.”
1. Humbly: for sin lies at the root of man’s distress.
2. Patiently: for after long rejection of God we must “wait” His time for relief.
3. Trustfully: for grace will not be denied any lowly suppliant; and faith will win the blessing sought.
See Addenda on verse. Man’s lone hope.
NOTICEABLE TOPICS IN CHAPTER 14
Topic: CONCERNING THE DEARTH (Jer_14:1-9).
See Addenda on Jer_14:1. The events here recorded most probably gave occasion for the fast referred to in chap, Jer_36:9. “A more true description of an Oriental drought in its leading circumstances and effects we have never yet seen.” We proceed to show from the words of the prophet the dire effects of the drought, and by constant inference the folly of forsaking God.
I. The effects of drought upon inanimate creation.
1. The pits were empty. Some of these were natural hollows in the hard rocks and in the caves where evaporation was less speedy. Others were dykes and cisterns, the works of man. But neither nature nor art could afford supplies when God dealt with them in His judgments.
2. The ground was chapt. Kitto says, “After long drought in the East, particularly where the soil is rich and hard, the ground splits into wide and deep fissures.” These are 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 an awful thirst.
3. There was no grass. The world is complex, man is complex,—God is complex. In complex systems harmony is essential to life,—discord is ruin. The shower can do nothing good without the sun. The sun can only scorch if the rainfall not. Earth can produce no fruit unless both sun and shower combine to aid. The sun cannot say to the dewdrop, “I have no need of thee,” &c.
II. The effects of drought upon the animal creation.
1. The hind calved in the field and forsook it. The fact that the hind was in the field proves that pasture had failed on the higher lands. It was not unusual for the hind to drop her calf by reason of fright or grief (Psa_29:9). The maternal instinct in these creatures being strong, it was very unusual for them to forsake their young, and can only be accounted for by the entire failure of the mother to obtain food or drink.
2. The wild asses were in intense agony on account of hunger. These creatures were capable of great endurance, and needed but little to sustain life. The language of Jer_14:6 shows to what a desperate condition even such hardy creatures had been reduced.
III. The effects of drought upon the human creation.
1. The husbandmen were ashamed. The earth they had cultivated had brought forth no fruit, and they were unable to alter its condition. As they looked upon the hard, chapt, barren earth, they covered their heads in shame and grief.
2. The people generally were languishing. Jer_14:2 shows that places of public resort were scenes of sadness. Their drooping condition found expression in one general cry of anguish.
3. The nobles were threatened with death through thirst. They sent servants and children in search of water, but they returned with empty pitchers.
“The hot blood stands in each glassy eye;
And, ‘Water, O God!’ is the only cry.”
“Their tongues are parched and rough, and cling to the roofs of their mouths; their lips are black and shrivelled, and their eyeballs red with heat, and sometimes a dimness comes over them which makes them stagger with faintness. There is not one in all that multitude who probably would not have given all he possessed in the world, and parted even with a limb, … for one cool draught of water.”—Kitto.
“’Twas thirst! ’twas maddening thirst alone,
That wrung my spirit’s inmost groan.
Hunger is bitter, but the worst
Of human pangs—the most accursed
Of want’s fell scorpions—is THIRST.”—Cook.
IV. The effects of drought on the devout heart of Jeremiah.
1. He regarded it as a chastisement for sin. The sin of forsaking God and trusting in idols who are unable to deliver. “We have sinned.” Our iniquities testify against us.
2. He regarded God as their only hope. All hope in Israel was gone, and his only plea was—“For Thy name’s sake.”
3. He earnestly prayed for mercy. That God would abide with them and not leave them That God would remove the trouble. His prayer was vain, since it was unaccompanied by the repentance of the people.
Application:
1. In forsaking God, they forsook the fountain.
2. Earth’s broken cisterns cannot be a substitute for the Divine.
3. Jesus said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.”
—W. Whale.
Topic; GOD’S WITHDRAWINGS FROM HIS PEOPLE, AND THEIR EXERCISE UNDER THEM (Jer_14:8).
See Addenda, Jer_14:8. God’s withdrawals. Prophet laments the grievous drought and want of rain, as a token of God’s withdrawing His presence. He deprecates God’s judgments, and especially that terrible one—God lost to His Church and people: “Why shouldst Thou be a stranger,” &c. Consider—
I. When it may be said God withdraws, and behaves as a stranger to His people.
1. When He withholds His wonted acts of kindness to them. Sees them in trouble and comes not to their relief. Of this the Church complains (Isa_63:15). See also complaint of Gideon (Jdg_6:13).
2. When He threatens to remove from them the signs and symbols of His presence—the Word and Sacraments; when He permits their enemies to combine and carry on their plans for that purpose (Lam_5:9).
3. When, though continuing the ordinances and sacraments, the Lord renders them profitless (Mal_2:2). When ministers are straitened in preaching and the people in hearing, when all is cold and dead.
4. When the Divine providences are adverse. Outward mercies denied them, temporal calamities allowed. So when Zion’s captivity was prolonged (Isa_49:14).
5. When He denies them access to Himself. Breaks off His wonted correspondence with them. They seek Him in private and public ordinances, but cannot find Him. Job’s language is theirs (Job_23:3). Also Jeremiah’s (Lam_3:8).
II. The reasons why the Lord deals thus with His people. Infinite goodness cannot take delight in thus afflicting. There must be a cause. In general, sin is the cause (Isa_59:2). As—
1. When they fall into gross sin and bring reproach upon religion (Isa_1:13-14). Or, as David’s case (2Sa_12:14; comp. Psa_51:11).
2. When they become earthly minded. Prefer pleasure of sense (Isa_57:17). The Gergesenes preferred their swine to Christ; then He turned His back and departed from their coast (Mat_7:28).
3. When they become slothful and formal in duty. Do not stir themselves up to seek God’s face (Isa_64:7; Son_3:1).
4. When they neglect or slight the Mediator, by whom we have access to God; either by not looking to Him for strength to perform our duties, or by making a Saviour of our duties, and so putting them in the place of Christ.
5. When they sin under, or after, great afflictions. Though these were appointed to reclaim them (Isa_57:17).
6. When they do not cherish and entertain the influences of the Holy Spirit (Son_5:2-3; Son_5:6-7).
7. When they grow hardened and impenitent under provocation. No due sense of their own sins, nor of the sins of the land they lived in (Hos_5:15).
III. When it may be said we are properly exercised under such a painful dispensation.
1. When we are truly sensible of our loss, and that our sin is the cause of it. Mourn after the Lord, as Israel in the days of Samuel (1Sa_7:2).
2. When we place all our happiness in God’s favour and presence. Every comfort regarded as empty without God, regarding Him as “the Hope of Israel,” and our only desire (Psa_73:25).
3. When we engage all the powers of our souls to seek after God (Psa_119:10). For God takes particular notice of those who do (Jer_30:21).
4. When we diligently embrace every opportunity for finding an absent God, and use every appointed means (Son_3:2).
5. When we wrestle with Him in prayer to return. Use every argument, as here the prophet did. He pleads (a) The glory of His name: “for Thy name’s sake.” (b) Their helpless state without Him: “Oh, the hope,” &c. (c) His former kindness to them: “the Saviour in time of trouble.” (d) His power: “Why shouldst Thou,” &c. (Jer_14:9). (e) The outward symbols of His presence: “Thou art in our midst.” (f) The covenant relation: “we are called by Thy name.”
6. When we are not satisfied with the best means, unless we find God in them. David was not content with the tabernacle, ark, sacrifices, passover; but, in midst of all, cried for God (Psa_84:2).
IV. Whence it is that the Lord, being as a stranger to His people, occasions them so much concern.
1. Because of the incomparable happiness arising from the enjoyment of His presence. All blessedness comes with His presence, and when He withdraws we may cry out with Micah (Jdg_18:24).
2. Because of the sad effects attending the loss of His presence. Great darkness (Lam_3:2), much deadness (Joh_11:21), disability for duty (Psa_87:4; Psa_40:12; Joh_15:5), barrenness (Joh_15:6), exposure to danger and enemies (Num_14:9), distress when remembering former blessings (Psa_77:3), melancholy thoughts of death and judgment (Psa_23:4), the fear of being entirely rejected (Psa_77:9-10; Psa_119:8).
Infer:
(1.) There are but few true seekers of God among us. Many are troubled for other trifling losses, but few can say with David (Psa_30:7).
(2.) The misery of those who are far from God now, and may be deprived of His presence for ever (Psa_73:27). Ungodly men desire not His presence (Job_21:14). Their choice will be their punishment (Mat_25:41).
(3.) The sad case of those whom God forsakes, never to return again—as with Saul (1Sa_16:14). The Lord preserve us from this great woe, and grant us enjoyment of His presence here and in heaven!—Hannum.
Topic: TRIUMPHANT PRAYER (Jer_14:7-9).
See Addenda on Jer_14:8. “Intercessory Prayer.” Expositors have differed as to whether the drought which forms the basis of this prayer was a literal one, or is the prophet’s way of putting the sore calamities that had fallen on Israel. But throughout Scripture, the metaphor of the “rain that cometh down from heaven and watereth the earth” is the symbol for God’s Divine gift of His Spirit; and the picture of “a dry and thirsty land where no water is” is the appropriate sign of the soul and the Church void of the Divine presence.
I. The mysterious contradiction between the ideal of Israel and the actual condition of things. Recur to the historical event upon which this text is based, “The Lord thy God giveth thee a good land; a land full of brooks and water, rivers and depths” (Deu_8:9); and the fulfilment is this—a land full of misery for want of the thing promised! So also. the ancient charter of Israel’s existence was that God should dwell in the midst of them: but things are as if the perennial presence promised had been changed into visits, short and far between (Jer_14:8). Two ideas conveyed: the brief transitory visits, with long dreary stretches of absence between them; and the indiference of the visitant, as a man who pitches his tent for a night, caring little for the people among whom he tarries the while. More: instead of the perpetual energy of the Divine aid promised to Israel, it looks as if Thou art “a mighty man astonied,” &c.—a Samson with his locks shorn.
The IDEAL was: Perpetual gifts, perpetual presence, perpetual energy.
The REALITY is: Parched places, fitful visitations, and a paralysis, as it would appear, of all the ancient might. And what was God’s ideal for us, His Church? “Lo, I am with you alway,” &c. “Ye are the light of the world, salt of the earth.” It sounds like irony rather than a promise! What is the Church? The Church at home does not keep pace numerically with the increase of population, while heathenism remains scarcely touched—all unconquered! “Why shouldst Thou be as a mighty man that cannot save?”
II. Our low and evil condition should lead to earnest inquiry as to its cause.
Prophet asks, “Why shouldst Thou leave us?”
1. The reason is not in any variableness of that unalterable, uniform, ever-present, ever-full, Divine gift of God’s Spirit to His Church. We do not believe in an arbitrary sovereignty. The great reservoir is always full. If there be any changes in the fulness of our possession of the Divine Spirit, the fault lies wholly within the region of the mutable and the human, and not at all in the region of the perennial and the Divine.
2. The reason is not in the failure of adaptation in God’s Word and ordinances for the great work they had to do.
3. The fault lies here only: “O LORD, OUR INIQUITIES TESTIFY AGAINST US,” &c. We have to prayerfully, patiently, and honestly search after this cause, and not to look to possible variations and improvements in order and machinery, &c., but to recognise this as being the one sole cause that hinders,—the slackness of our own hold on Christ’s hand, and the feebleness and imperfection of our spiritual life (Jer_14:7).
III. This consciousness of our evil condition and knowledge of the cause lead on to lowly penitence and confession. We err in being more ready, when awakened to a sense of wrong, to originate new methods of work, to begin with new zeal to gather in the outcasts into the fold; instead of beginning with ourselves, deepening our own Christian character, purifying our own hearts, and getting more of the life of God into our own spirits. Begin with lowly abasement at His footstool. Let us see that we are right in our own inmost hearts. To our knees and to confessions! “Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly,” &c. (Joe_2:15-17).
IV. The triumphant confidence of believing prayer.
1. Look at the substance of his petition. “Do Thou it for Thy name’s sake: leave us not.” He does not prescribe what should be done, nor ask that calamity be taken away, but simply for the continual Divine presence and power.
2. Look at these pleas with God as grounds of confidence for ourselves. (a) The name: all the ancient manifestations of Thy character. Thy memorial with all generations. (b) Israel’s hope: the confidence of the Church is fixed upon Thee; and Thou who hast given us Thy name hast become our hope. (c) The perennial and essential relationship of God to His Church: we belong to Thee, and Thou hast not ceased Thy care for us!
Lowly repentance should rise to the triumph of believing hope. The expectation is the precursor of the gift, and the prayer is the guarantee of the acceptance (Jer_14:20-22); for with that prayer on our lips, be sure that the old answer will come to us, “I will pour rivers of water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground.”—A. M‘Laren, B.A., “Christian World Pulpit.”
Theme: GOD’S COVENANT AN ARGUMENT IN PRAYER. Text: “Remember, break not Thy covenant with us.”
Suggestions: A “covenant” between God and man can be only an accommodating expression, since man cannot be regarded as properly qualified to make an agreement with Jehovah, being essentially unreliable and impotent. Strictly speaking, such a covenant is quite unconditional, and amounts to a promise (Gal_3:15 sq.), where ἐπαγγελία and διαθήχη are used almost as synonyms) or act of mere favour (Psa_89:28, where חֶסֶד stands in parallelism with בְּרִית) on God’s part. Thus, the assurance given by God after the flood that a like judgment should not be repeated, and that the recurrence of the seasons, and of day and night, should not cease, is called a covenant (Genesis 9. Jer_33:20). Generally, however, the form of a covenant is maintained by the benefits which God engages to bestow, being made by Him dependent upon the fulfilment of certain conditions which He imposes on man. Thus, the covenant with Abraham was conditioned by circumcision (Act_7:8), the omission of which was declared tantamount to a breach of the covenant (Genesis 17); the covenant with the priesthood, by zeal for God, His honour and service (Num_25:12-13; Mal_2:4-5); the covenant of Sinai, by the observance of the ten commandments (Exo_34:27-28). This last-mentioned covenant, which was renewed at different periods of Jewish history (Deuteronomy 29; Joshua 24; 2 Chronicles 15, 23, 29, 34; Ezra 10; Nehemiah 9, 10) is one of the two principal covenants between God and man, distinguished as Old and New (Jer_31:31-34; Heb_8:8-13). Compare Kitto.
I. That God should make a covenant with man is an act of unmerited grace.
II. That man should fail to keep the covenant accords with all human history.
III. That failure on man’s part justifies God in withdrawing His covenanted goodness.
IV. Nevertheless, that a gracious covenant made by God, who knows our waywardness, might stand though man proved faithless.
V. Therefore, that God may be entreated to keep His part in a covenant even with a faithless people who have forfeited all right to His grace.
ADDENDA TO CHAPTER 14: ILLUSTRATIONS AND SUGGESTIVE EXTRACTS
Jer_14:1. CONCERNING THE DEARTH. A terrible drought had fallen upon the land; and the prophet’s picture of it is, if one might say so, like some of Dante’s in its realism, its tenderness, 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 water, and they come back with empty vessels and drooping heads, instead of with the gladness that used to be heard in the place of drawing of 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 loss 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 untamable wild asses are standing with open nostrils panting for air, their filmy eyes failing them, gazing for the rain that will not come.”—M‘Laren.
Jer_14:2. “THE GATES THEREOF LANGUISH.” “The gates of cities, being places of public resort, where courts of justice were held, and other common business transacted, seem here to be put for the persons that meet there; as when we say, ‘The court is in mourning,’ we mean the persons that attend the court or the king’s palace. So in this passage we are to understand that all the persons who appear in public are dejected, and put on black or mourning on account of the national distress.”—Dr. Blayney.
“Or, that they look black and ghastly, and cast themselves down upon the ground out of grief and despair (comp. Jer_8:21; Jer_13:18).”—W. Louth.
“As the gates were the usual place of concourse, the misery of the people would there show itself most plainly.”—Speaker’s Com.
Jer_14:3. “CAME TO THE PITS AND FOUND NO WATER.” Jerusalem was supplied with water by two lakes or pools, called “the Upper Pool” and “the Lower Pool” (see Isa_7:3; Isa_22:9), whence the water was conveyed into cisterns [here rendered “pits”] for the use of the city.—W. Louth.
Jer_14:6. “SNUFFED UP THE WIND.” “Asses, in defect of water, can continue long by drawing in the air; as Aristotle likewise testifieth of the goats of Cephalonia, that they drink not for divers days together, but instead thereof gape and suck in the fresh air.”—Trapp.
Jer_14:7. CONTRITE PRAYER.
“All powerful is the penitential sigh
Of true contrition. Like the placid wreaths
Of incense wafted from the righteous shrine,
Where Abel minister’d, to the blest seat
Of mercy, an accepted sacrifice,
Humiliation’s conscious plaint ascend.”
—Hayes.
Jer_14:8. INTERCESSORY PRAYER.
“A good man’s prayers
Will from the deepest dungeon climb to heaven’s height,
And bring a blessing down.”
—Joanna Baillie.
“Temporal blessings Heaven doth often share
Unto the wicked, at the good man’s prayer.”
—Quarles.
“But that from us aught should ascend to Heaven
So prevalent as to concern the mind
Of God high blest, or to incline His will,
Hard to belief may seem; yet this will prayer.”
—Milton.
“A STRANGER IN THE LAND.” “As none but citizens in old time had any political rights or privileges, a sojourner, however long might be his stay, naturally took little interest in the country where not choice but necessity had made him fix his dwelling.”—Speaker’s Com.
Jer_14:9. GOD’S WITHDRAWALS FROM HIS PEOPLE. “God does not always frown, lest we should be cast into despair; He does not always smile, lest we should be careless and presume.”—Owen.
“A father’s frowns are but the graver countenance of love.”—Cowper.
“I know, as night and shadow are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than continual sun, so is Christ’s absence of special use, and it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and furnishes a fair occasion for faith to put forth her hand and lay hold on what she seeth not.”—Rutherford.
“God sometimes hides Himself that we may cling the closer to Him and hang the faster upon Him. By withdrawing from His people, He prevents His people withdrawing from Him; and so by an affliction He prevents sin; for God to withdraw from me is but my affliction, but for me to withdraw from God, that is my sin; and, therefore, it were better for me that God should withdraw from me a thousand times than that I should once withdraw from God” (Heb_10:38-39).—Brooks.
Jer_14:10. “THEY LOVE TO WANDER.”
“I have not kept Thy word,
And yet Thou biddest me to taste Thy love;
Shaming my faithless heart that ere could rove
From Thee, O gracious Lord.
“Shame wraps my heart around
Like morning gloom upon the mountains spread;
Indignant memory, avenger dread,
Deepens each restless wound.”
—Thomas W. Webb.
Jer_14:12. FASTING OFFENSIVE.
“When thou a fast wouldst keep,
Make not thy homage cheap
By publishing its signs to every eye;
But let it be between
Thyself and the Unseen;
So shall it gain acceptance from on high.”
—Barton.
“Is this a fast—to keep
The larder lean, and clean
From fat of veals and sheep?
“Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still to fill
The platter high with fish?
“Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragged go, or show
A downcast look and sour?
“No! ’tis a fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat, and meat
Unto the hungry soul.
it is to fast from strife,
From old debate, and hate—
To circumcise thy life.
To show a heart grief-rent;
To starve thy sin—not bin—
And that’s to keep thy Lent.”
—Herrick.
Jer_14:13. “ASSURED PEACE.” Peace Is not a compromise with circumstances. It is a Divine reality in the heart. Righteousness is rest—holiness is peace—rectitude with God, arising through trust in the atonement of God the Son, means tranquillity deep and unchanging as the peace of God which passeth understanding!—Joseph Parker, D.D.
“Far, far away the roar of passion dieth,
And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully;
And no rude storm, how fierce soe’er it flieth,
Disturbs that deeper rest, O Lord, in Thee.”
—H. B. Stowe.
Jer_14:19. WRESTLING PRAYERS. “If thy suit be not honest, never begin it: if it be, never leave it.”—Trapp.
Jer_14:20. SIN ACKNOWLEDGED. “Many people can mourn for a body from which a soul is departed, but they cannot mourn over a soul whom God has deserted. Alas! what is a spot in the face to a stab in the heart? Inward diseases are least visible and yet most fatal. A man may die of a plague though his spots never appear.”—Secker.
CONTRITION NECESSARY. “Take the cold iron, and attempt to weld it, if you can, into a certain shape. How fruitless the effort! Lay it on the anvil, seize the blacksmith’s hammer with all your might, let blow after blow fall on it, and you shall have done nothing; but put it in the fire, let it be softened and made malleable, then lay it on the anvil, and each stroke shall have a mighty effect, so that you may mould it into any shape you may desire. So take your heart, not cold as it is, but put it into the furnace; let it be molten, and after that it can be fashioned into the image of Jesus Christ.”—Spurgeon.
CONVERSION. A Scotch lassie was converted under the preaching of With-field. She was asked if her heart were changed, and replied, “Something, I know, is changed; it may be the world, it may be my heart; there is a great change somewhere, I am sure; for everything is different from what it once was.”
“I need a cleansing change within:
My life must once again begin;
New hope I need, and youth renewed,
And more than human fortitude;
New faith, new love, and strength to cast
Away the fetters of the past.”
—Hartley Coleridge.
Jer_14:21. “DO NOT DISGRACE THE THRONE OF THY GLORY.” The Romans held the extinction of the vestal fire a sign of the destruction of their city, be the cause thereof what it will. We may well think the same of the loss of God’s ordinances, which therefore we must deprecate, as here, with all our might; for as Bodin said well of obtaining, so likewise of retaining, religion, Non disputationibus sed rogationibus, &c.: the business will be the better effected by requests than by disputes. Pray, therefore, for the peace of Jerusalem, yea, take no nay. Deus ipse qui nullis contra se viribus superare potest, precious vincitur (Jerome). The invincible God is overcome by the power of prayer.—Trapp.
Jer_14:22. MAN’S LONE HOPE. “Our hope is not hung upon such an untwisted thread as ‘I imagine so,’ or ‘It is likely;’ but the cable, the strong rope of our fastened anchor, is the oath and promise of Him who is eternal verity: our salvation is fastened with God’s own hand and Christ’s own strength to the strong stake of God’s unchangeable nature.”—Rutherford.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v7 Jer 14:7 - Jer 14:9.
Jeremiah
TRIUMPHANT PRAYER
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Jer 14:7 - Jer 14:9.
My purpose now carries me very far away from the immediate occasion of these words; yet I cannot refrain from a passing reference to the wonderful pathos and picturesque power with which the long-forgotten calamity that evoked them is portrayed in the context. A terrible drought has fallen upon the land, and the prophet’s picture of it is, if one might say so, like some of Dante’s in its realism, in its tenderness, 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 well, and they come back with empty vessels and drooping heads instead of with the gladness that used to be heard in the place of drawing of water. The ploughmen are standing among the cracked furrows, gazing with despair on the brown chapped earth, and 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 little hilltop where cooler air might be found, the once untamable wild asses are standing with open nostrils panting for the breeze, their filmy eyes failing them, gazing for the rain that will not come. And then, from contemplating all that sorrow, the prophet turns to God with a wondrous burst of strangely blended confidence and abasement, penitence and trust, and fuses together the acknowledgment of sin and reliance upon the established and perpetual relation between Israel and God, pleading with Him about His judgments, presenting before Him the mysterious contradiction that such a calamity should fall on those with whom God dwelt, and casting himself lowly before the throne, and pleading the ancient name: ‘Do Thou it! Leave us not.’
It is to the wonderful fulness and richness of this prayer that I ask your attention in these few remarks. Expositors have differed as to whether the drought that forms its basis was a literal one, or is the prophet’s way of putting the sore calamities that had fallen on Israel. Be that as it may, I need not remind you how often in Scripture that metaphor of the ‘rain that cometh down from heaven and watereth the earth’ is the symbol for God’s divine gift of His Spirit, and how, on the other hand, the picture of the ‘dry and thirsty land where no water is’ is the appropriate figure for the condition of the soul or of the Church void of the divine presence. And I think I shall not mistake if I say that though we have much to make us thankful, yet you and I, dear brethren, and all our Churches and congregations, are suffering under this drought, and the merciful ‘rain, wherewith Thou dost confirm Thine inheritance when it is weary’ has not yet come as we would have it. May we find in these words some gospel for the day that may help us to come to the temper of mind into which there shall descend the showers to ‘make soft the earth and bless the springing thereof!’
Glancing over these clauses, then, and trying to put them into something like order for our purpose, there are four things that I would have you note. The first is the mysterious contradiction between the ideal Israel and the actual state of things; the second is the earnest inquiry as to the cause; the third the penitent confession of our sinfulness; and the last, the triumphant confidence of believing prayer.
I. First of all, then, look at the illustration given to us by these words of the mysterious contradiction between the ideal of Israel and the actual condition of things.
Recur, for the sake of illustration, to the historical event upon which our text is based. The old prophet had said, ‘The Lord thy God giveth thee a good land, a land full of brooks and water, rivers and depths, a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it’; and the startling fact is, that these men saw around them a land full of misery for want of that very gift which had been promised. The ancient charter of Israel’s existence was that God should dwell in the midst of them, and what was it that they beheld? ‘As things are,’ says the prophet, ‘it looks as if that perennial presence which Thou hast promised had been changed into visits, short and far between. Why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man, that turneth aside to tarry for a night?’
Now, I suppose there are two ideas intended to be conveyed-the brief, transitory, interrupted visits, with long, dreary stretches of absence between them; and the indifference of the visitant, as a man who pitches his tent in some little village to-night cares very little about the people that he never saw before this afternoon’s march, and will never see after to-morrow morning. And not only is it so, but, instead of the perpetual energy of this divine aid that had been promised to Israel, as things are now, it looks as if He was a mighty man astonied, a hero that cannot save-some warrior stricken by panic fear into a paralysis of all his strength-a Samson with his locks shorn. The ideal had been so great-perpetual gifts, perpetual presence, perpetual energy; the reality is chapped ground and parched places, occasional visitations, like vanishing gleams of sunshine in a winter’s day, and a paralysis, as it would appear, of all the ancient might.
Dear Christian friends, am I exaggerating, or dealing only with one set of phenomena, and forgetting the counterpoising ones on the other side, when I say, Change the name, and the story is told about us? God be thanked we have much that shows us that He has not left us, but yet, when we think of what we are, and of what God has promised that we should be, surely we must confess that there is the most sad, and, but for one reason, the most mysterious contradiction between the divine ideal and the actual facts of the case. Need we go further to learn what God meant His Church to be, than the last words that Jesus Christ said to us-’Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world’? Need we go further than those metaphors which come from His lips as precepts, and, like all His precepts, are a commandment upon the surface, but a promise in the sweet kernel-’Ye are the salt of the earth,’ ‘ye are the light of the world’-or than the prophet’s vision of an Israel which ‘shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord’? Is that the description of what you and I are? Have not we to say, ‘We have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen’? ‘Salt of the earth,’ and we can hardly keep our own souls from going putrid with the corruption that is round about us. ‘Light of the world,’ and our poor candles burnt low down into the socket, and sending up rather stench and smoke than anything like a clear flame. The words sound like irony rather than promises, like the very opposite of what we are rather than the ideals towards which our lives strive. In our lips they are presumption, and in the lips of the world, as we only too well know, they are a not undeserved scoff, to be said with curved lip, ‘The salt of the earth,’ and ‘the light of the world’!
And look at what we are doing: scarcely holding our own numerically. Here and there a man comes and declares what God has done for his soul. But what is the Church, what are the Christian men of England, with all their multifarious activities, performing? Are we leavening the national mind? Are we breathing a higher godliness into trade, a more wholesome, simple style of living into society? And as for expansion, why, the Church at home does not keep up with the actual increase of the population; and we are conquering heathendom as we might hope to drain the ocean by taking out thimblefuls at a time. Is that what the Lord meant us to do? Our Father with us; yes, but oh! as a ‘mighty man, astonied,’ as He might well be, ‘that cannot save’ for the old, old reason, ‘He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.’ No wonder that on the other side men are saying-and it is not such a very presumptuous thing to say, if you have regard only to the facts that appear on the surface-men are saying, ‘wait a little while, and all these organisations will come to nothing; these Christian churches, as they are called,’ and everything that you and I regard as distinctive of Christianity, ‘will be gone and be forgotten.’ We believe ourselves to be in possession of an eternal light; the world looks at us and sees that it is like a flickering flame in a dying lamp. Dear brethren, if I think of the lowness of our own religious characters, the small extent to which we influence the society in which we live, of the slow rate at which the Gospel progresses in our land, I can only ask the question, and pray you to lay it to heart, which the old prophet asked long ago: ‘O Thou that art named the house of Jacob, is the Spirit of the Lord straitened? Are these His doings? Do not my words do good to them that walk uprightly?’ ‘Why shouldest Thou be as a mighty man that cannot save?’
II. Let me ask you to look at the second thought that I think may fairly be gathered from these words, namely, that this consciousness of our low and evil condition ought to lead to very earnest and serious inquiry as to its cause.
The prophet having acknowledged transgression yet asks a question, ‘Why shouldest Thou leave us? Why have all these things come upon us?’ And he asks it not as ignorant of the answer, but in order that the answer may be deepened in the consciences and perceptions of those that listen to him, and that they together may take the answer to the Throne of God. There can be no doubt in a Christian mind as to the reason, and yet there is an absolute necessity that the familiar truth as to the reason should be driven home to our own consciences, and made part of our own spiritual experience, by our own honest reiteration of it and reflection upon it.
‘Why shouldest Thou leave us?’ Now, I need not spend time by taking into consideration answers that other people might give. I suppose that none of us will say that the reason is in any variableness of that unalterable, uniform, ever present, ever full, divine gift of God’s Spirit to His children. We do not believe in any arbitrary sovereignty that withdraws that gift; we do not believe that that gift rises and falls in its fulness and its abundance. We believe that the great reservoir is always full, and that, if ever our small tanks be empty, it is because there is something choking the pipe, not because there is anything less in the centre storehouse. We believe, if I may take another illustration, that it is with the seasons and the rotation of day and night in the religious experience as it is with them in the natural world. Summer and winter come and go, not because of any variableness in the centre orb, but because of the variation in the inclination of the circling satellite; day and night come not by reason of any ‘shadow cast by turning’ from the sun that revolves not at all- but by reason of the side that is turned to his life-giving and quickening beams. We believe that all the clouds and mist that come between us and God are like the clouds and mist of the sky, not dropped upon us from the blue empyrean above, but sucked up from the undrained swamps and poisonous fens of the lower earth. That is to say, if there be any change in the fulness of our possession of the divine Spirit, the fault lies wholly within the region of the mutable and of the human, and not at all in the region of the perennial and divine.
Nor do we believe, I suppose, any of us, that we are to look for any part of the reason in failure of the adaptation of God’s work and God’s ordinances to the great work which they have to do. Other people may tell us, if they like-it will not shake our confidence-that the fire that was kindled at Pentecost has all died down to grey ashes, and that it is of no use trying to cower over the burnt-out embers any more in order to get heat out of them. They may, and do, tell us that the ‘rushing, mighty wind that filled the house’ obeys the law of cycles as the wind of the natural universe, and will calm into stillness after a while, and then set in and blow from the opposite quarter. They may tell us, and they do tell us, that the ‘river of the water of life that flows from the Throne of God and of the Lamb’ is lost in the sands of time, like the streams in the great Mongolian plateau. We do not believe that. Everything stands exactly as it always has been in regard to the perennial possession of Christ’s Spirit as the strength and resource of His Church; and the fault, dear friends, lies only here: ‘O Lord, our iniquities testify against us; our backslidings are many; we have sinned against Thee.’
Oh, let me urge upon you, and upon myself, that the first thing which we have to do is prayerfully and patiently and honestly to search after this cause, and not look to superficial trifles such as possible variations and improvements in order and machinery, and polity or creed, or anything else, as the means of changing and bettering the condition of things, but to recognise this as being the one sole cause that hinders-the slackness of our own hold on Christ’s hand, and the feebleness and imperfection of our own spiritual life. Dear brethren, there is no worse sign of the condition of churches than the calm indifference and complacency in the present condition of things which visits very many of us; it is like a deadly malaria wherever it is to be found, and there is no more certain precursor of a blessed change than a widespread dissatisfaction with what we are, and an honest, earnest search after the cause. The sleeper that is restless, and tosses and turns, is near awakening; and the ice that cracks, and crumbles, and groans, and heaves, is on the point of breaking up. When Christian men and women are aroused to this, the startled recognition of how far beneath the ideal-no, I should not say how far beneath, but rather how absolutely opposed to, the ideal-so much of our Christian life and work is, and when further they push the inquiry for the cause, so as to find that it lies in their own sin, then we shall be near the time, yea, the ‘set time, to favour Zion.’
III. And so let me point you, in the next place-and but a word or two on that matter-to the consideration that the consciousness of the evil condition and knowledge of its cause leads on to lowly penitence and confession.
I dwell upon that for a moment for one reason mainly. I suppose that it is a very familiar observation with us all that when, by God’s mercy, any of us individually, or as communities, are awakened to a sense of our own departure from what He would have us be, and the feebleness of all our Christian work, we are very apt to be led away upon the wrong scent altogether, and instead of seeking improvement and revivification in God’s order, we set up an order of our own, which is a great deal more pleasing to our own natural inclinations. For instance, to bring the thing to a practical illustration, suppose I were, after these remarks of mine, as a kind of corollary from them, to ask for volunteers for some new form of Christian work, I believe I should get twenty for one that I should get if I simply said, ‘Brethren, let us go together and confess our sins before God, and ask Him not to leave us.’ We are always tempted to originate some new kind of work, to manufacture a revival, to begin by bringing together the outcasts into the fold, instead of to begin by trying to deepen our own Christian character, and purifying our own hearts, and getting more and more of the life of God into our own spirits, and then to let the increase from without come as it may. The true law for us to follow is to begin with lowly abasement at His footstool, and when we have purged ourselves from faults and sins in the very act of confessing them, and of shaking them from us, then when we are fit for growth, external growth, we shall get it. But the revival of the Church is not what people fancy it to be so often nowadays, the gathering in of the unconverted into its fold-that is the consequence of the revival. The revival comes by the path of recognition of sin, and confession of sin, and forsaking of sin, and waiting before Him for His blessing and His Spirit. Let me put all that I would say about this matter into the one remark, that the law of the whole process is the old one which was exemplified on the day of Pentecost. ‘Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly; gather the people, assemble the elders; let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet; let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar. Yea, the Lord will be zealous for His land, and will pity His people; and I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh.’ Brethren, to our knees and to confessions! Let us see to it that we are right in our own inmost hearts.
IV. And so, finally, look at the wonderful way in which in this text of ours the prophet fuses together into one indistinguishable and yet not confused whole, confession, and pleading remonstrance and also the confidence of triumphant prayer.
I cannot touch upon the various points of that as I would gladly do; but I must suggest one or two of them for your consideration. Look at the substance of his petition: ‘Do Thou it for Thy name’s sake.’ ‘Leave us not.’ That is all he asks. He does not prescribe what is to be done. He does not ask for the taking away of the calamity, he simply asks for the continual presence and the operation of the divine hand, sure that God is in the midst of them, and working all things right. Let us shape our expectations in like fashion, not being careful to discover paths for Him to run in; but contented if we can realise the sweetness and the strength of His calming and purging presence, and willing to leave the manner of His working in His own hand.
Then, look at what the text suggests as pleas with God, and grounds of confidence for ourselves. ‘Do Thou it for Thy name’s sake, the hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble. Thou art in the midst of us, we are called by Thy name.’ There are three grounds upon which we may base our firm confidence. The one is the name-all the ancient manifestations of Thy character, which have been from of old, and remain for our perpetual strength. ‘As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts.’ ‘That which is Thy memorial unto all generations pledges Thee to the constant reiteration and reproduction, hour by hour, according to our necessity, of all the might, and the miracles, and the mercies of the past. Do Thou it for Thy name’s sake.’
And then Jeremiah turns to the throne of God with another plea-’the hope of Israel’-and thereby fills his mouth with the argument drawn from the fact that the confidence of the Church is fixed upon Him, and that it cannot be that He will disappoint it. ‘Because Thou hast given us Thy name, and because Thy name, by Thy grace, has become, through our faith, our hope, Thou art doubly bound-bound by what Thou art, bound by what we expect-to be with us, our strength and our confidence.’
And the final plea is the appeal to the perennial and essential relationship of God to His Church. ‘We are called by Thy name’-’we belong to Thee. It were Thy concern and ours that Thy Gospel should spread in the world, and the honour of our Lord should be advanced. Thou hast not surely lost Thy hold of Thine own, or Thy care for Thine own property.’ The psalmist said, ‘Thou wilt not suffer him that is devoted to Thee to see corruption.’ And what his faith felt to be impossible in regard to the bodily life is still more unthinkable in regard to the spiritual. It cannot be that that which belongs to Him should pass and perish. ‘We are called by Thy name, and Thou, Lord, art in the midst of us’-not a Samson shorn of his locks; not a wayfaring man turning aside to delay for a night; but the abiding Presence which makes the Church glad.
Dear brethren, calm and confident expectation should be our attitude, and lowly repentance should rise to triumphant believing hope, because God is moving round about us in this day. Thanks be to His name, there is spread through us all an expectation of great things. That expectation brings its own fulfilment, and is always God’s way of preparing the path for His own large gifts, like the strange, indefinable attitude of expectation which we know filled the civilised world before the birth of Jesus Christ-like the breath of the morning that springs up before the sun rises, and says, ‘The dawn; the dawn,’ and dies away. The expectation is the precursor of the gift, and the prayer is the guarantee of the acceptance. Take an illustration. Those great lakes in Central Africa that are said to feed the Nile are filled with melting snows weeks and weeks before the water rises away down in Egypt, and brings fertility across the desert that it makes to glisten with greenness, and to rejoice and blossom as the rose. And so in silence, high up upon the mountains of God, fed by communion with Himself, the expectation rises to a flood-tide ere it flows down through all the channels of Christian organisation and activity, and blesses the valleys below. It is not for us to hurry the work of God, nor spasmodically to manufacture revivals. It is not for us, under the pretence of waiting for Him, to be cold and callous; but it is for us to question ourselves wherefore these things have come upon us, with lowly, penitent confession to turn to God, and ask Him to bless us. Oh, if we were to do this, we should not ask in vain! Let us take the prayer of our context, and say, ‘We acknowledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fathers; for we have sinned against Thee. Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give showers? art not Thou He, O Lord, our God? Therefore we will wait upon Thee.’ Be sure that the old merciful answer will come to us, ‘I will pour rivers of water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; and I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Jeremiah's Eighth Prophecy (Reign of Jehoiakim?). The Impending Drought…
Jeremiah's Eighth Prophecy (Reign of Jehoiakim?). The Impending Drought and other Woes
Dialogue between the prophet and God. He intercedes; but in vain, for the nation persists in sin. In this section we probably see the state of matters in the early part of Jehoiakim's reign. There is no historical allusion to the drought which formed the occasion of the prophecy.
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1-6. Description of the drought.
2. The gates thereof languish] Figurative of the people who collect there. They are black unto] RV 'They sit in black (mourning) upon.'
3. Covered their heads] as a sign of grief or confusion: cp. David (2Sa_19:4) and Haman (Est_6:12).
6. They snuffed up the wind] RV 'They pant for air.' Dragons] RV 'jackals.'
7-22. Jeremiah's pleadings and God's replies.
7. Do thou it] RV 'work thou.'
8. As a stranger, etc.] one who has no interest in the people. Turneth aside] RM 'spreadeth his tent.'
9. Astonied] hesitating, inactive.
13. Jeremiah pleads that the false prophets have misled the people.
17. The virgin daughter of my people] i.e. Judah, whom God had hitherto protected.
19. The prophet again intercedes.
21. The throne of thy glory] Jerusalem, or, more particularly, the Temple.
22. A reference to the drought (Jer_14:1). God alone can remove it.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v1 The significance of a drought at this time was…
dearth
The significance of a drought at this time was very great. It was one of the signs predicted in the Palestinian Covenant Deu 28:23; Deu 28:24 and already fulfilled in part in the reign of Ahab. 1Ki 17:1, etc. As that sign had been followed, even though after a long interval, by the Assyrian captivity of the northern kingdom, it should have been received by Judah as a most solemn warning.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 II. THE PROPHET’S MINISTRY BEFORE THE FALL OF JERUSALEM,…
II. THE PROPHET’S MINISTRY BEFORE THE FALL OF JERUSALEM, THE PROPHECIES OF JUDGMENT AND RESTORATION, THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF JEREMIAH, HIS FAITHFULNESS AND His SUFFERING
CHAPTER 14
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The Great Drought, the Sword, the Famine, and the Pestilence
1. The description of the drought (Jer 14:1-6)
2. The prophet’s priestly intercession (Jer 14:7-9)
3. The answer (Jer 14:10-18)
4. The renewed prayer (Jer 14:19-22)
Jer 14:1-6. The vivid description of the great drought is given in these verses. The little ones sent forth for water returned empty handed. It is the picture of distress.
Jer 14:7-9. And now the prophet’s voice as intercessor is heard. Like Daniel (chapter 9), in his great prayer Jeremiah acknowledges the nation’s sin as his own. But he trusts in the Lord and knows that He is “the hope of Israel,” the Saviour. Blessed statements of faith which came from His lips: “Thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us--we are called by Thy Name--leave us not” (Jer 14:9) ! The Saviour and hope of Israel has surely not given up His people, though judgment had to do its work.
Jer 14:10-18. They wandered away from Him, saith the Lord in answering Jeremiah. Their iniquities will be remembered and their sins visited. This is the demand of a righteous God. He is not going to hear their cry; the sword of the famine and the pestilence will consume them. Jeremiah tells the Lord about the message of the false prophets. They had promised peace, just as the false teachers in Christendom do today. But they prophesied lies in His name; He had not sent them, nor commanded them nor had He spoken to them.
Jer 14:19-22. What soul stirring petitions these are. It is not the impenitent nation which speaks, but the prophet is pleading in the place of the people and for them.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 10 The Prophet Intercedes for the First Time
The Prophet Intercedes for the First Time
v. 1. The word of the Lord that came to Jeremiah concerning the dearth, the various periods of drought which Jehovah sent in order to call His people to repentance, this form of punishment being expressly threatened in the curses which the Lord attached to His proclamation of the Law. Cf Lev 26:19-20; Deu 11:17; Deu 28:23.
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v. 2. Judah mourneth, the entire nation being plunged in grief, and the gates thereof languish, the people who usually assembled in this public meeting-place being in trouble; they are black unto the ground, as a token of deep sorrow, and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up, as the people give expression to their bitterness of heart.
v. 3. And their nobles, the mighty ones, the rulers of the nation, have sent their little ones, either their own servants or the common people generally, to the waters; they came to the pits, the cisterns for collecting rain-water, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty, the last drops of the precious fluid having disappeared; they were ashamed and confounded and covered their heads, in an excess of sorrow and grief.
v. 4. Because the ground is ed, literally, "dismayed," joining the people of Judah in their attitude of horror, for there was no rain in the earth, so that apprehension and consternation seized the soil; the plowmen were ashamed, because they could not till the land, they covered their heads, in the same feeling of humiliation which took hold of every animate and inanimate thing.
v. 5. Yea, the hind also calved in the field and forsook it, abandoning her offspring, although noted for her affection toward her young, because there was no grass, no green thing to sustain life.
v. 6. And the wild asses did stand in the high places, the bare hills most exposed to the wind, they snuffed up the wind like dragons, like jackals, eagerly seeking a breath of cooling air; their eyes did fail, unable to find so much as one blade of green grass, because there was no grass.
v. 7. O Lord, so the prophet now makes his appeal for his countrymen, though our iniquities testify against us, serving as a most serious obstacle to the assistance and salvation of the Lord, do Thou it for Thy name’s sake, relieving the distress of the terrible drought in order to bring honor upon Himself; for our backslidings are many, thus preventing His interposing in their behalf so far as they were concerned; we have sinned against Thee, whence they must throw themselves entirely upon His mercy.
v. 8. O the Hope of Israel, He who was properly the One in whom all true children of Israel trusted, since His covenant with them stood secure, the Savior thereof in time of trouble, as He had so often proved Himself, why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land, who has no interest in its welfare, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? pitching his tent for only a very short period of time and feeling no sympathy for the inhabitants. Surely the Lord and Owner of Israel would not act in this manner!
v. 9. Why shouldest Thou be as a man astonied, taken by surprise and therefore unable to lift His hand, stunned by a sudden calamity, as a mighty man that cannot save? having become weak and helpless in an unexpected extremity. Yet Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, namely, in His Sanctuary, which He had established at Jerusalem, and we are called by Thy name, bearing the name of Jehovah’s people; leave us not! Thus Jeremiah turned to the God who had revealed Himself as the God of salvation, pleading in behalf of a people that had become guilty of rebellion against their one Source of help.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 15 General Information:
General Information:
Yahweh, through the prophet Jeremiah, has just talked about the adultery of the people.
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This is the word of Yahweh that came to Jeremiah
This idiom is used to introduce a special message from God. See how you translated a similar phrase in Jeremiah 1:4. AT: "This is the message that Yahweh gave to Jeremiah" or "This is the message that Yahweh spoke to Jeremiah" (See: Idiom)
Let Judah mourn
Here "Judah" represents the people who live there. AT: "Let the people of Judah mourn" (See: Metonymy)
let her gates fall apart
Here the word "gates," which keep enemies out of cities and where people conduct business and government, is a synecdoche for Judah's cities, and Judah's cities are a metonym for the people who live in them. AT: "let her cities fall apart" or "let the people in her cities become unable to defend themselves" (See: Synecdoche and Metonymy)
fall apart
"fall into pieces"
their cries for Jerusalem are going up
The phrase "going up" is an idiom. AT: "They are calling out loudly in prayer for Jerusalem" (See: Idiom)
Their mighty ones
"The rich people"
ashamed and dishonored
Both of these words have similar meaning and together emphasize that the servants were ashamed that they were unable to get water. (See: Doublet)
they cover their heads
In biblical times, people would wear a headcovering to show that they were ashamed. (See: Symbolic Action)
translationWords
word of God
Jeremiah
kingdom of Judah
mourn
gate
Jerusalem
might
send
servant
water
shame
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 4, 7, 10, 11, 13 14:1-22 This chapter is a three-way conversation among the…
14:1-22 This chapter is a three-way conversation among the Lord, Jeremiah, and the people. It was sparked by a serious drought that affected the land.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.