For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land.
Parallel Translations
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For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land.
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For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
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For he shall be like a tamarisk in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited.
Cross-references (15)
Passages linked to Jeremiah 17:6 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Job 20:17 He will not look at the rivers, the flowing streams of honey and butter.
- Deuteronomy 29:23 that all of its land is sulfur, salt, and burning, that it is not sown, doesn’t produce, nor does any grass grow in it, like the overthrow of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath.
- Psalms 1:4 The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
- Job 8:11-13 “Can the papyrus grow up without mire? Can the rushes grow without water? While it is yet in its greenness, not cut down, it withers before any other reed. So are the paths of all who forget God. The hope of the godless man will perish,
- Job 15:30-34 He will not depart out of darkness. The flame will dry up his branches. He will go away by the breath of God’s mouth. Let him not trust in emptiness, deceiving himself; for emptiness will be his reward. It will be accomplished before his time. His branch will not be green. He will shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and will cast off his flower as the olive tree. For the company of the godless will be barren, and fire will consume the tents of bribery.
- Job 39:6 whose home I have made the wilderness, and the salt land his dwelling place?
- Jeremiah 48:6 Flee! Save your lives! Be like the juniper bush in the wilderness.
- Judges 9:45 Abimelech fought against the city all that day; and he took the city and killed the people in it. He beat down the city and sowed it with salt.
- Psalms 129:6-8 Let them be as the grass on the housetops, which withers before it grows up, with which the reaper doesn’t fill his hand, nor he who binds sheaves, his bosom. Neither do those who go by say, “The blessing of Yahweh be on you. We bless you in Yahweh’s name.”
- Zephaniah 2:9 Therefore as I live, says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, surely Moab will be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, a possession of nettles, and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of my people will plunder them, and the survivors of my nation will inherit them.
- 2 Kings 7:2 Then the captain on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, “Behold, if Yahweh made windows in heaven, could this thing be?” He said, “Behold, you will see it with your eyes, but will not eat of it.”
- 2 Kings 7:19-20 and that captain answered the man of God, and said, “Now, behold, if Yahweh made windows in heaven, might such a thing be?” and he said, “Behold, you will see it with your eyes, but will not eat of it.” It happened like that to him; for the people trampled over him in the gate, and he died.
- Psalms 92:7 though the wicked spring up as the grass, and all the evildoers flourish, they will be destroyed forever.
- Isaiah 1:30 For you shall be as an oak whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water.
- Ezekiel 47:11 But the miry places of it, and its marshes, will not be healed. They will be given up to salt.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (13 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain He adds a similitude for the purpose of confirming…
He adds a similitude for the purpose of confirming his doctrine, He shall be like a tamarisk, or a juniper, as some render it. The word ערער, oror, means a copse. But the Jews themselves are not agreed; some think it to be the juniper, and others the tamarisk; but we may hold it as certain that it was a useless shrub, not fruit-bearing for those Jews are mistaken, in my judgment, who consider it to be the juniper, for some fruit grows on branches of that. It was a shrub or a tree, as I think, unknown to us now.
Then he says that they were like shrubs which grow in the desert, which see not fruitfulness, but dwell in droughts, in a land of brine. The Hebrews call barren land the land of brine or of salt: and he enlarges on the subject by saying, Which is not inhabited: for where nothing grows there are no inhabitants. The object of the Prophet, then, was merely to shew, that their hopes who look to men would be vain; for God would frustrate thenl, so that they could never succeed.
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But we must notice also the other part of the simile; for the Prophet does not compare the unbelieving to dry branches, but to shrubs, which have roots, and bear the appearance of having some life. Such are the unbelieving, while success, as they say, smiles on them; they think themselves happy, and so they become hardened in their own false counsels, and reject every instruction, and, as though they were freed from the authority of God, they rejected all his prophets. Hence the Prophet, conceding something to them, says, that they were like shrubs, which indeed have roots and leaves, but no fruit, and which also dry up when heat comes. As then the heal; of the sun consumes whatever moisture, beauty, and life, may appear in shrubs, so also God would scorch and dry up the hopes of the unbelieving, though they may think that they have roots to preserve them and their life. A similar declaration is found in Psalm 129:6, where it is said that the unbelieving are like the grass which grows on the housetops; for such grass appears conspicuous in a high place, while the wheat grows in the low fields, and is even trodden under foot; but that grass, the more elevated it is, the sooner it dries up and perishes without bringing forth any fruit; so also are the unbelieving, who for a time glory and exult over God’s children, and look down on then from their high place, because they are simple and lowly; but as from the corn comes food to us, and that very corn is blessed, so also the elect bring forth fruit in their low and despised condition, while the unfaithful, who occupy elevated stations, vanish away without producing any fruit. It is the same thing that the Prophet means here. These two parts of the comparison ought therefore to be particularly noticed. It 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.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jer 17:6 For he shall be like the heath…
Jer 17:6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, [in] a salt land and not inhabited.
Ver. 6. For he shall be like the heath.] Wild myrice, that neither beareth fruit nor seed, and is good for little but to burn or make besoms. See Heb 6:8. Bastard tamarisk some call it; others, juniper.
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But shall inhabit the parched places of the wilderness.] Such shall have no content or satisfaction. Compare Mat 12:43. The unclean spirit cast out "walks in dry places," &c.; not but that dry and wet is all one with him, but it importeth his extreme restlessness.
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 The sum is, he shall not thrive, nor prosper,…
The sum is, he shall not thrive, nor prosper, but
be like the heath, by which is meant some barren shrub or tree, about which the various guesses of interpreters (which the reader that is curious may find in the English Annotations) are but uncertainties, and this planted in the wilderness too, which is a barren soil, which tree or plant is never the better for all the moisture that comes from heaven, nor for all the beams of the sun; but stands in a dry and salt place, not inhabited by people. The scope is, to let us know that sinners who depart from God, and do not place their confidence in him in times of danger, but trust in creature aids and assistances, shall miss of these very good things which they might have had if they had expected them from him, from whom alone they could have been obtained.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain For he shall be like the heath in the…
For he shall be like the heath in the desert,.... The Vulgate Latin version renders it, "myrice": and so the Latin interpreter of the Targum; but the word that paraphrase makes use of according to R. Hai, mentioned by Kimchi, signifies something that is thorny without, and eatable within; but this is not likely to be intended here. The Septuagint version renders it, "wild myrice"; it seems to be the same that is called "erice", or "ling", and "heath"; which delights to grow in wild and waste places; hence such with us are called "heaths", whether this grows upon them or not. It is a low shrub, fruitless and useless; and, because neither bears fruit nor seed, is reckoned by Pliny (o) among unhappy plants, and such as are condemned or forbid religious uses; and very fit to represent such persons as truest in men and in themselves, and not in the Lord:
and shall not see when good cometh; perceive or receive any advantage by rain coming upon it; as such persons do not receive any good by the pure ministration of the word, compared to rain; and so the self-righteous Jews did not see when the Messiah came, who is goodness itself; nor see him, and embrace him, nor his righteousness; but rejected him and that; went about to establish their own, and did not submit to his; nor did they attain to righteousness, or enjoy eternal life; as is the case of all self-justiciaries:
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but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabited: which became literally true of the land of Judea, for the rejection of the Messiah, and trust in themselves; see Deu 29:23 and may fitly represent the barren pastures of a man's own works of righteousness, which such as trust in themselves feed upon. All the characters are expressive of barrenness, as a wilderness, places parched with heat, and where salt is; for, as Pliny (p) says, where salt is found, it is barren, and produces nothing.
(o) Nat. Hist. l. 13. c. 21. & l. 16. c. 26. & l. 24. c. 9. (p) Nat. Hist. l. 31. c. 7.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 6. He shall be like the heath in…
Verse 6. He shall be like the heath in the desert] כערער kearar; or, like a blasted tree, without moisture, parched and withered.
Shall not see when good cometh] Shall not be sensible of it: the previous drought having rendered it incapable of absorbing any more vegetable juices.
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A salt land] Barren; and therefore unfit to be inhabited.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Tamaric. A barren shrub, that grows in the driest…
Tamaric. A barren shrub, that grows in the driest parts of the wilderness. (Challoner) --- Harhar denotes some sort (Haydock) of "useless wood." (Symmachus) See chap. xlviii. 6., and Isaias xvii. 2. --- Salt, like the environs of Sodom, the fruits of which were bad.
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).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain heath--In Psa 102:17; Isa 32:11; Hab 3:9, the Hebrew…
heath--In Psa 102:17; Isa 32:11; Hab 3:9, the Hebrew is translated, "bare," "naked," "destitute"; but as the parallel in Jer 17:8 is "tree," some plant must be meant of which this is the characteristic epithet (Jer 48:6, Margin), "a naked tree." ROBINSON translates, "the juniper tree," found in the Arabah or Great Valley, here called "the desert," south of the Dead Sea. The "heath" was one of the plants, according to PLINY (13.21; 16.26), excluded from religious uses, because it has neither fruit nor seed, and is neither sown nor planted.
not see . . . good-- (Job 20:17).
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salt land-- (Deu 29:23), barren ground.
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 6. Heath in the desert — The original of…
6. Heath in the desert — The original of “heath” occurs besides only in
Psa_102:17, where it is rendered “destitute” man. A similar word in a similar phrase occurs in Jer_48:6. where it is also translated “heath.” Furst, Henderson, Robinson, De Wette, and all the older Versions, understand by the word in this place some sort of shrub, such as the juniper, heath, or tamarisk; but Gesenius, Nagelsbach, Keil, and many others, translate it “a destitute man,” as in Psa_102:17. This falls in better with the verbs see and inhabit, but the former is more exactly antithetic to the figure in Jer_17:8, and is to be preferred.
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Salt land — That is, barren. See Deu_29:23; Job_39:6; Psa_107:34.
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 6. the heath] mg. a tamarisk. The Hebrew substantive…
6. the heath] mg. a tamarisk. The Hebrew substantive occurs again in Jer_48:9 and means in both cases a juniper tree, probably of the dwarf variety (so Tristram, Nat. Hist. of the Bible, p. 358), often cropped by the wild goats of the desert and thus stripped and desolate. In Psa_102:17 (its only remaining occurrence), it means “destitute,” referring there also to Israel in exile.
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 (6) Like the heath in the desert.—The word rendered…
(6) Like the heath in the desert.—The word rendered heath is, literally, bare or naked, and as such is translated by “destitute” in Psa_102:17. That meaning has accordingly been given to it here by some recent commentators. No picture of desolation could be more complete than that of a man utterly destitute, yet inhabiting the “parched places of the wilderness.” All the older versions, however, including the Targum, and some of the best modern (e.g. Ewald), take the word as describing the “heath” or other like shrubs standing alone in a barren land. A like word with the same meaning is found in Jer_48:6, and stands in Arabic for the “juniper.” Both views are tenable, but the latter, as being a bolder similitude, and balancing the comparison to a “tree planted by the waters” in Jer_17:8, is more after the manner of a poet-prophet. There is something weak in saying “A man shall be like a destitute man.” The word rendered “desert” (arabah) is applied specially to the Jordan valley (sometimes, indeed, to its more fertile parts), and its connection here with the “salt land” points to the wild, barren land of the Jordan as it flows into the Dead Sea (Deu_29:23).
Shall not see when good cometh.—The words describe the yearning that has been so often disappointed that at last, when the brighter day dawns, it is blind to the signs of its approach. It comes too late, as rain falls too late on the dead or withered heath.
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 Like the heath in the desert; as forlorn as…
Like the heath in the desert; as forlorn as some well-known desert plant. But which plant? St. Jerome explains, "Et erit quasi myrice "tamarisk, quae Hebraice dicitur Aroer(?) sire, at interpretatus est Syrus, lignum infructuosum." The versions agree in supposing the comparison to be to a plant; and a very similar word in Arabic (ghargar) means the mountain juniper; Tristram, the dwarf juniper. Most, however, take the word to be an adjective equivalent to "destitute." Dr. Thomson tells a story of a poor destitute woman he found in the desert. (comp. Jer_48:6 the form there is Aroer, here it is ar"ar; Psa_102:18) Shall not see; i.e. shall not perceive, or feel any evil consequences. (comp. Isa_44:16, "I have seen the fire," equivalent to "feel the flame A salt land; i.e. one entirely barren. (comp. Deu_29:23)
The curse upon the man who trusts in man.
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In considering this passage it is important to bear in mind that two different Hebrew words (dbG, and are rendered by the one word "man." A recollection of this difference will bring much more meaning out of the passage.
I There is suggested for consideration MAN IN HIS OPINION OF HIMSELF. He reckons himself as dbG, the strong one. He likes to estimate his great resources and use them for his own aggrandizement. He is filled with the ambition of achieving greatness in many ways. It is by his strength that he builds Babel and the Pyramids and all the great structures of both ancient and modern times. He gathers Heat armies and makes extensive conquests. He leans to his own understanding and is wise in his own conceits. And it must be admitted that it is hard for a man in the full strength of body and mind to take in, as a practical check upon all his castle-building, the necessary weakness of human nature. The discovery of our weakness will always be a humiliating thing, at least in the first aspect of it. We do not like to relinquish the glory which comes from physical strength, intellectual skill, in short, from the employment of all those faculties enabling a man to achieve what is called a successful career. Genius is semi-deified, while the Spirit of God working through some common man, who would be nothing without that Spirit, is despised or neglected. Successful military and naval commanders are made into nobles with the general approval. Every fresh application of natural forces is hailed as a tribute to the glory of mankind. Even those who are not deceived by the coarser forms of human power are deceived readily enough by the finer ones.
II MAN IN GOD"S ESTIMATE OF HIM. This is set forth by a threefold indication of man"s folly and wickedness.
1. He trusts in man; man as set forth by the word The strong man is assuredly no stronger than that upon which he leans. A building may be of substantial materials, but all its strength will avail nothing if the foundation be weak. Mark that it is not a question of trusting in sinful and fallen men. God does not find fault with us for trusting in bad men rather than good ones. He is speaking of all that essential defectibility, that susceptibility to temptation, which belonged to man even before he fell. We might put the matter thus: Cursed is the man who trusts in Adam, who forgets that he himself is beset with temptations, and that in a moment of heedlessness and vain self-confidence he may fall into shame, confusion, and perhaps despair.
2. He makes flesh his arm. All strength must act through an arm of some sort. A great deal of human power makes itself felt in a very literal way through the arm. Sheer strength in wielding the sword or the hammer; skill, as in holding the painter"s brush, the sculptor"s chisel, the musical instrument, and the innumerable tools of all sorts of handicraftsmen. Thus the arm becomes a great representative, showing all the varieties of human strength in action. Now, where man shows his folly is in this that wishing to get his own way, to work out his own pleasure and glory, he has no better instrument than flesh. What a poor, uncertain creature man is, if he has nothing better to depend upon than his natural faculties! The eye may lose its vision, the arm its strength, the hand its skill, and then where are the schemes and projects of the ingenious brain? The thing intended by God is that man should be as an arm to carry out into action the wise and loving projects of the Divine will. Then there is no failure, no disappointment. What cannot be done in one way will assuredly be done in another, if only the will and counsel of God stand supreme in our regard.
3. His heart departs from Jehovah. The great privilege given to Israel was that they had been brought near to Jehovah. Fallen Adam had been cast out of Eden, but believing Abraham had been drawn near to God. And his descendants in particular, the chosen nation in the wilderness, had been made to approach to Jehovah, the great I Am, the Source of whatsoever strength and energy are to be found in his universe. Thus, then, we see the peculiar folly of the children of Israel. All men are fools because they trust in man and make flesh their arm; but the Israelite is a fool more than others because his heart departs from Jehovah. He cannot depart altogether; he cannot get away from the constraints of the Omnipotent; he must go through all the sufferings that are coming upon the guilty land; and even when he departs to Babylon he will not leave Jehovah behind. What folly, then, that he does not make an instantaneous clearance of his miseries by cleaving with purpose of heart to Jehovah as Jehovah desires to cleave with fullness of blessing to him! And let us recollect that, however far from Jehovah our hearts may depart, from his judgments and penal visitations it is impossible for us to depart.
III THE CURSE WHICH RESTS ON ALL THIS MISTAKEN SELFCONFIDENCE. Though there seems some uncertainty as to the meaning of ver. 6, it is best for practical purposes to take it in contrast with ver. 8. If we plant ourselves down confidently among our own resources, deceived by the smiles and attractions of first appearances, we must not be astonished if in due time the appearances vanish and leave the cheerless realities of the wilderness. Where man by his natural vision sees the garden with all manner of rich possibilities, God teaches the believer to discern the desolation and barrenness that lie underneath. Gardens very soon become wildernesses if the heart of the cultivator departs from Jehovah. Men who in the days of their prosperity draw around them crowds of flatterers and dependents no sooner fall into adversity than they fall also into comparative solitude. The time is coming when, if we have nothing better than the help of man to trust to, we shall really have no help at all. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Jer 17:6, Jer 17:8.
Jeremiah
THE HEATH IN THE DESERT AND THE TREE BY THE RIVER
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Jer 17:6, Jer 17:8.
The prophet here puts before us two highly finished pictures. In the one, the hot desert stretches on all sides. The fierce ‘sunbeams like swords’ slay every green thing. The salt particles in the soil glitter in the light. No living creature breaks the melancholy solitude. It is a ‘waste land where no one came, or hath come since the making of the world.’ Here and there a stunted, grey, prickly shrub struggles to live, and just manages not to die. But it has no grace of leaf, nor profitableness of fruit; and it only serves to make the desolation more desolate.
The other carries us to some brimming river, where everything lives because water has come. The pictures are coloured by Eastern experience. For in those lands more than beneath our humid skies and weaker sunshine, the presence or absence of running water makes the difference between barrenness and fertility. Dipping their boughs in the sparkling current, and driving their roots through the moist soil, the bordering trees lift aloft their pride of foliage and bear fruits in their season.
So, says Jeremiah, the two pictures represent two sets of men; the one, he who diverts from their true object his heart-capacities of love and trust, and clings to creatures and to men, ‘making flesh his arm and departing from the living God’; the other, he who leans the whole weight of his needs and cares and sins and sorrows upon God. We can make choice of which shall be the object of our trust, and according as we choose the one or the other, the experience of these vivid pictures will be ours.
Let me briefly, then, draw out the points of contrast in these two companion sketches.
I. The one is in the desert, the other by the river.
Underneath the pictures there lies this thought, that the direction of a man’s trust determines the whole cast of his life, because it determines, as it were, the soil in which he grows. We can alter our habitat. The plant is fixed; but ‘I saw men as trees-yes! but as ‘trees walking.’ We can walk, and can settle where we shall be rooted and whence we shall draw our inspiration, our confidence, our security. The man that chooses-for it is a matter of choice-to trust in any creature thereby wills, though he does not know it, that he shall dwell in a ‘salt land and not inhabited.’ The man that chooses to cast his whole self into the arms of God, and in a paroxysm of self-distrust to realise the divine helpfulness and presence, that man will soon know that he is ‘planted by the river.’
Now, the poor, little dusty shrub in the desert, whose very leaves have been modified into prickles, is fit for the desert, and is as much at home there as are the willows by the water-courses with their lush vegetation in their moist bed. But if a man makes that fatal choice which so-many of us are making, of shutting out God from his confidence and his love, and squandering these upon earth and upon creatures, he is as fatally out of harmony with the place which he has chosen for himself, and as much away from his natural soil, as a tropical plant would be amongst the snows of Arctic glaciers, or a water-lily in the Sahara.
Considering all that I am and need, what and where is my true home and the soil in which I can grow securely, and fear no evil? Brethren, there is only one answer to that question. The very make of a man’s spirit points to God, and to God alone, as the natural place for him to root and grow in. You, I, the poorest and humblest of men, will never be right, never feel that we are in our native soil, and compassed with the appropriate surroundings, until we have laid our hearts and our hands on the breast of God, and rested ourselves on Him. Not more surely do gills and fins proclaim that the creature that has them is meant to roam through the boundless ocean, nor the anatomy and wings of the bird witness more plainly to its destination to soar in the open heavens than the make of your spirits testifies that God, and none less or lower, is your portion. We are built for God, and unless we recognise and act upon that conviction, we are like the prickly shrub in the desert, whatever good may be around us; and if we do recognise and act upon it, whatever parched ground may seem to stretch on all sides, there will be soil moist enough for us to draw refreshment and vitality from it.
If that be so, brethren, what insanity the lives of multitudes of us are! As well might bees try to suck honey from a vase of wax flowers as we to draw what we need from creatures, from ourselves, from visible and material things.
What would you business men think of some one who went and sold out all his stock of Government or other sound securities, and then flung the proceeds down a hole in South Africa, out of which no gold will ever come? He would be about as wise as are the people who fancy that these hearts of theirs will ever be at home except they find a home in God.
Where else will you find love that will never fail, nor change, nor die? Where else will you find an object for the intellect that will yield inexhaustible material of contemplation and delight? Where else infallible direction for the will? Where else shall weakness find unfailing strength, or sorrow, adequate consolation, or hope, certain fulfilment, or fear, a safe hiding-place? Nowhere besides. Oh! then, brethren, do, I beseech you, turn away your heart’s confidence and love from earth and creatures; for until the roots of your life go down into God, and you draw your life from Him, you are not in your right soil.
II. The one can take in no real good; the other can fear no evil.
One verse of our text says, ‘He shall not see when good cometh’; the other one, according to our Authorised Version, ‘He shall not see when heat cometh.’ But a very slight alteration of one word in the original gives a better reading, which is adopted in the Revised Version, where we have, ‘and shall not fear when heat cometh.’ That alteration is obviously correct, because there follows immediately a parallel clause, ‘and shall not be careful’-or anxious-’in the year of drought.’ In both these clauses the metaphor of the tree is a little let go; and the man who is signified by it comes rather more to the front than in the remainder of the picture. But that is quite natural.
So look at these two simple thoughts for a moment. He whose trust is set upon creatures is thereby disabled from recognising what is his highest good. His judgment is perverted. There is the explanation of the fact that men are contented with the partial and evanescent blessedness that may be drawn from human loves and companionship and material things. It is because they have gone blind, and the false direction of their confidence, has put out their eyes. And if any of my hearers are living careless about God, and all that comes from Him, and perfectly contented with that which they find in this visible, diurnal sphere, that is not because they have the good which they need, but because they do not know that good when they see it, and have lost the power of discerning what is really for their benefit and blessedness.
There is nothing sadder in this world than the conspiracy into which men seem to have entered to ignore the highest good, and to profess themselves contented with the lowest. I remember a rough parable of Luther’s-the roughness of which may be pardoned for the force and vividness of it-which bears on this matter. He tells how a company of swine were offered all manner of dainty and refined foods, and how, with a unanimous swinish grunt, they answered that they preferred the warm, reeking ‘grains’ from the mash-tub. The illustration is coarse, but it is not an unfair representation of the choice that some of us are making.
‘He cannot see when good cometh.’ God comes, and I would rather have some more money. God comes, and I prefer some woman’s love. God comes, and I would rather have a prosperous business. God comes, and I prefer beer. So I might go the whole round. The man that cannot see good when it is there before his face, because the false direction of his confidence has blinded his eyes, cannot open his heart to it. It comes, but it does not come in. It surrounds him, but it does not enter into him. You are plunged, as it were, in a sea of possible felicity, which will be yours if your heart’s direction is towards God, and the surrounding ocean of blessedness has as little power to fill your heart as the sea has to enter some hermetically sealed flask, dropped into the middle of the Atlantic. ‘He cannot see when good cometh.’ Blind, blind, blind! are multitudes of us.
Turn to the other side. ‘He shall not fear when heat cometh,’ which is evil in those Eastern lands, ‘and shall not be careful in the year of drought.’ The tree, that sends its roots towards a river that never fails, does not suffer when all the land is parched. The man who has driven his roots into God, and is drawing from that deep source what is needful for his life and fertility, has no occasion to dread any evil, nor to gnaw his heart with anxiety as to what he is to do in parched days. Troubles may come, but they do not go deeper than the surface. It may be all cracked and caked and dry, ‘a thirsty land where no water is,’ and yet deep down there may be moisture and coolness.
Faith, which is trust, and fear are opposite poles. If a man has the one, he can scarcely have the other in vigorous operation. He that has his trust set upon God does not need to dread anything except the weakening or the paralysing of that trust; for so long as it lasts it is a talisman which changes evil into good, the true philosopher’s stone which transmutes the baser metals into gold; and, so long as it lasts, God’s shield is round him and no evil can befall him.
Brethren, if our trust is in God, it is unworthy of it and of us to fear, for all things are His, and there is no evil in evil as men call it, so long as it does not draw away our hearts from our Father and our Hope. Therefore, he that fears let him trust; he that trusts let him not be afraid. He that sets his heart and anchors his hopes of safety on any except God, let him be afraid, for he is in a very stern world, and if he is not fearful he is a fool.
So the direction of our trust, if it is right, shuts all real evil out from us, and if it is wrong, shuts us out from all real good.
III. The one is bare, the other clothed with the beauty of foliage.
The word which is translated ‘heat’ has a close connection with, if it does not literally mean, ‘naked’ or ‘bare.’ Probably, as I have said, it designates some inconspicuously leaved desert shrub, the particular species not being ascertainable or a matter of any consequence. Leaves, in Scripture, have a recognised symbolical meaning. ‘Nothing but leaves’ in the story of the fig-tree meant only beautiful outward appearance, with no corresponding outcome of goodness of heart, in the shape of fruit. So I may venture here to draw a distinction between leafage and fruit, and say that the one points rather to a man’s character and conduct as lovely in appearance, and in the other as morally good and profitable.
This is the lesson of these two clauses-misdirected confidence in creatures strips a man of much beauty of character, and true faith in God adorns a soul with a leafy vesture of loveliness. Now, I have no doubt that there start up in your minds at once two objections to that statement: first, that a great many godless men do present fair and attractive features of character; and secondly, that a great many Christian men do not. I admit both things frankly, and yet I say that, for the highest good, the perfect crowning beauty of any human character, this is needed, that it should cling to God. ‘Whatsoever things are lovely and of good report’ lack their supreme excellence, the diamond on the top of the royal crown, the glittering gold on the summit of the campanile, unless there is in them a distinct reference to God.
I believe that I am speaking to some who would not profess themselves to be religious men, and who yet are truly desirous of cultivating in their character the Fair and the Good. To them I would venture to say- brethren, you will never be so completely, so refinedly, so truly, graceful as you might be, unless the roots of your character ‘are hid with Christ in God.’
‘A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine,’
said good old George Herbert. And any act, however humble, on which the light from God falls, will gleam with a lustre else unattainable, like some piece of broken glass in the furrows of a ploughed field.
Sure I am that if we Christian people had a deeper faith, we should have fairer lives. And I beseech you, my fellow-believers in Jesus Christ, not to supply the other side with arguments against Christianity, by showing that it is possible for a man to say and to suppose that he sets his heart on God, and yet to bear but little leafage of beauty or grace of character. Goodness is beauty; beauty is goodness. Both are to be secured by communion and union with Him who is fairer than the children of men. Dip your roots into the fountain of life-it is the fountain of beauty as well as of life, and your lives will be green.
IV. Lastly, the one is sterile, the other fruitful.
I admit, as before, that this statement often seems to be contradicted, both by the good works of godless men, and by the bad works of godly ones. But for all that, I would urge you to consider that the only works of men worth calling ‘fruit,’ if regard is had to their capacities, relations, and obligations, are those done as the outcome and consequence of hearts trusting in the Lord. The rest of the man’s activities may be busy and multiplied, and, from the point of view of a godless morality, many may be fair and good; but if we think of him as being destined, as his chief end, ‘to glorify God, and {so} to enjoy Him for ever,’ what correspondence between such a creature and acts that are done without reference to God can there ever be? They are not worth calling ‘fruit.’ At the most they are ‘wild grapes,’ and there comes a time when they will be tested and the axe laid to the root of the trees, and these imperfect deeds will shrivel up and disappear.
Trust will certainly be fruitful. In so saying we are upon Christian ground, which declares that the outcome of faith is conduct in conformity with the will of Him in whom we trust, and that the productive principle of all good in man is confidence in God manifest to us in Jesus Christ.
So we have not to begin with work; we have to begin with character. ‘Make the tree good,’ and its fruit will be good. Faith will give power to bring forth such fruit; and faith will set agoing the motive of love which will produce it. Thus, dear brethren, we come back to this-the prime thing about a man is the direction which his trust takes. Is it to God? Then the tree is good; and its fruit will be good too. If you will trust yourselves to ‘God manifest in the flesh,’ to Jesus Christ and His work for you and in you, then you will be as if ‘planted by the rivers of water,’ you will be able to receive into yourselves, and will receive, all good, and be masters of all evil, will exhibit graces of character else impossible, and will bring forth ‘fruit that shall remain.’ Separated from Him we are nothing, and can bring forth nothing that will stand the light of that last moment.
Brother, turn your trust to that dear Lord, and then you will have your ‘fruit unto holiness, and the end shall be everlasting life,’ when the transplanting season comes, and they that have been ‘planted in the house of the Lord’ below shall ‘flourish in the courts of our God’ above, and grow more green and fruitful, beside the ‘river of the water of life that proceedeth from the throne of God and of the Lamb.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 17:6 The people of Judah would be utterly helpless…
17:6 The people of Judah would be utterly helpless in the time of calamity because they had switched their trust from the Lord to human capabilities. The people of Judah would be just like shrubs in the desert that are stunted because they lack water.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.