28Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his offspring, and cast into a land which they don’t know?
29O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word!
30Yahweh says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne, and ruling in Judah.”
28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken vessel? Is he a vessel in which no one delights? Why are they cast out, he and his offspring, and cast into a land which they don’t know?
29 O earth, earth, earth, hear Yahweh’s word!
30 Yahweh says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper, sitting on David’s throne, and ruling in Judah.”
KJVKing James Version
28 Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?
29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the LORD.
30 Thus saith the LORD, Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.
Show all 3 translations
JPSJPS Tanakh (1917)
28 Is this man Coniah a despised, broken image? Is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? Wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into the land which they know not?
29 O land, land, land, hear the word of the LORD.
30 Thus saith the LORD: Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days; for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Was Jeconiah childless?Jeremiah 22:28-30 records Yahweh telling the prophet to "write this man childless" — Jeconiah, king of Judah, will leave no descendant on the throne of David.
Deuteronomy 32:1(v29)Give ear, you heavens, and I will speak. Let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
Micah 1:2(v29)Hear, you peoples, all of you. Listen, O earth, and all that is therein: and let the Lord Yahweh be witness against you, the Lord from his…
Jeremiah 6:19(v29)Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as…
Jeremiah 36:30(v30)Therefore Yahweh says concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: “He will have no one to sit on David’s throne. His dead body will be cast out in…
Isaiah 1:1-2(v29)The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings…
Show all 28 cross-references
Micah 6:1-2(v29)Listen now to what Yahweh says: “Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear what you have to say. Hear, you…
Isaiah 34:1(v29)Come near, you nations, to hear! Listen, you peoples. Let the earth and all it contains hear, the world, and everything that comes from it.
Deuteronomy 31:19(v29)“Now therefore write this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a…
Psalms 31:12(v28)I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man. I am like broken pottery.
Hosea 8:8(v28)Israel is swallowed up. Now they are among the nations like a worthless thing.
Jeremiah 48:38(v28)On all the housetops of Moab, and in its streets, there is lamentation everywhere; for I have broken Moab like a vessel in which no one…
Psalms 94:20(v30)Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with you, which brings about mischief by statute?
Deuteronomy 4:26(v29)I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that you will soon utterly perish from off the land which you go over the Jordan to…
Jeremiah 22:30(v28)Yahweh says, “Record this man as childless, a man who will not prosper in his days; for no more will a man of his offspring prosper,…
Matthew 1:11-16(v30)Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the exile to Babylon. After the exile to Babylon, Jechoniah became…
1 Samuel 5:3-5(v28)When the people of Ashdod arose early on the next day, behold, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before Yahweh’s ark. They took…
2 Samuel 5:21(v28)They left their images there; and David and his men took them away.
1 Chronicles 3:16-17(v30)The sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, and Zedekiah his son. The sons of Jeconiah, the captive: Shealtiel his son,
1 Chronicles 3:17-24(v28)The sons of Jeconiah, the captive: Shealtiel his son, Malchiram, Pedaiah, Shenazzar, Jekamiah, Hoshama, and Nedabiah. The sons of Pedaiah:…
Jeremiah 10:21(v30)For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahweh. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have…
Jeremiah 14:18(v28)If I go out into the field, then, behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then, behold, those who are sick with famine!…
Jeremiah 15:1(v28)Then Yahweh said to me, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind would not turn toward this people. Cast them out of my sight,…
Jeremiah 17:4(v28)You, even of yourself, will discontinue from your heritage that I gave you. I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you…
Hosea 13:15(v28)Though he is fruitful among his brothers, an east wind will come, the breath of Yahweh coming up from the wilderness; and his spring will…
Matthew 1:12-16(v28)After the exile to Babylon, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel became the father of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel became the…
Luke 1:32-33(v30)He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign…
Romans 9:21-23(v28)Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? What if God,…
2 Timothy 2:20-21(v28)Now in a large house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of clay. Some are for honor, and some for…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (19 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
John Calvin1540 · Public DomainOn vv28–30As the Prophet was hardly able to convince the…
As the Prophet was hardly able to convince the Jews of what he had foretold, he confirms the same thing; but he speaks here as of what was incredible. He assumes the character of one greatly wondering, that others might cease to wonder. He then asks, whether it was possible that Jeconiah should be driven into exile and there miserably perish? We now see the design of the Prophet, that as the Jews thought that the kingdom would be perpetual, it was necessary to shake off such a notion, so that they might know that God had not in vain threatened what we have already noticed. But there is in these questions a kind of irony, for the Prophet might have made a positive assertion in plain words; but from regard to others, he hesitates through wonder, or seems to doubt as of a thing that was monstrous.
Is he a statue? he says; some translate “a vessel;” but it seems to be taken here, as in other places, in its proper sense, a statue. Is, then, this man Coniah a despised and a broken statue? for פוף, puts, is both to fail and to break. We have said that a part of his name was left out by way of contempt; still, as the Jews were so blinded by the royal dignity that they could not believe the prophecy, he asks respecting it as of a thing incredible. Is he a vessel? etc., he adds. The Hebrew word כלי, cali, we know, is taken for any kind of vessel; for the ancients called all kinds of furniture vessels. He asks, then, Is he a contemptible vessel? Is he a vessel in which there is no delight? He had before said that he was a despised statue. Why are they cast forth, he and his seed, and thrown into a land which they have not known? that is, into a remote land? And we know that it is a hard lot when one is driven far away from his own country. There is, then, no doubt but that the Prophet enhances the grievousness of the evil when he speaks of an unknown country: for Zedekiah, who was put on the throne, was his uncle; and of his posterity the first was Salathiel, born in exile. 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 translators1599 · Public DomainOn vv29–30He showeth that all posterities shall be witnesses of…
He showeth that all posterities shall be witnesses of his just plague, as though it were registered for perpetual memory.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp1656 · Public DomainOn vv28–30Jer 22:28 [Is] this man Coniah a despised broken…
Jer 22:28 [Is] this man Coniah a despised broken idol? [is he] a vessel wherein [is] no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?
Ver. 28. Is this Coniah a despised, broken idol?] Interrogatio pathetica: Is he not? Who would ever have thought to have seen a king of Judah so little set by, like some old picture or inglorious trunk?
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A vessel in which is no pleasure.] That is, by a modest round about phrase, A close stool, or piss pot. {so Hos 8:8}
He and his seed.] If any he had, or shall have in his captivity.
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 Poole1685 · Public DomainOn vv28–30The prophet either speaketh this in the person of…
The prophet either speaketh this in the person of God. or of the people, who are here brought in, affirming that this prince, who was the idol of the people, was now, through the just judgment of God, become like a broken idol; or like a vessel which men care not for, being either so cracked, or so tainted, that they can make no use of it; and admiring at this catastrophe, and inquiring the cause why it so came to pass. He and his seed. It is said, Jer 22:30, that no man of his seed should prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah; nor is there any mention made of any of his children where his carrying into captivity is recorded, 2Ki 24:12, which makes some think that by his seed here is meant the posterity of his grandfather Josiah; but others think that he had children, either before he went into captivity, or born while he was in Babylon: and Mat 1:12, it is said, that after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begat Salathiel.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill1763 · Public DomainOn vv28–30Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol?.... Or…
Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol?.... Or like an idol that is nothing in the world, and like a broken one, that, whatever worship before was paid to it, has now none at all, but is despised by its votaries? he is such an one; though he was idolized by his people when be first came to the throne; but now his power and government being broken, and he carried captive, was despised by all; as his being called Coniah, and "this man" or fellow, show; which are used of him in a way of reproach and contempt;
is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? he is. He is like a vessel made for dishonour, or is used for the most contemptible service; or like one that is cracked, or broken, or defiled, that no use can be made of it, or any delight taken in it; it is not fit to set up, to be looked at, or to be made use of;
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wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed; which were in his loins, and were begotten by him in captivity; see Ch1 3:17; and so said to be cast out with him, when he was cast out of the land of Judea; just as Levi paid tithes in Abraham before he was born, Heb 7:9;
and are cast into a land which they know not? where they had no friends and acquaintance; doubtless it was for his sins and transgressions, and those of his people.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley1765 · Public DomainOn vv28, 30Is this - The prophet speaks this in the…
Is this - The prophet speaks this in the person of God, affirming that this prince, who was the idol of the people, was now become like a broken idol. A vessel - So cracked, or so tainted, that they can make no use of it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke1810 · Public DomainOn vv28–30Verse 28. Is this man Coniah a despised broken…
Verse 28. Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol?] These are probably the exclamations of the people, when they heard those solemn denunciations against their king and their country.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson1811 · Public DomainOn v29Jer 22:29-30. O earth, &c. — The word earth,…
Jer 22:29-30. O earth, &c. — The word earth, or land rather, as ארצmay be properly rendered, is repeated three times by way of emphasis, to engage the deeper attention. The prophet speaks to the land of Judea, which he commands to write down the following prediction, that it might be remembered by them, and the truth of it be thereby made manifest. Write ye this man childless — Hebrew, ערירי, solitary, deprived, destitute. The LXX. render it εκκηρυκτον αυθρωτον, an ejected, or expelled man; a man that shall not prosper in his days — This latter clause seems explanatory of the former; and that again is further explained in the following: “For no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.” That Jeconiah had children appears both from this verse and Jer 22:28; but according to this prophecy, no man of his seed sat upon the throne of David. This seems the true exposition of this passage, which has been considered as attended with considerable difficulty. “I cannot,” says Blaney, “agree with the generality of commentators, who suppose that God hereby declares it as a thing certain, and, as it were, orders it to be inserted among the public acts of his government, that Jeconiah should die absolutely childless. Other parts of Scripture positively assert him to have had children, 1Ch 3:17-18; Mat 1:12. Both Jer 22:28, and the subsequent part of this verse, imply that he either had, or should have, seed. But the historians and chroniclers of the times are called upon, and directed to set him down childless; not as being literally so, but yet the same to all intents and purposes of public life, for he was to be the last of his race that should sit upon the throne of David; and his descendants were no more to figure as kings, but to be reduced to the rank and obscurity of private persons. And in this sense the prophecy was actually fulfilled, for, allowing Zerubbabel, who is called governor of Judah, (Hag 1:1,) to have been a lineal descendant of Jeconiah, yet he could not be said to sit upon the throne of David, and reign, or rule, in Judah, seeing he was but a provincial governor, a mere servant of the king of Persia, in whom the sovereignty resided; nor were any of those persons kings who afterward reigned in Judah, even of the family of David, until the time of Christ.”
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes1834 · Public DomainOn vv28–30Idol - Rather, vessel. Is Coniah a mere piece…
Idol - Rather, vessel. Is Coniah a mere piece of common earthenware in which the potter has no pleasure, and therefore breaks it? It is a lamentation over Jehoiachin’s hard fate, and that of his seed. This and the two following verses may have been written after the king had been carried into captivity.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary1859 · Public DomainOn vv28, 30Jechonias. Protestants, "Koniah, a despised broken idol? is he,"…
Jechonias. Protestants, "Koniah, a despised broken idol? is he," &c. Alexandrian Septuagint, "Jechonias has been dishonoured as a vessel, or which there is no need, for he hath been snatched and cast," &c. (Haydock)
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 Scriptures1864 · Public DomainOn v28β. After the Deportation
β. After the Deportation
Jer_22:28-30.
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28 Is then this man Coniah a despised broken vessel?
Or a vessel wherein is no pleasure?
Why are they then hurled forth, he and his seed?
And cast into the land which they know not?
29 O land, land, land, hear Jehovah’s word!
30 Thus saith Jehovah: Write ye this man childless,
As one who has no prosperity in the days of his life;
For not one of his seed shall succeed
To sit upon the throne of David and rule again over Judah.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
These words were spoken after Jeconiah had been carried away captive. Compare “I cast thee forth,” Jer_22:26, with “hurled forth” and “cast” in Jer_22:28. Hence Jeconiah himself is not addressed, but the prophet speaks of him to others. He first sets forth how in the fate of Jeconiah the divine judgment of his unworthiness is manifested. The antithesis is here plainly felt to the “ signet-ring on my right hand,” Jer_22:24, and that in this comparison there was a cutting irony (Jer_22:28). Thereupon the prophet addresses the land directly, solemnly repeating ארץ thrice (Jer_22:29), to announce concerning it the fatal declaration of Jehovah, that no descendant of Jehoiachin will any more sit on the throne of David.
Jer_22:28-30. Is then … over Judah. To the question of Jer_22:28 an affirmative answer is expected. Comp. rems. on Jer_7:9; Jer_12:9, coll. Jer_2:14. On the abbreviated name Coniah, the object of which comes out here with especial distinctness, comp. rems. on Jer_22:24.—Childless. Jeconiah was eighteen years old when he became king (2Ki_24:8), and it is expressly stated that he had wives. That he had some off-spring is therefore not impossible, and is not even excluded by Jer_22:30. But even if he had no children, there was other “royal seed” (Dan_1:3).—Into the land. Comp. Jer_22:26; Jer_16:13. The article is explained by the circumstance that this unknown land at the same time hovered before the prophet as one often mentioned and definitely designated.—The repetition of land is to call attention to the fact that the prophet has somewhat unusually important to say with respect to the country. This is the announcement that none of the offspring of Jeconiah should possess the throne of David, by which it is at the same time indicated that an important change would take place in the throne itself, i. e. that it would cease and give place to the throne of a universal empire.—Write. The prophet has evidently in view those who are entrusted with the keeping of the family record (comp. Saalschuetz, Mos. Recht, S. 61; Eze_13:9; coll. Jer_17:13; Psa_69:29; Isa_4:3). When it is said that they are to write him as childless, it is said only that he is to pass for such, not that he was really so. In 1Ch_3:17-18, his sons are at least mentioned. Whether they were natural offspring (observe the phrase יְכָנְיהָ אַסִּיר, the imprisoned Jeconiah [A. V.: Jeconiah, Assir, etc.—S. R. A.]) or only legal (by a Levirate marriage), is doubtful, comp. Ebrard, Kritik der eo. Gesch. S. 201, sqq.—As one, etc. This sentence is subordinate to the preceding, as explanation and more exact definition: Jeconiah is called childless, because his whole life through he will be an unprosperous man. This will be manifest, in that he will have seed, but no successor. None of his descendants will succeed to his throne. Zedekiah was Jeconiah’s uncle and the last king of Judah of the family of David. The text accordingly rather favors than opposes the hypothesis that Jeconiah had natural offspring.—Shall succeed to sit (יצלה ישׁב)—he will not have success or prosperity, as sitting, etc. We should say: he will not have the good, fortune to sit, etc.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Jer_21:2. “King Zedekiah sends word to Jeremiah, that the Lord is to do according to all His miracles, that Nebuchadnezzar may withdraw. A demand rather cavalierly made in such evil circumstances. But the noble are so unfortunate! It is indeed as though it only depended on them to arrange matters with God; as if He were only waiting for them, as if it were a point of honor not to be over-hasty, but first to await a little extremity …. It is a very necessary observance for a servant of the Lord, that he try his superiors, whether there is any trace remaining in them of having been once baptized, well brought up and instructed in the fear of the Lord. If he observe anything of this kind, he must insist upon it and especially not allow them to deal too familiarly with the Judge of all the earth, but plainly demonstrate to them their insufficiency and nothingness, if they measure themselves by Him. Though Zedekiah had spoken so superficially, Jeremiah answered him without hesitation, definitely and positively, and accustomed him to a different manner of dealing with the Lord.” Zinzendorf. “When the ungodly desire God’s help, they commonly appeal not to His saving power to heal them, but to His miraculous power to save them, while they persist in their impenitence.” Starke.
2. On Jer_21:8. “It is pure grace on the part of God, when He leaves to man the choice between the good and the evil; not that it is permitted him to choose the evil, but that he may choose freely the good, which he is under obligation to do, Deu_30:19.” Starke. “God lays before us the way of life and the way of death. The way of life is however always contrary to human reason, and that on which it sees merely death and shame. … If thou wilt save thyself thou must leave the false Jerusalem, fallen under the judgment, and seek thy life where there seems to be only death. He who would save his life must lose it, and he who devotes it for the sake of the truth will save it.” Diedrich.
3. On Jer_21:11-14. “To be such a king is to be an abomination to the Lord, and severe judgment will follow. God appoints magistrates for His service and for the use of men; he who only seeks his own enjoyment in office, is lost. Jerusalem, situated on rocks in the midst of a plain, looks secure; but against God neither rocks avail nor aught else. The fire will break out even in them, and consume all around, together with the forest of cedar-houses in the city. The corruption is seated within, and therefore proceeds from within outwards, so that nothing of the former stock can remain. What shall a government do which no longer bears the sword of justice? What shall a church do which is no longer founded on God’s truth as its only power?” Diedrich. Comp. moreover on the whole of Jeremiah 24. the extended moral reflections of Cyrillus Alex. περὶ τῆς ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθ. προσκυνήσεως. Lib. I.
4. On Jer_22:1. “Jeremiah is to deliver a sermon at court, in which he reminds the king of his office of magistrate, in which he is to administer justice to every man.” Cramer.
It was no easy task for Jeremiah to go into the lions’ den and deliver such an uncourtly message to him. We are reminded of the prophet Jonah. But Jeremiah did not flee as he did.
5. On Jer_22:1-3. [“But we ought the more carefully to notice this passage, that we may learn to strengthen ourselves against bad examples, lest the impiety of men should overturn our faith; when we see in God’s church things in such disorder, that those who glory in the name of God are become like robbers, we must beware lest we become on this account alienated from true religion. We must, indeed, desert such monsters, but we must take care lest God’s word, through men’s wickedness, should lose its value in our esteem. We ought then to remember the admonition of Christ, to hear the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in Moses’ seat (Mat_23:2).” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
6. On Jer_22:10. [“Dying saints may be justly envied, while living sinners are justly pitied. And so dismal perhaps the prospect of the times may be, that tears even for a Josiah, even for a Jesus, must be restrained, that they may be reserved for ourselves and our children (Luk_23:28).” Henry.—S. R. A.]
“Nequaquam gentilis plangendus est atque Judæus, qui in ecclesia non fuerunt et simul mortui sunt, de quibus Salvator dicit: dimitte mortuos sepelire mortuos suos (Mat_8:22). Sed eos plange, qui per scelera atque peccata egrediuntur de ecclesia et nolunt ultra reverti ad earn damnatione vitiorum.” Hieron. Epist. 46 ad Rusticam. “Nolite flere mortuum, sed plorate raptorem avarum, pecuniæ sitientem et inexplebilem auri cupidinem. Cur mortuos inutiliter ploramus? Eos ploremus, qui in melius mutari possunt.” Basilius Seleucensis. Comp. Basil, Magn. Homil. 4 de Gratiarum actione post dimid.—Ghislerus.
7. On Jer_22:6-9. “God does not spare even the authorities. For though He has said that they are gods, when they do not rightly administer their office they must die like men (Psa_82:6) … No cedars are too high for God, no splendor too mighty; He can destroy all at once, and overturn, and overturn, and overturn. Eze_21:27,” Cramer.
Another passage from which it is seen how perverse and unjustifiable is the illusion that God’s election is a surety against His anger, and a permit to any wilfulness. The individual representatives of the objects of divine election should never forget that God can march over their carcases, and the ruins of their glory, to the fulfilment of His promise, and that He can rebuild on a higher stage, what He has destroyed on a lower. Comp. remarks on Jer_22:24.
8. On Jer_22:13-19. It is blasphemy to imagine that God will be frère et compagnon to all princes as such, and that He has a predilection for them as of His own kind. Does He not say to his majesty the king of Judah, with whom, in respect of the eminence of his dynasty and throne no other prince of earth could compare, that he should be buried like an ass, dragged and cast out before the gates of Jerusalem? This Jehoiakim was however an aristocrat, a heartless, selfish tyrant, who for his own pleasure trampled divine and human rights under foot. If such things were done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?
“He who builds his house with other people’s property, collects stones for his grave.” Cramer.
9. On Jer_22:14. [“It was a proof of luxury when men began to indulge in superfluities. In old times the windows were small; for use only was regarded by frugal men; but afterwards a sort of madness possessed the minds of many, so that they sought to be suspended as it were in the air. And hence they began to have wider windows. The thing in itself, as I have said, is not what God condemns; but we must ever remember, that men never go to excesses in external things, except when their hearts are infected with pride, so that they do not regard what is useful, what is becoming, but are carried away by fondness for excess.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
10. On Jer_22:15. “God may grant the great lords a preference in eating and drinking and the splendor of royal courts, but it is not His will that these be regarded as the main things, but that true religion, right and justice must have the precedence;—this is the Lord’s work. But cursed is he who does the Lord’s work remissly. Jer_48:10.” Cramer.
11. On Jer_22:17. “Description of haughty, proud, magnificent, merciless and tyrannical lords and rulers, who are accomplices of thieves.” Cramer.
12. On Jer_22:19. [“God would have burial a proof to distinguish us from brute animals even after death, as we in life excel them, and as our condition is much nobler than that of the brute creation. Burial is also a pledge as it were of immortality; for when man’s body is laid hid in the earth, it is as it were a mirror of a future life. Since then burial is an evidence of God’s grace and favor towards mankind, it is on the other hand a sign of a curse, when burial is denied.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
13. On Jer_22:24. “Great lords often imagine that they not only sit in the bosom of God, but that they are a pearl in His crown; or as the prophet says here, God’s signet-ring. Therefore, it is impossible that they should not succeed in their designs. But God looks not on the person of the princes, and knows the magnificent no more than the poor. Job_34:19.” Cramer.
14. On Jer_22:28. [“What is idolized will, first or last, be despised and broken, what is unjustly honored will be justly contemned, and rivals with God will be the scorn of man. Whatever we idolize we shall be disappointed in, and then shall despise.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
“The compliment is a very poor one for a king, who thinks somewhat of himself, and to whom it in a certain measure pertains that he be honored….But here it is the word of the Lord, and in consideration of these words it is declared in 2Ch_36:12, to be evil on the part of Zedekiah, that he did not humble himself before Jeremiah. Teachers must be much on their guard against assuming such purely prophetic, that is, extraordinary acts. It cost the servants of the Lord many a death, who were obliged thus to employ themselves, and when it is easy for one to ape it without a divine calling he thus betrays his frivolity and incompetence, if not his pride and delusion.” Zinzendorf.
15. On Jer_22:28-30. Irenæus (Adv. Hær. 3:30) uses this passage to prove that the Lord could not have been Joseph’s natural son, for otherwise he would have fallen under the curse of this passage, and appear as one not entitled to dominion (“qui eum dicunt ex Joseph generatum et in eo habere spem, abdicatos se faciunt a regno, sub maledictione et increpatione decidentes, quæ erga Jechoniam et in semen ejus est”). Basil the Great (Epist. ad Amphilochium) endeavors to show that this passage, with its declaration that none of Jeconiah’s descendants should sit on David’s throne, is not in contradiction to the prophecy of Jacob (Gen_49:10), that a ruler should not be lacking from Judah, till He came for whom the nations were hoping. Basil distinguishes in this relation between dominion and royal dignity.—The former continued, the latter ceased, and this period of, so to speak, latent royalty, was the bridge to the present, in which Christ rules in an invisible manner, but yet in real power and glory as royal priest, and at the same time represents Himself as the fulfilment of the hope of the nations. In like manner John of Damascus concludes that according to this passage there could be no prospect of the fulfilment of the promise in Gen_49:10, if Mary had not virgineo modo borne the scion of David, who however was not to occupy the visible throne of David. (Orat. II. in Nativ. B. Mariæ p. med.)—Ambrose finally (Comment. in Ev. Luc. L. III. cap. ult.) raises the question how Jeremiah could say, that ex semine Jechoniæ neminem regnaturum esse, since Christ was of the seed of Jeconiah and reigned? He answers: “Illic (Jer_22:30) futuros ex semine Jechoniæ posteros non negatur et ideo de semine ejus est Christus (comp. Mat_1:11), et quod regnavit Christus, non contra prophetiam est, non enim seculari honore regnavit, nee in Jechoniæ sedibus sedit, sed regnavit in sede David.” Ghislerus.
16. On Jer_23:2. “Nonnulli præsmles gregis quosdam pro peccato a communione ceiciunt, ut pæniteant, sed quali sorte vivere debeant ad melius exhortando non visitant. Quibus congrue increpans sermo divinus comminatur: pastores, qui pascunt populum meum, vos dispersistis gregem meum, ejecistis et non visitastis eum.” Isidor. Hisp. de summo bono she LL. sentt. Cap. 46. Ghislerus.
17. On Jer_23:5-6. Eusebius (Dem. Ev. VII. 9) remarks that Christ among all the descendants of David is the only one, who rules over the whole earth, and everywhere not only preaches justice and righteousness by His doctrine but is Himself also the author of the rising [of the Sun] of righteousness for all, according to Psa_72:7 : ἀνατελεῖ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις αὐτοῦ δικαιοσύνη, καὶ πλῆθος εἰρήνης ἕως οὗ ἀνταναιρεθῇ ἡ σελήνη (LXX.) Cyril of Alex. (Glaphyr. in Gen. I. p. 133) explains Ἰωσεδέκ as justitia Dei, in so far as we are made righteous in Him, not for the sake of the works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His great mercy. Rom_3:24; Tit_3:5.
18. On Jer_23:6. [“If we regard God in Himself, He is indeed righteous, but not our righteousness. If we desire to have God as our righteousness, we must seek Christ; for this cannot be found except in Him. … Paul says that He has been given or made to us righteousness,—for what end? that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (1Co_1:30). Since, then, Christ is made our righteousness, and we are counted the righteousness of God in Him, we hence learn how properly and fitly it has been said that He would be Jehovah, not only that the power of His divinity might defend us, but also that we might become righteous in Him, for He is not only righteous for Himself, but He is our righteousness.” Calvin. See also a long note in Wordsworth, to show that Jehovah our Righteousness refers to Christ;—S. R. A.]
“The character of a true church is when the Lytrum, the ransom-money of Jesus Christ, is known and valued by all, and when they have written this secret, foolish and absolutely inscrutable to reason, in the heart with the finger of the living God: that Jesus by His blood has taken away the sins of the world. ‘O let it ne’er escape my thought, at what a price my soul was bought.’ This is the evening and morning prayer of every church, which is a true sister from above.” Zinzendorf.
19. On Jer_23:5-8. “The return under Ezra was also a fulfilment of this promise, but inferior and preliminary: not all came, and those who did come brought their sins back with them. They were still under the Law and had to wait for Righteousness; still in their return they had a pledge that the Messiah was yet to come and prepare the true city of peace. Now, however, all has been long fulfilled and we can enjoy it perfectly, if we have the mind for it. We have now a country of which no tyrant can rob us; our walk and citizenship is in heaven. We have been delivered from all our suffering, when we sit down at the feet of Jesus to hear His word. Then there is a power of resurrection within us, So that we can fly with our souls beyond the world and laugh at all our foes. For Christ has made us righteous by His daily forgiveness, so that we may also bring ourselves daily into heaven. Yea verily, the kingdom of heaven is come very nigh unto us! Jeremiah then longed to see and hear this more nearly, and now we can have it.” Diedrich.
20. On Jer_23:9. “Great love renders God’s servant so ardent, that he deals powerful blows on the seducers. He does not think that he has struck a wasp’s nest and embittered his life here forever, for he has a higher life and gives the lower one willingly for love. Yet all the world will hold him for an incorrigible and mad enthusiast, who spares no one. He says himself that he is as it were drunk with God and His word, when he on the other hand contemplates the country.” Diedrich.
21. On Jer_23:11. “They are rogues. They know how to find subterfuges, and I would like to see him who accuses a false and unfaithful teacher, and manages his own case so that he does not himself come into the dilemma.” Zinzendorf.
22. On Jer_23:13-14. “In the prophets of Samaria I see folly. This is the character which the Lord gives to error, false religion, heterodoxy. But in the prophets of Jerusalem I find abomination. This is the description of the or thodox, when they apply their doctrine, so that either the wicked are strengthened or no one is converted.” Zinzendorf.
23. On Jer_23:15. “From the prophets of Jerusalem hypocrisy goes forth into all the land. This is the natural consequence of the superiority, which the consistories, academies, ministers, etc., have and in due measure ought to have, that when they become corrupt they communicate their corruption to the whole region, and it is apparent in the whole land what sort of theologians sit at the helm.” Zinzendorf.
24. On Jer_23:16. Listen not to the words of the prophets, they deceive you. Luther says (Altenb. Tom. II. p. 330): “But a Christian has so much power that he may and ought to come forward even among Christians and teach, where he sees that the teacher himself is wanting,” etc.; and “The hearers altogether have the right to judge and decide concerning all doctrine. Therefore the priests and liveried Christians have snatched this office to themselves; because, if this office remained in the church, the aforesaid could retain nothing for their own.” (Altenb. Tom. II. p. 508).—The exercise of this right on the part of members of the church has its difficulties. May not misunderstanding, ignorance, even wickedness cause this to be a heavy and unjust pressure on the ministers of the word, and thus mediately tend to the injury of the church? Certainly. Still it is better for the church to exercise this right than not to do so. The former is a sign of spiritual life, the latter of spiritual death. It will be easier to find a corrective for some extravagances than to save a church become religiously indifferent from the fate of Laodicea (Rev_3:16).
25. On Jer_23:16. [“But here a question may be raised, How can the common people understand that some speak from God’s mouth, and that others propound their own glosses? I answer, That the doctrine of the Law was then sufficient to guide the minds of the people, provided they closed not their eyes; and if the Law was sufficient at that time, God does now most surely give us a clearer light by His prophets, and especially by His Gospel.” Calvin—S. R. A.]
26. On Jer_23:17. “The pastors, who are welcome and gladly seen at a rich man’s table, wish him in fact long life, good health, and all prosperity. What they wish they prophesy. This is not unnatural; but he who is softened by it is ill-advised.” Zinzendorf.
27. On Jer_23:21. [“There is a twofold call; one is internal, the other belongs to order, and may therefore be called external or ecclesiastical. But the external call is never legitimate, except it be preceded by the internal; for it does not belong to us to create prophets, or apostles, or pastors, as this is the special work of the Holy Spirit. … But it often happens that the call of God is sufficient, especially for a time. For when there is no church, there is no remedy for the evil, except God raise up extraordinary teachers.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
28. On Jer_23:22. “If I knew that my teacher was a most abominable miscreant, personally, and in heart the worst enemy of God in his parish; so long as, for any reason, he preaches, expounds, develops, inculcates the word of God; even though he should betray here and there in his expressions, that this word was not dwelling in him; if only he does not ex professo at one time throw down what at another time he teaches of good and true quasi aliud agendo: I assure you before the Lord that I should fear to censure his preaching.” Zinzendorf.
29. On Jer_23:23. “ God’s essential attribute is Omnipresence. For He is higher than heaven, what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know? Longer than the earth and broader than the sea (Job_4:8). And He is not far from every one of us (Act_17:27).” Cramer.—“We often think God is quite far from us, when He is yet near to us, has us in His arms, presses us to His heart and kisses us.” Luther.—“ When we think the Sun of righteousness, Jesus, is not risen, and is still behind the mountain, and will not come to us, He is yet nearest to us. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. (Psa_34:19) ”—“Deus et omni et nullo loco “—” Cuncta Deus replens molem se fundit in omnem.” MS. notes to my copy of Cramer’s Bibel.—“ Si vis peccare, O homo, quære tibi locum, ubi Deus non videat.” Augustine.
30. On Jer_23:28. [“When any one rejects the wheat because it is covered with chaff, and who will pity him who says that he has indeed wheat on his floor, but that it is mixed with chaff, and therefore not fit for food? … If we be negligent, and think that it is a sufficient excuse for despising the Word of God, because Satan brings in his fallacies, we shall perish in our sloth like him who neglects to cleanse his wheat that he might turn it to bread.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
He who cannot restrain his mouth or his ink let him expectorate. But let him say openly and honestly that they are his own dreams, which he preaches. The false prophets certainly know that mere falsehood is empty straw. They therefore always mingle some of the genuine word of God amongst it. An unavailing mixture! It is in this mingling that Satan’s highest art is displayed, so that he at the same time furthers his own work and testifies against himself. Comp. Genesis 3
31. On Jer_23:29. God’s word is the highest reality, life and power, while the dreams of the false prophets are pretence, death and weakness. God’s word is therefore compared to a fire which burns, warms, and enlightens, so that it burns up the hardest flint, melts the thickest ice, illuminates the deepest obscurities. It is compared further to a hammer which crushes the hardest rocks into sand.—He who mingles God’s wheat among his straw, will find that the wheat will become fire and burn up the straw (1Co_3:12-15). He Who handles the word of the Lord purely, let him not despair if he sees before him hearts of adamant (Zec_7:12). He who seeks peace is not ashamed to bow beneath the hammer of the word. For the destructive power of the word applies to that in us which is opposed to God, while the God-related elements are loosed and set free by those very crushing blows.—He, however, to whom the peace of God is an object of derision, may feed on the straw of this world. But how will it be when finally the day comes that God will come upon him with fire and hammer? What then remains to him as the result of his straw-diet, which is in a condition to withstand the blows of the hammer and the fire?
Help, Lord, against Thy scornful foes,
Who seek our souls to lead astray;
Whose mockeries at mortal woes
Will end in terrible dismay!
Grant that Thy holy word may root
Deep in our hearts, and richer fruit
May ever bear to endless day.
“God’s word converts, all other doctrine befools.” Luther.
32. On Jer_23:29. “God’s word in general is like a fire: the more it is urged the more widely and brightly it extends. God has caused His word to be proclaimed to the world as a matter, which they can dispense with as little as fire. Fire often smoulders long in secret before it breaks out, thus the power of the divine word operates in its time. God’s word can make people as warm as if glowing coals lay upon them; it shines as brightly upon them, as if a lamp were held under their eyes; it tells every one the truth and purifies from all vices. He who deals evilly with God’s word burns himself by it, he who opposes it is consumed by it. But the word of God is as little to blame as a lamp or a fire when an unskilful person is burned by it. Yet it happens that often it will not be suffered in the world, then there is fire in all the streets. That is the unhappy fire of persecution, which is kindled incidentally in the world by the preaching of the Gospel.” Jos. Conr. Schaller, Pastor at Cautendorf, Sermons on the Gospels, 1742.
33. On Jer_23:30. “Teachers and preachers are not to steal their sermons from other books, but take them from the Bible, and testify that which they speak from their inward experience (Joh_3:11). False teachers steal God’s word, inventing a foreign meaning for it, and using this for the palliation of their errors.” Starke—“Hinc illi ζῆλοι at auctions, who can obtain this or that good book, this or that manuscript? Here they are thus declared to be plagiarios; and they are necessarily so because they are not taught of God. But I would rather they would steal from true men of God than from each other.”—Zinzendorf.
34. On Jer_23:33-40. “ When the word of God becomes intolerable to men, then men in their turn become intolerable to our Lord God; yea, they are no more than inutile pondus terræ, which the land can no more bear, therefore they must be winnowed out, Jer_15:17.” Cramer.
35. On Jer_24:5-7. “ He who willingly and readily resigns himself to the will of God even to the cross, may escape misfortune. But he who opposes himself to the hand of God cannot escape.” Cramer.—“The captives are dearest to God. By the first greater affliction He prepares their souls for repentance and radical conversion, so that He has in them again His people and inheritance. O the gracious God, that He allows even those who on account of sin must be so deeply degraded and rendered slaves, even in such humiliation to be His people! The captives are forgiven their opposition to God; they are separated from the number of nations existing in the world, politically they are dead and banished to the interior. Now, God will show them what His love can do; they shall return, and in true nearness to God be His true Israel.” Diedrich.
36. On Jer_24:7. [“Since He affirms that He would give them a heart to understand, we hence learn that men are by nature blind, and also that when they are blinded by the devil they cannot return to the right way, and that they cannot be otherwise capable of light than by having God to illuminate them by His Spirit. … This passage also shows, that we cannot really turn to God until we acknowledge Him to be the Judge; for until the sinner sets himself before God’s tribunal he will never be touched with the feeling of true repentance. … Though God rules the whole world. He yet declares that He is the God of the Church; and the faithful whom He has adopted He favors with this high distinction, that they are His people; and He does this that they may be persuaded that there is safety in Him, according to what is said by Habakkuk, ‘Thou art our God, we shall not die’ (Hab_1:12). And of this sentence Christ Himself is the best interpreter, when He says, that He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Luk_20:38).” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jer_21:8. This text may be used on all occasions when an important decision is to be made or on the entrance on a new section of life, as, e. g., at synods, diets, New Years, beginning of the church-year, at confirmations, weddings, installations, etc. What the present day demands and promises: I. It demands from us an important choice. II. It promises us, according as we choose, life or death.
2. On Jer_22:2-9. In how far the divine election is conditional and unconditional. I. It is conditional with respect to individual elected men, places, things. For 1, these become partakers of the salvation promised by the election only by behaviour well-pleasing to God; 2, if they behave in a manner displeasing to God, the election does not protect them from destruction. II. The election is unconditional with respect to the eternal ideas lying at the foundation of the single appearances, and their absolute realizations.
3. On Jer_22:24. [Payson:—“The punishment of the impenitent inevitable and justifiable. I. To mention some awful instances in which God has verified this declaration: (a), the apostate angels; (b) our first parents; (c) destruction of mankind by the flood; (d) the children of Israel; (e) Moses, David, the disobedient prophet, Christ. II. Some of the reasons for such a declaration. Not a disposition to give pain or desire for revenge. It is the nature and tendency of sin to produce misery.”—S. R. A.]
4. On Jer_23:5-6. The Son of David. What the prophet declares of Him is fourfold: 1. He will Himself be righteous; 2. He will rule well as king and execute judgment and righteousness; 3. He will be our righteousness; 4. Under Him shall Judah be helped and Israel dwell safely.
5. On Jer_23:14. [Lathrop: “The horrible guilt of those who strengthen the hands of the wicked. 1. All sin is horrible in its nature. 2. This is to oppose the government of the Almighty. 3. It directly tends to the misery of mankind. 4. It supports the cause of the Evil Spirit. 5. It is to become partakers of their sins. 6. It is horrible as directly contrary to the command of God, and marked with His peculiar abhorrence.”—S. R. A.]
6. On Jer_23:23-24. The Omnipresence of God. 1. What it means. God is everywhere present, (a). He fills heaven and earth; (b) there is no removal from Him in space; (c) nothing is hidden from Him. 2. There is in this for us (a) a glorious consolation, (b) an earnest admonition. [Charnock, Jortin, and Wesley have sermons on this text, all of very similar outline. The following are Jortin’s practical conclusions; “ This doctrine 1. Should lead us to seek to resemble God’s perfections 2. Should deter us from sin. 3. Should teach us humility. 4. Should encourage us to reliance and contentment, to faith and hope.”—S. R. A.]
7. On Jer_23:29-30. God’s Word and man’s word. 1. The former is life and power (wheat, fire, hammer). The latter pretence and weakness (dream, straw). 2. The two are not to be mixed with each other. [Cecil: This shows 1. The vanity of all human imaginations in religion, (a). What do they afford to man? (b). How much do they hinder? 2. The energy of spiritual truth. Let us entreat God that our estimate may be practical.—S. R. A.]
8. On Jer_24:1-10. The good and bad figs an emblem of humanity well-pleasing and displeasing to God. 1. The prisoners and broken-hearted are, like the good figs, well-pleasing to God. For (a) they know the Lord and turn to Him; (b) He is their God and they are His people. 2. Those who dwell proudly and securely are displeasing to God, like the bad figs. For (a) they live on in foolish blindness; (b) they challenge the judgment of God.
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 Brown1871 · Public DomainOn vv28–29broken idol--Coniah was idolized once by the Jews; Jeremiah,…
broken idol--Coniah was idolized once by the Jews; Jeremiah, therefore, in their person, expresses their astonishment at one from whom so much had been expected being now so utterly cast aside.
vessel . . . no pleasure-- (Psa 31:12; Hos 8:8). The answer to this is given (Rom 9:20-23; contrast Ti2 2:21).
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his seed--(See on Jer 22:29).
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. Whedon1874 · Public DomainOn vv28–3028. Idol — Rather, vessel. Is the king a…
28. Idol — Rather, vessel. Is the king a mere piece of broken and worthless pottery?
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 Colleges1878 · Public DomainOn vv28–3028. vessel] mg. pot, but rather, “a terra-cotta figurine,”…
28. vessel] mg. pot, but rather, “a terra-cotta figurine,” Encycl. Bibl. III. 3818, quoted by Dr.
wherein is no pleasure] For the expression cp. Jer_48:38; Hos_8:8.
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 Readers1878 · Public DomainOn vv28–30(28) Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol?—Better,…
(28) Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol?—Better, a broken piece of handiwork. The word is not the same as that elsewhere rendered “idol,” though connected with it, and the imagery which underlies the words is not that of an idol which men have worshipped and flung away, but of the potter (as in Jer_19:11) rejecting and breaking what his own hands have made. (Comp. Psa_2:9; Psa_31:12.) The question implies an affirmative answer. The prophet speaks as identifying himself with those who gazed with wonder and pity at the doom which fell on one so young, and yet not the less does he pronounce that doom to be inevitable.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary1880 · Public DomainOn vv28–30Is this man Coniah, etc.? The prophet"s human feelings…
Is this man Coniah, etc.? The prophet"s human feelings are stirred; he cannot withhold his sympathy from the sad fate of his king. What! he exclaims; is it possible that this Coniah is treated as a piece of ill-wrought pottery ware, (comp. Jer_18:4) and "hurled" into a strange land? He and his seed. These words have caused some difficulty, owing to the youth, of Jehoiachin. According to 2Ki_24:8 he was only eighteen when he was carried captive, while 2Ch_36:9 makes him still younger, only eight (Josiah"s age on his accession). Hitzig thinks the latter number is to be preferred; his chief reasons are the prominence given to the queen-mother, and the fact that the length of Jehoiachin"s reign is given with more precise accuracy in 2 Chronicles than in 2 Kings. It is true that the king"s wives are mentioned in 2Ki_24:15. But that he had wives may, according to Hitzig, have been inferred by the late compiler of Kings from the passage before us; or the "wives" may have been those of Jehoiachin"s predecessor. (comp. 2Sa_16:21) Graf"s conjecture is, perhaps, the safest view of the case, whether we accept the number eighteen or the number eight; it is that the "seed" spoken of as born to Jehoiachin in his captivity, and is reckoned to him by anticipation. It should be mentioned, however, that the Septuagint omits "he and his seed" altogether.
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 Illustrator1887 · Public DomainOn v29O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the…
Jer_22:29
O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.
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The treble urgency of the Gospel call
I. The Gospel call may well be pressed with threefold emphasis, when we consider the limitation it implies as respects the parties addressed: it is addressed to men and not to angels--it is addressed to earth as contradistinguished from hell. Between these two worlds, behold the Bible, like the cloud between Israel and Egypt, with a side of brightness for the former and a side of darkness for the latter! It is surely a solemnly affecting and suggestive thought that, while the Sun of Righteousness is flinging His splendours over the earth, there is another fallen world very differently circumstanced. Do you not feel your soul, at the very thought, concentrating its energies on the inquiry, What is the Gospel message, and what are the terms it proclaims? Will not the sinking crew turn to the lifeboat that is making directly for them, and that all the more eagerly that they discern around them a foaming sea strown rough with wrecks? Will not the patient turn to the physician that proffers his aid, and grasp at the prepared medicine with all the greater eagerness that he is given to understand that no other physician is within reach, though pestilence stalks all around him? And shall we not ply the Gospel call with treble emphasis, and wilt not thou listen to it with treble interest, that it proclaims a Saviour for men, over the head of angels--that it names our earth, but names not hell?
II. Universal as my text is, it carries a limitation as respects time: it is addressed to men in time, not in eternity--to the earth as it is now, not as it shall be hereafter.
1. As respects the individual, God limiteth a certain day, saying, Today, if ye will hear, etc. Each has his allotted time of probation, his day of grace. Now is that time, that golden day - the time of acceptance. Come, fellow sinner; come as you are; come now; touch the golden sceptre, and live forever.
2. God has also limited a certain time for our world as a whole. There is a certain hour known to God when He will address the commission to Jesus, Thrust in Thy sickle, etc. Momentous harvest! The earth even now is rapidly ripening. All will be astir and in earnest then; but many, alas! will awake, not to touch mercys sceptre, or the folds of her garment, but to catch the echo of her last farewell.
III. This triple emphasis will be still further accounted for if we consider the universality of the gospel call: it is addressed to the whole race, and not to part of it merely. All the seeming limitations in Scripture of the universal call are, in fact, the strongest proofs of its universality. Were I now to press the appeal in my text on different classes--the old, the young, the abandoned, the careless, or the anxious,--every candid man would understand that my specifying one class implied no exclusion of others, but was merely intended to give point and pungency to my appeal by breaking down the universal call into its particular applications, and thus rightly dividing the word of truth. On this obvious principle are we to explain such descriptive phrases as hungry, thirsty, weary, heavy-laden, which some have regarded as denoting incipient spiritual attainments, or subjective qualifying prerequisites, which the sinner must have before he is entitled to believe the Gospel. Far from it. They express not our holiness but our misery, not our riches but our poverty, whether we have caught a glimpse of Christs fulness or not. Wide as the reach of Satans rage, doth His salvation flow. Let us share in our Saviours spirit. Let the universality of the Gospel provision lead us increasingly to realise the wants and woes and claims of the unnumbered myriads of mankind. It is here that the fire of missionary and evangelistic zeal is to be kindled.
IV. We shall cease to wonder at the threefold emphasis here imparted to the Gospel call when we reflect on the facts it presupposes as to the condition of the world.
1. It supposes the world to be in a state of danger, for a threefold call to the earth, so pointed and energetic, implies that no ordinary catastrophe impends over the world. It is precisely such an impassioned appeal as would be given forth on the outbreak of some public danger, such as fire, or flood, or hostile invasion.
2. But, further, and as a frightful aggravation of the danger, the world is, to a lamentable extent, in a state of insensibility to it. This, too, is implied in the appeal of our text. It represents the world as asleep: hence the call O earth; and because that sleep is profound, the call is redoubled, O earth, earth; and because the world sleeps on, wrapped in a slumber deep as death, a third time peals the call, each louder than before. Some years ago, two or three men were seen floating asleep in a boat on the river Niagara, and were already among the rapids. Loud and long were the calls addressed to them by the spectators on the river side; but the unhappy men awoke only to utter a wild shriek of despair as they were borne over the tremendous verge. This, by no means an isolated case, aptly illustrates the sinners danger as he floats down the stream of time, his insensibility thereto, and the loud warnings addressed to him, both by God and man, to shake off the slumberous spell, and turn while he may to the matte of safety. Say not, If I am asleep, I am not responsible. You are not in this sense asleep. You are responsible; for you are an agent rational, intelligent, moral, voluntary, unfettered and free. You are responsible; for, if you believe man, you can believe God; you can give that attention to the Bible which you lavish on the things of time; you can think upon your souls salvation with the same faculties that you exert on your business or pleasures; and if you are reluctant to do so, this is not your misfortune, remember, but your crime.
V. The Gospel call may well be urged with threefold emphasis when we consider the quarter whence it comes: it is not of earth, but from heaven--it is not the word of man, but the word of the Lord. The King of heaven gives forth an utterance from His everlasting throne, but the worms of His footstool will not deign to give Him audience. Louder and louder speaks the voice which at first spake us into being--and could at any moment revoke that being,--but men sleep on; they will not consider; they say, Who is the Lord that He should reign over us? Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. Disbelieve man if you will, spurn authority, trample on the tenderest of human ties, but oh, address not yourself to a sin that towers in solitary magnitude far above all these--venture not on the supreme blasphemy of making the God of truth and love a liar.
VI. The Gospel call may well be plied with treble emphasis if we consider the precious import of the message it proclaims: it is a word of Gospel, or good news, and not of authority merely--when it might have been a word of wrath. Ah, this deepens the dye still further, of the sin of unbelief--a perpetration of which earth, and earth alone, is the theatre. The light of Gods love in the glorious Gospel makes the darkness of human rebellion the more appallingly visible; and the thought that such mercy is within reach, and yet such wrath is in reserve--that mans destination, if not high heaven must be some nethermost abyss: ah, this, considering the magnitude of the interests involved, may well make us to intensify, redouble, and treble the call, O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord! (T. Guthrie, D.D.)
The Divine appeal to man
I. The Characters Addressed O earth, earth, earth,! By earth, we are to understand the dwellers on earth--man the lord of this lower creation; andlooking to its origin, the term is one that is appropriately employed to designate man.
1. When addressed as earth, we are reminded of our native origin. Man is of the earth, earthy. God made man of the dust of the ground. What, then, becomes of the boastings of man? How foolish the pride of pedigree, the pride of descent! The sable sons of Africa, the swarthy Hindoo, the Red Indian of America, the stunted Esquimaux, the tribes of Europe, and of all the islands of the sea, have all of them a common origin: they are all of them of the earth, earthy.
2. When addressed as earth we are reminded also of our true nature. We are not only from the earth, but we are of the earth. Dust thou art, is the true description of every man, of every child of man. Yes, what is that muscular frame but brittle earth? What is that beautiful countenance but tinted earth? What are those sparkling eyes but transparent earth? What are those sensitive nerves so keenly alive to pleasure and to pain, what are they but fine filaments of earth? What is that amazing structure the brain, the seat of the thinking powers, but just a curiously wrought mass of earth?
3. When addressed as earth, we are reminded of the source of our supplies. Not only are our bodies of the earth earthy, but it is from the earth that we derive all that is essential to their sustenance and comfort. It is on its kindly surface that we erect our habitations. It is from its yearly replenished storehouse that we derive the staff of life. It is thence we draw our supplies of corn, of wine, and of oil, while from its copious fountains issue those crystal streams that fertilise our fields and quench our thirst, and in other ways minister to our comfort; and by this, too, we are reminded to moderate our desires. Bread and water are the supplies that the earth most copiously yields, and to these only does the promise extend, Thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure.
4. We are reminded, when we are addressed as earth, of the earthly state of our minds, that state which is so aptly expressed in the words of the Psalmist, My soul cleaveth unto the dust. The design of Gospel truth is to draw our affections from the world, to raise our minds above its grovelling pursuits, and to change the current of our desires, our feelings, and our affections; and for the effecting of all this it is perfectly competent, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believeth. Why, then, is its success so limited? The reason is that the earthly is more potent than the heavenly, that the material outweighs the spiritual in our thoughts, affections, and desires.
5. We are reminded, when we are addressed as earth, of the tendency of us all. Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. These bodies, full of life and activity, must ere long drop into the grave. Those eyes now sparkling with life and intelligence, must ere long be closed in death. Those tongues, now eloquent with the language of hope and affection, must ere long be silent in the tomb. Upon that countenance, now flushed with the bloom of health, must ere long settle the damp dews of death. Let our thoughts and aspirations, then, be tending heavenward while our bodies are tending earthward. Let it be seen, that if our bodies are ripening for the grave our souls are ripening, for heaven.
II. The exercise that is enjoined. Hear the word of the Lord.
1. The subject of attention: The word of the Lord. In other words, the subject of that attention is the revealed will of God, the Holy Scriptures, the preached Gospel. It must be listened to, not as to a tale that is well told, not as to the voice of one that playeth well upon an instrument, but listened to with self-application, and with a believing heart.
2. This exercise of hearing the word of the Lord may be enforced by many considerations, especially when you take into account the Being who addresses you. It is God who speaks. It is He whose Word is life or death, which exalts to heaven or sinks to hell. Think of the Word itself, of the subject of which it treats. It is no indifferent theme on which it discourses. It is the Word of knowledge, it is the proclamation of mercy, it is the glad tidings of salvation. It is, too, a Word of judgment and of death, but only to those who contemn and refuse to hear it. And then, think of the universal adaptation of its truths. They are fitted for all, for saint and for sinner alike; for the most learned and the most illiterate; for the king upon the throne and the beggar by the wayside. Think, too, of your dying condition, as yet another consideration enforcing attention to the word of the Lord. Soon you may be beyond the reach of its tidings of mercy. (H. Hyslop.)
Jehovahs call to the earth
We know of persons who rise up early and sit up late, in order that they may accumulate riches, in order that they may follow their trade, or in order that they may enjoy the pleasures of sin; but how few there are who can say they prevent the night watches that they may meditate upon Gods Word!
I. In meditating upon Gods blessed Word, notice the authority with which it comes.
1. It has no title, save that which distinguishes it from all common communications, from all uninspired books. It is the Bible, which means emphatically the book, in distinction from every other book.
2. If you inquire as to its topics, its index, it is impossible to make a catalogue of these. Who can describe the truths, the doctrines, the promises, the precepts, the predictions that it contains?
3. Then you have to inquire respecting its Author. It is God--He that made us, He that sustains us, He that governs us, He alone that can bless us. The Bible is not anonymous, any more than the sun, the moon, the stars, or the sea, for it bears the impressive signature of the Divine name. It is not a fable. We have not followed cunningly-devised fables when we testify to you the great things of Gods Word. Oh, the riches, oh, the profundity of this inexhaustible Word! Christians have been drawing upon the resources of its wisdom; mighty preachers have been expounding its contents, scholars have been penetrating into its mysteries, the press has been pouring out dissertations and commentaries upon its mighty theme, and it is still unexhausted and inexhaustible; for it is like its infinite Author.
II. How we are to receive this communication, O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.
1. If we are to hear the Word of the Lord that our souls may live, our ears must be opened. Closed by prejudice, ignorance, and sin, closed by the imperfection and deceitfulness of our nature, the Holy Spirit must open our ears to hear: then we shall hearken diligently, we shall hear believingly, so that this Word will be the life of our souls.
2. As this Word comes to you there must be spiritual participation. Indeed, the reception of the Word of God is described as eating that Word; and the Word of God is described as bread which we are to eat, and the manna that came doom from heaven and fell around the camps of the children of Israel was understood to be the type of that living bread upon which we are to feed. It is receiving Christ by faith, it is believing on Him, that is eating the Word. Oh, for this spiritual participation of Gods blessed Word! May God give you a spiritual taste, and spiritual desires.
3. The Word of God is to be received or heard with spiritual joy. Come and take of the most precious things God has given in His Word--let your souls delight themselves in fatness. There are precious promises and precious doctrines, precious prophecies and precious precepts; yea, everything is precious; but the nearer you get to the Cross of Christ and the discovery of Gods love in the gift of His Son, the more precious, the more nourishing, the more comforting, and the more consoling will Divine truth be to your minds.
III. This word comes to different characters and in various ways.
1. In the first place, let me address the sceptic--the doubter. There is no discovery in science which does not tend to confirm the inspiration and credibility of Gods truth; and there is not an evolution of Providence which does not serve to illustrate some portion of Gods prophetic Word. Keep your eyes upon the movements of Providence, and you will find that God is continually unfurling His truth Recollect eternity, with its weal and its woe, stands upon the decision, whether you receive with reverence, or whether you despise or neglect the great salvation which the Word of God brings.
2. This Word comes a warning to the man absorbed in the anxious cares of time; and, says it, What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? This world cannot make you happy. Why spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not!
3. Then the Word of God speaks to the man who assents to Gods Word with his understanding, but denies it with his hearts affection--having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. God cannot be deceived by pretences, God cannot be mocked by external service.
4. The Word of God speaks to the sorrowful. It speaks generally to the mourning, Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. It speaks to the widow in her desolateness, and says, Thy Maker is thy husband. It speaks to the orphan and the fatherless, and gives them the assurance of protection. It speaks to the soul half-despairing under a consciousness of its sin, and saying, I am a great sinner, I do not know whether Christ will have compassion upon me and save me. You are a great sinner? Well, then, Christ is a great Saviour. It speaks to the timid believer, who is ready to say, I fear I shall some day fall by the temptations and allurements of the world. Fall! you cannot fall; you walk upon firm ground, and the arms of Almighty grace sustain you whilst you are unreservedly trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. (H. Dowson.)
Gods loud call to a sleeping world
;--On our rugged and water-worn shores you may often see a black wall of stone, as regular as if it had been built by human hands, running across the tide mark from the terrestrial vegetation down to the lip of the water at its lowest. It is a trap dyke, forced up when its matter was molten, through a fissure in the overlying strata, and appearing now a narrow band of rock, totally distinct both in colour and in kind from the surrounding surface. These protruding portions show that the material of which they consist lies in vast masses underneath. So the thin line of our text seems to protrude above a broad field of mingled prophecy and fact.
I. The manner of this cry. You may measure the danger which a monitor apprehends by the sharpness of the alarm which he gives. The earth itself, and all the creatures on it under man, have a quick ear for their Makers voice, and, never needing, never get a call so urgent. The alacrity of the creatures that lie either above or beneath him in the scale of creation brings out in higher relief the disobedience of man. Physically, earth is wide awake and watchful. It courses through the heavens without halting for rest, and threads its way among other stars without collision. The tide keeps its time and place. The rivers roll toward the sea, and the clouds fly on wings like eagles, hastening to pour their burdens into the rivers springheads, that though ever flowing they may be ever full. The earth is a diligent worker; it is not the sluggard who needs a threefold call to awake and begin. Equally alert are the various orders of life that crowd the worlds surface. Above our own place, too, angel spirits are like flames of fire in the quickness, and like stormy winds in the power, with which they serve their Maker. The cry of this text is meant for man; he needs it, and he only. When the polar winter threatens to freeze the navigators blood, rendering constant and violent exercise necessary to keep the currents moving, then it is that the man feels the greatest drowsiness. It is only by the vigilance of experienced chiefs that they are prevented from sinking into a sleep from which there is no awakening. This fact, and the law which rules it, constitute in the moral region the saddest feature in the condition of the world. They sleep most soundly who have most need to be wakeful. The guilt which brings upon a man Gods displeasure, so stupifies the senses of the man that he is not aware of danger, and does not try to escape.
II. The matter of this cry.
1. The speaker is the only living and true God. It is essential that our belief in the first principle of religion should be well defined and real. Religion may be faint and feckless, for want of a foundation in an actual belief that God is. That Christian education is a tally defective which does not leave upon the mind and conscience a practical sense of Gods being and presence, as the first principle of all truth and all duty.
2. The thing spoken is the Word of the Lord. It is not enough for us that God is near. He was not far from the men of Athens in the days of Paul, and yet He was to them the unknown God. He has broken the silence; He has revealed His will The Word of the Lord lies in the Scriptures.
(1) The Word of the Lord in the Scriptures is Mercy. If the message brought only vengeance, we could at least understand the voluntary deafness of the world. But it is strange that men will not listen to their best Friend; strange that the lost should shut their ears against a voice which publishes salvation.
(2) Still further, and more particularly, the Word of the Lord is Christ. The use of the Scriptures is to reveal Christ; if we reject Him, they cannot give us life.
3. The injunction to regard that Word O earth, earth, etc.
(1) The earth so summoned, has already, in a sense most interesting and important, heard the Word of the Lord. Christs kingdom is even now more powerful on the earth than any other kingdom. The power that lives in the conscience and links itself to God is, in point of fact, the most persistent and effective of all the powers which mould the character and history of the human race. It is great, is growing greater, and will yet be supreme.
(2) The earth through all its bounds will one day hear and obey the Word of the Lord. Saving truth lying in the hearts of saved men has a self-propagating power.
(3) When the earth hears its Lords word, forthwith it calls upon the Lord. Those who sail in air ships among the clouds, as others sail on the sea, tell us that every cry which they utter on high is answered by an echo from the earth beneath When the earth, spiritually susceptible, receives from heaven the sound, O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord, another cry forthwith arises, O heaven, heaven, heaven, hear the petition of sinful men upon the earth. God delights in that cry.
(4) Earth--that is, men in the body--should hear the Word of the Lord, for to them it brings a message of mercy. Now is the accepted time; this is the place of hope. Beware lest the sound that first awakens you be the crash of the gate when it shuts!
(5) Earth--the dust of the dead in Christ--shall hear the Word of the Lord, and shall come forth. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
The Divine appeal
I. The deep and awful concern of Jehovah for the soul of the sinner.
1. There is surely something peculiarly affecting and awful in this. Mark the concern of your Creator, deeply anxious about the noblest work of His skill and power. It is the concern of your Preserver, who hath watched you with His eye, led you by His hand, etc. It is the concern of a Saviour God, who spared not His own son, etc. This concern of Jehovah assumes a more amazing character when you think of the persons for whom it is manifested. These are not only creatures of a day, but creatures laden with iniquity, filled with corruption, at enmity with Himself, in rebellion against His law, and hastening unto perdition, without one plea for mercy, or one claim on His pity.
II. The strange stupidity and unconcern of the sinners to whom this appeal is made. We are blind and see not God; deaf, and hear Him not; dumb, and speak not to Him. We are, as Paul says, past feeling. Try this truth by a double experience. Try it first by the experience of those who never felt it. How else can you account for the fact that such appeals as this addressed to sinners by the living God, are often as unheeded as if the voice of the Eternal resounded through the charnel house of the tomb, or were lost amid the echoes of the desert? But try it by the opposite experience. Give me the sinner who has been startled by the voice of God, and aroused from the slumber of his carnality; give me the man with a broken spirit, who fears, hates, and mourns his manifold iniquities, and looks back upon his former state with shame and sorrow; and that is the man whose language will be, Oh! what a blinded being I was not to see my guilt and my Saviour sooner I what a stupid creature to go on as I have done neglecting my soul! what a hardened wretch to stand out so long against my God and Saviour!
III. An appeal to frail and dying creatures. This is always a melancholy and solemnising reflection;--we are earth. We spring from the dust and we hasten back to it. Old men, we appeal to you, and ask you how few have been the days since you were children? But how speedily now shall you be borne away from your frailties to the tomb! Young men, how rapidly are you and I hastening on to become the old men of our time! As to the children, do you not see how fast they are climbing the hill of life? But who will venture to say that things will take that natural course with us? Who can count upon a day, an hour, a moment? The thread of life is frail as the spiders web, and may be snapt by the feeblest breath. It may be now or never.
IV. God may be supposed to call the earth to witness that He has offered you salvation, and to be ready to testify that He has spoken to you, warned you, besought you to hear His word, and flee from the wrath to come, so that if you refuse the offered mercy, the very earth will lift up its voice against you to silence every excuse, and you shall stand speechless at the bar of the judgment. Will not heaven, and earth, and seas, and skies thus conspire to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, on that great and dreadful day? Will not the simple fact that He shall summon up our spirits to His bar from every hiding place, turn these places into witnesses? Will not the fact that He shall gather our dust from the four winds, from the bottom of the sea, or from the silence of the grave, turn these elements into witnesses? Will not thus the Omniscient God turn the air we breathe, the light we behold, the dust on which we tread, every object we touch, every scene we visit, into a witness for or against us?
V. Apply the text to those who have believed this Word of the Lord. Having felt concern for your own souls, you will feel for the souls of others. You know the preciousness of Christ, and the value of souls. You perceive the danger you have escaped, but to which multitudes are still exposed. You can see yonder long, deep, gloomy phalanx of immortal souls rushing on and rolling over the brink of time into the abyss of eternity. You have entered in some small measure into Gods own views of their state. Having these views, you will, you must feel deep and distressing concern for them. You will plead for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost to raise up labourers, to qualify and send them, and give them success in winning souls. You will do more. You will put your own hand to the work as God Himself does. Is He to give all, and we nothing? Is He to do all, and we not to be fellow workers with Him? Shall He give the word, and we not publish it abroad? (John Walker.)
The earth and Gods Word
I. Earths attention to the divine word is of the utmost importance.
1. The earth is under condemnation; His Word can alone gain its acquittal
2. The earth is in moral darkness; His Word can alone enlighten it.
3. The earth is in bondage; His Word alone can liberate it.
4. The earth is in misery; His Word alone can relieve it.
II. Earths indifference to the divine word is very stolid.
1. This indifferentism has always been awfully prevalent.
2. This indifferentism is monstrously irrational.
3. This indifferentism cannot always continue. (Homilist.)
An exclamation
I. The solemn address to the children of men.
1. The expression is a metonymy, in which the container is put for the contained; but as man is of the earth earthy, it is also descriptive of his mortality. The expression, O earth, earth, earth! when properly heard, is well calculated to bring down the lofty looks of man, and to produce humility in the place of pride.
2. The repetition of the word earth, is used to command greater attention. This way of arresting the attention was very common amongst the Roman and Grecian orators.
3. When preceded by the interjection O or Oh! the repetition generally expresses uncommon emotion or grief (2Sa_18:33).
II. The important object to which their attention is called.
1. The Word of the Lord demands our attention, because it is the most interesting Book.
2. The Word of the Lord demands our attention, because it contains the most and best information of any book of the size.
3. But O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord! for there are the words of eternal life. (B. Bailey.)
Gods voice to man
I. Specify some respects in which we should hear Gods voice.
1. In the still small voice of heavenly mercy.
2. In the loud thunder of Gods providential dispensation.
3. In your personal and relative afflictions.
4. In the ample promises and encouragements addressed to returning penitents.
II. Enumerate some reasons why the whole earth is interested in these communications.
1. Because the Gospel shows the only plan of salvation.
2. Because the progressive improvement and advancement of the race is connected with this message.
3. Because the success of missionary work shows the practicability of diffusing it.
4. Because the signs of the times are in direct accord with the promises of God. (S. Thodey.)
A call to hear the Word of the Lord
I. The subject on the address.
1. The Word of the Lord is unwritten as well as written.
2. It is threatening as well as promising.
II. The duty inculcated in the address.
1. To hear and understand.
2. To hear and obey.
3. To hear and make known to others.
III. The style of the address; apostrophe.
1. The universality of its range.
2. The earnestness and affection of its spirit. (G. Brooks.)
.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0On v29Land, Land, Land
Land, Land, Land
Yahweh speaks his message to all the people of the land by calling out to the land where they live. The title is repeated to call attention to the message. (See: Apostrophe)
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He will be childless
Jehoiachin has several sons. This phrase, then, means it is as if he was childless. His children will not succeed him as king. AT: "It will be as if he did not have any children" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
sit on David's throne
Sitting on a throne is a metonym for ruling as king. AT: "become king" (See: Metonymy)
Tyndale Open Study Notes2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0On vv28–3022:28-30 This poem, a taunt directed at Jehoiachin, included…
22:28-30 This poem, a taunt directed at Jehoiachin, included two rhetorical questions with the expected answer, “I don’t know.” However, Jehoiachin’s sins and those of his forefathers were the reasons for his fate. Still, the people of Jerusalem seemed unwilling to accept the justice of his exile.
GEBible — Godless Engineer's Bible App
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv28–30 As the Prophet was hardly able to convince the…
As the Prophet was hardly able to convince the Jews of what he had foretold, he confirms the same thing; but he speaks here as of what was incredible. He assumes the character of one greatly wondering, that others might cease to wonder. He then asks, whether it was possible that Jeconiah should be driven into exile and there miserably perish? We now see the design of the Prophet, that as the Jews thought that the kingdom would be perpetual, it was necessary to shake off such a notion, so that they might know that God had not in vain threatened what we have already noticed. But there is in these questions a kind of irony, for the Prophet might have made a positive assertion in plain words; but from regard to others, he hesitates through wonder, or seems to doubt as of a thing that was monstrous.
Is he a statue? he says; some translate “a vessel;” but it seems to be taken here, as in other places, in its proper sense, a statue. Is, then, this man Coniah a despised and a broken statue? for פוף, puts, is both to fail and to break. We have said that a part of his name was left out by way of contempt; still, as the Jews were so blinded by the royal dignity that they could not believe the prophecy, he asks respecting it as of a thing incredible. Is he a vessel? etc., he adds. The Hebrew word כלי, cali, we know, is taken for any kind of vessel; for the ancients called all kinds of furniture vessels. He asks, then, Is he a contemptible vessel? Is he a vessel in which there is no delight? He had before said that he was a despised statue. Why are they cast forth, he and his seed, and thrown into a land which they have not known? that is, into a remote land? And we know that it is a hard lot when one is driven far away from his own country. There is, then, no doubt but that the Prophet enhances the grievousness of the evil when he speaks of an unknown country: for Zedekiah, who was put on the throne, was his uncle; and of his posterity the first was Salathiel, born in exile. 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 vv29–30 He showeth that all posterities shall be witnesses of…
He showeth that all posterities shall be witnesses of his just plague, as though it were registered for perpetual memory.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv28–30 Jer 22:28 [Is] this man Coniah a despised broken…
Jer 22:28 [Is] this man Coniah a despised broken idol? [is he] a vessel wherein [is] no pleasure? wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not?
Ver. 28. Is this Coniah a despised, broken idol?] Interrogatio pathetica: Is he not? Who would ever have thought to have seen a king of Judah so little set by, like some old picture or inglorious trunk?
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A vessel in which is no pleasure.] That is, by a modest round about phrase, A close stool, or piss pot. {so Hos 8:8}
He and his seed.] If any he had, or shall have in his captivity.
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 vv28–30 The prophet either speaketh this in the person of…
The prophet either speaketh this in the person of God. or of the people, who are here brought in, affirming that this prince, who was the idol of the people, was now, through the just judgment of God, become like a broken idol; or like a vessel which men care not for, being either so cracked, or so tainted, that they can make no use of it; and admiring at this catastrophe, and inquiring the cause why it so came to pass. He and his seed. It is said, Jer 22:30, that no man of his seed should prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah; nor is there any mention made of any of his children where his carrying into captivity is recorded, 2Ki 24:12, which makes some think that by his seed here is meant the posterity of his grandfather Josiah; but others think that he had children, either before he went into captivity, or born while he was in Babylon: and Mat 1:12, it is said, that after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begat Salathiel.
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 On vv28–30 Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol?.... Or…
Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol?.... Or like an idol that is nothing in the world, and like a broken one, that, whatever worship before was paid to it, has now none at all, but is despised by its votaries? he is such an one; though he was idolized by his people when be first came to the throne; but now his power and government being broken, and he carried captive, was despised by all; as his being called Coniah, and "this man" or fellow, show; which are used of him in a way of reproach and contempt;
is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? he is. He is like a vessel made for dishonour, or is used for the most contemptible service; or like one that is cracked, or broken, or defiled, that no use can be made of it, or any delight taken in it; it is not fit to set up, to be looked at, or to be made use of;
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wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed; which were in his loins, and were begotten by him in captivity; see Ch1 3:17; and so said to be cast out with him, when he was cast out of the land of Judea; just as Levi paid tithes in Abraham before he was born, Heb 7:9;
and are cast into a land which they know not? where they had no friends and acquaintance; doubtless it was for his sins and transgressions, and those of his people.
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 vv28, 30 Is this - The prophet speaks this in the…
Is this - The prophet speaks this in the person of God, affirming that this prince, who was the idol of the people, was now become like a broken idol. A vessel - So cracked, or so tainted, that they can make no use of it.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv28–30 Verse 28. Is this man Coniah a despised broken…
Verse 28. Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol?] These are probably the exclamations of the people, when they heard those solemn denunciations against their king and their country.
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 v29 Jer 22:29-30. O earth, &c. — The word earth,…
Jer 22:29-30. O earth, &c. — The word earth, or land rather, as ארצmay be properly rendered, is repeated three times by way of emphasis, to engage the deeper attention. The prophet speaks to the land of Judea, which he commands to write down the following prediction, that it might be remembered by them, and the truth of it be thereby made manifest. Write ye this man childless — Hebrew, ערירי, solitary, deprived, destitute. The LXX. render it εκκηρυκτον αυθρωτον, an ejected, or expelled man; a man that shall not prosper in his days — This latter clause seems explanatory of the former; and that again is further explained in the following: “For no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah.” That Jeconiah had children appears both from this verse and Jer 22:28; but according to this prophecy, no man of his seed sat upon the throne of David. This seems the true exposition of this passage, which has been considered as attended with considerable difficulty. “I cannot,” says Blaney, “agree with the generality of commentators, who suppose that God hereby declares it as a thing certain, and, as it were, orders it to be inserted among the public acts of his government, that Jeconiah should die absolutely childless. Other parts of Scripture positively assert him to have had children, 1Ch 3:17-18; Mat 1:12. Both Jer 22:28, and the subsequent part of this verse, imply that he either had, or should have, seed. But the historians and chroniclers of the times are called upon, and directed to set him down childless; not as being literally so, but yet the same to all intents and purposes of public life, for he was to be the last of his race that should sit upon the throne of David; and his descendants were no more to figure as kings, but to be reduced to the rank and obscurity of private persons. And in this sense the prophecy was actually fulfilled, for, allowing Zerubbabel, who is called governor of Judah, (Hag 1:1,) to have been a lineal descendant of Jeconiah, yet he could not be said to sit upon the throne of David, and reign, or rule, in Judah, seeing he was but a provincial governor, a mere servant of the king of Persia, in whom the sovereignty resided; nor were any of those persons kings who afterward reigned in Judah, even of the family of David, until the time of Christ.”
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 vv28–30 Idol - Rather, vessel. Is Coniah a mere piece…
Idol - Rather, vessel. Is Coniah a mere piece of common earthenware in which the potter has no pleasure, and therefore breaks it? It is a lamentation over Jehoiachin’s hard fate, and that of his seed. This and the two following verses may have been written after the king had been carried into captivity.
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 vv28, 30 Jechonias. Protestants, "Koniah, a despised broken idol? is he,"…
Jechonias. Protestants, "Koniah, a despised broken idol? is he," &c. Alexandrian Septuagint, "Jechonias has been dishonoured as a vessel, or which there is no need, for he hath been snatched and cast," &c. (Haydock)
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 v28 β. After the Deportation
β. After the Deportation
Jer_22:28-30.
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28 Is then this man Coniah a despised broken vessel?
Or a vessel wherein is no pleasure?
Why are they then hurled forth, he and his seed?
And cast into the land which they know not?
29 O land, land, land, hear Jehovah’s word!
30 Thus saith Jehovah: Write ye this man childless,
As one who has no prosperity in the days of his life;
For not one of his seed shall succeed
To sit upon the throne of David and rule again over Judah.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
These words were spoken after Jeconiah had been carried away captive. Compare “I cast thee forth,” Jer_22:26, with “hurled forth” and “cast” in Jer_22:28. Hence Jeconiah himself is not addressed, but the prophet speaks of him to others. He first sets forth how in the fate of Jeconiah the divine judgment of his unworthiness is manifested. The antithesis is here plainly felt to the “ signet-ring on my right hand,” Jer_22:24, and that in this comparison there was a cutting irony (Jer_22:28). Thereupon the prophet addresses the land directly, solemnly repeating ארץ thrice (Jer_22:29), to announce concerning it the fatal declaration of Jehovah, that no descendant of Jehoiachin will any more sit on the throne of David.
Jer_22:28-30. Is then … over Judah. To the question of Jer_22:28 an affirmative answer is expected. Comp. rems. on Jer_7:9; Jer_12:9, coll. Jer_2:14. On the abbreviated name Coniah, the object of which comes out here with especial distinctness, comp. rems. on Jer_22:24.—Childless. Jeconiah was eighteen years old when he became king (2Ki_24:8), and it is expressly stated that he had wives. That he had some off-spring is therefore not impossible, and is not even excluded by Jer_22:30. But even if he had no children, there was other “royal seed” (Dan_1:3).—Into the land. Comp. Jer_22:26; Jer_16:13. The article is explained by the circumstance that this unknown land at the same time hovered before the prophet as one often mentioned and definitely designated.—The repetition of land is to call attention to the fact that the prophet has somewhat unusually important to say with respect to the country. This is the announcement that none of the offspring of Jeconiah should possess the throne of David, by which it is at the same time indicated that an important change would take place in the throne itself, i. e. that it would cease and give place to the throne of a universal empire.—Write. The prophet has evidently in view those who are entrusted with the keeping of the family record (comp. Saalschuetz, Mos. Recht, S. 61; Eze_13:9; coll. Jer_17:13; Psa_69:29; Isa_4:3). When it is said that they are to write him as childless, it is said only that he is to pass for such, not that he was really so. In 1Ch_3:17-18, his sons are at least mentioned. Whether they were natural offspring (observe the phrase יְכָנְיהָ אַסִּיר, the imprisoned Jeconiah [A. V.: Jeconiah, Assir, etc.—S. R. A.]) or only legal (by a Levirate marriage), is doubtful, comp. Ebrard, Kritik der eo. Gesch. S. 201, sqq.—As one, etc. This sentence is subordinate to the preceding, as explanation and more exact definition: Jeconiah is called childless, because his whole life through he will be an unprosperous man. This will be manifest, in that he will have seed, but no successor. None of his descendants will succeed to his throne. Zedekiah was Jeconiah’s uncle and the last king of Judah of the family of David. The text accordingly rather favors than opposes the hypothesis that Jeconiah had natural offspring.—Shall succeed to sit (יצלה ישׁב)—he will not have success or prosperity, as sitting, etc. We should say: he will not have the good, fortune to sit, etc.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Jer_21:2. “King Zedekiah sends word to Jeremiah, that the Lord is to do according to all His miracles, that Nebuchadnezzar may withdraw. A demand rather cavalierly made in such evil circumstances. But the noble are so unfortunate! It is indeed as though it only depended on them to arrange matters with God; as if He were only waiting for them, as if it were a point of honor not to be over-hasty, but first to await a little extremity …. It is a very necessary observance for a servant of the Lord, that he try his superiors, whether there is any trace remaining in them of having been once baptized, well brought up and instructed in the fear of the Lord. If he observe anything of this kind, he must insist upon it and especially not allow them to deal too familiarly with the Judge of all the earth, but plainly demonstrate to them their insufficiency and nothingness, if they measure themselves by Him. Though Zedekiah had spoken so superficially, Jeremiah answered him without hesitation, definitely and positively, and accustomed him to a different manner of dealing with the Lord.” Zinzendorf. “When the ungodly desire God’s help, they commonly appeal not to His saving power to heal them, but to His miraculous power to save them, while they persist in their impenitence.” Starke.
2. On Jer_21:8. “It is pure grace on the part of God, when He leaves to man the choice between the good and the evil; not that it is permitted him to choose the evil, but that he may choose freely the good, which he is under obligation to do, Deu_30:19.” Starke. “God lays before us the way of life and the way of death. The way of life is however always contrary to human reason, and that on which it sees merely death and shame. … If thou wilt save thyself thou must leave the false Jerusalem, fallen under the judgment, and seek thy life where there seems to be only death. He who would save his life must lose it, and he who devotes it for the sake of the truth will save it.” Diedrich.
3. On Jer_21:11-14. “To be such a king is to be an abomination to the Lord, and severe judgment will follow. God appoints magistrates for His service and for the use of men; he who only seeks his own enjoyment in office, is lost. Jerusalem, situated on rocks in the midst of a plain, looks secure; but against God neither rocks avail nor aught else. The fire will break out even in them, and consume all around, together with the forest of cedar-houses in the city. The corruption is seated within, and therefore proceeds from within outwards, so that nothing of the former stock can remain. What shall a government do which no longer bears the sword of justice? What shall a church do which is no longer founded on God’s truth as its only power?” Diedrich. Comp. moreover on the whole of Jeremiah 24. the extended moral reflections of Cyrillus Alex. περὶ τῆς ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθ. προσκυνήσεως. Lib. I.
4. On Jer_22:1. “Jeremiah is to deliver a sermon at court, in which he reminds the king of his office of magistrate, in which he is to administer justice to every man.” Cramer.
It was no easy task for Jeremiah to go into the lions’ den and deliver such an uncourtly message to him. We are reminded of the prophet Jonah. But Jeremiah did not flee as he did.
5. On Jer_22:1-3. [“But we ought the more carefully to notice this passage, that we may learn to strengthen ourselves against bad examples, lest the impiety of men should overturn our faith; when we see in God’s church things in such disorder, that those who glory in the name of God are become like robbers, we must beware lest we become on this account alienated from true religion. We must, indeed, desert such monsters, but we must take care lest God’s word, through men’s wickedness, should lose its value in our esteem. We ought then to remember the admonition of Christ, to hear the Scribes and Pharisees who sat in Moses’ seat (Mat_23:2).” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
6. On Jer_22:10. [“Dying saints may be justly envied, while living sinners are justly pitied. And so dismal perhaps the prospect of the times may be, that tears even for a Josiah, even for a Jesus, must be restrained, that they may be reserved for ourselves and our children (Luk_23:28).” Henry.—S. R. A.]
“Nequaquam gentilis plangendus est atque Judæus, qui in ecclesia non fuerunt et simul mortui sunt, de quibus Salvator dicit: dimitte mortuos sepelire mortuos suos (Mat_8:22). Sed eos plange, qui per scelera atque peccata egrediuntur de ecclesia et nolunt ultra reverti ad earn damnatione vitiorum.” Hieron. Epist. 46 ad Rusticam. “Nolite flere mortuum, sed plorate raptorem avarum, pecuniæ sitientem et inexplebilem auri cupidinem. Cur mortuos inutiliter ploramus? Eos ploremus, qui in melius mutari possunt.” Basilius Seleucensis. Comp. Basil, Magn. Homil. 4 de Gratiarum actione post dimid.—Ghislerus.
7. On Jer_22:6-9. “God does not spare even the authorities. For though He has said that they are gods, when they do not rightly administer their office they must die like men (Psa_82:6) … No cedars are too high for God, no splendor too mighty; He can destroy all at once, and overturn, and overturn, and overturn. Eze_21:27,” Cramer.
Another passage from which it is seen how perverse and unjustifiable is the illusion that God’s election is a surety against His anger, and a permit to any wilfulness. The individual representatives of the objects of divine election should never forget that God can march over their carcases, and the ruins of their glory, to the fulfilment of His promise, and that He can rebuild on a higher stage, what He has destroyed on a lower. Comp. remarks on Jer_22:24.
8. On Jer_22:13-19. It is blasphemy to imagine that God will be frère et compagnon to all princes as such, and that He has a predilection for them as of His own kind. Does He not say to his majesty the king of Judah, with whom, in respect of the eminence of his dynasty and throne no other prince of earth could compare, that he should be buried like an ass, dragged and cast out before the gates of Jerusalem? This Jehoiakim was however an aristocrat, a heartless, selfish tyrant, who for his own pleasure trampled divine and human rights under foot. If such things were done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?
“He who builds his house with other people’s property, collects stones for his grave.” Cramer.
9. On Jer_22:14. [“It was a proof of luxury when men began to indulge in superfluities. In old times the windows were small; for use only was regarded by frugal men; but afterwards a sort of madness possessed the minds of many, so that they sought to be suspended as it were in the air. And hence they began to have wider windows. The thing in itself, as I have said, is not what God condemns; but we must ever remember, that men never go to excesses in external things, except when their hearts are infected with pride, so that they do not regard what is useful, what is becoming, but are carried away by fondness for excess.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
10. On Jer_22:15. “God may grant the great lords a preference in eating and drinking and the splendor of royal courts, but it is not His will that these be regarded as the main things, but that true religion, right and justice must have the precedence;—this is the Lord’s work. But cursed is he who does the Lord’s work remissly. Jer_48:10.” Cramer.
11. On Jer_22:17. “Description of haughty, proud, magnificent, merciless and tyrannical lords and rulers, who are accomplices of thieves.” Cramer.
12. On Jer_22:19. [“God would have burial a proof to distinguish us from brute animals even after death, as we in life excel them, and as our condition is much nobler than that of the brute creation. Burial is also a pledge as it were of immortality; for when man’s body is laid hid in the earth, it is as it were a mirror of a future life. Since then burial is an evidence of God’s grace and favor towards mankind, it is on the other hand a sign of a curse, when burial is denied.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
13. On Jer_22:24. “Great lords often imagine that they not only sit in the bosom of God, but that they are a pearl in His crown; or as the prophet says here, God’s signet-ring. Therefore, it is impossible that they should not succeed in their designs. But God looks not on the person of the princes, and knows the magnificent no more than the poor. Job_34:19.” Cramer.
14. On Jer_22:28. [“What is idolized will, first or last, be despised and broken, what is unjustly honored will be justly contemned, and rivals with God will be the scorn of man. Whatever we idolize we shall be disappointed in, and then shall despise.” Henry.—S. R. A.]
“The compliment is a very poor one for a king, who thinks somewhat of himself, and to whom it in a certain measure pertains that he be honored….But here it is the word of the Lord, and in consideration of these words it is declared in 2Ch_36:12, to be evil on the part of Zedekiah, that he did not humble himself before Jeremiah. Teachers must be much on their guard against assuming such purely prophetic, that is, extraordinary acts. It cost the servants of the Lord many a death, who were obliged thus to employ themselves, and when it is easy for one to ape it without a divine calling he thus betrays his frivolity and incompetence, if not his pride and delusion.” Zinzendorf.
15. On Jer_22:28-30. Irenæus (Adv. Hær. 3:30) uses this passage to prove that the Lord could not have been Joseph’s natural son, for otherwise he would have fallen under the curse of this passage, and appear as one not entitled to dominion (“qui eum dicunt ex Joseph generatum et in eo habere spem, abdicatos se faciunt a regno, sub maledictione et increpatione decidentes, quæ erga Jechoniam et in semen ejus est”). Basil the Great (Epist. ad Amphilochium) endeavors to show that this passage, with its declaration that none of Jeconiah’s descendants should sit on David’s throne, is not in contradiction to the prophecy of Jacob (Gen_49:10), that a ruler should not be lacking from Judah, till He came for whom the nations were hoping. Basil distinguishes in this relation between dominion and royal dignity.—The former continued, the latter ceased, and this period of, so to speak, latent royalty, was the bridge to the present, in which Christ rules in an invisible manner, but yet in real power and glory as royal priest, and at the same time represents Himself as the fulfilment of the hope of the nations. In like manner John of Damascus concludes that according to this passage there could be no prospect of the fulfilment of the promise in Gen_49:10, if Mary had not virgineo modo borne the scion of David, who however was not to occupy the visible throne of David. (Orat. II. in Nativ. B. Mariæ p. med.)—Ambrose finally (Comment. in Ev. Luc. L. III. cap. ult.) raises the question how Jeremiah could say, that ex semine Jechoniæ neminem regnaturum esse, since Christ was of the seed of Jeconiah and reigned? He answers: “Illic (Jer_22:30) futuros ex semine Jechoniæ posteros non negatur et ideo de semine ejus est Christus (comp. Mat_1:11), et quod regnavit Christus, non contra prophetiam est, non enim seculari honore regnavit, nee in Jechoniæ sedibus sedit, sed regnavit in sede David.” Ghislerus.
16. On Jer_23:2. “Nonnulli præsmles gregis quosdam pro peccato a communione ceiciunt, ut pæniteant, sed quali sorte vivere debeant ad melius exhortando non visitant. Quibus congrue increpans sermo divinus comminatur: pastores, qui pascunt populum meum, vos dispersistis gregem meum, ejecistis et non visitastis eum.” Isidor. Hisp. de summo bono she LL. sentt. Cap. 46. Ghislerus.
17. On Jer_23:5-6. Eusebius (Dem. Ev. VII. 9) remarks that Christ among all the descendants of David is the only one, who rules over the whole earth, and everywhere not only preaches justice and righteousness by His doctrine but is Himself also the author of the rising [of the Sun] of righteousness for all, according to Psa_72:7 : ἀνατελεῖ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις αὐτοῦ δικαιοσύνη, καὶ πλῆθος εἰρήνης ἕως οὗ ἀνταναιρεθῇ ἡ σελήνη (LXX.) Cyril of Alex. (Glaphyr. in Gen. I. p. 133) explains Ἰωσεδέκ as justitia Dei, in so far as we are made righteous in Him, not for the sake of the works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His great mercy. Rom_3:24; Tit_3:5.
18. On Jer_23:6. [“If we regard God in Himself, He is indeed righteous, but not our righteousness. If we desire to have God as our righteousness, we must seek Christ; for this cannot be found except in Him. … Paul says that He has been given or made to us righteousness,—for what end? that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (1Co_1:30). Since, then, Christ is made our righteousness, and we are counted the righteousness of God in Him, we hence learn how properly and fitly it has been said that He would be Jehovah, not only that the power of His divinity might defend us, but also that we might become righteous in Him, for He is not only righteous for Himself, but He is our righteousness.” Calvin. See also a long note in Wordsworth, to show that Jehovah our Righteousness refers to Christ;—S. R. A.]
“The character of a true church is when the Lytrum, the ransom-money of Jesus Christ, is known and valued by all, and when they have written this secret, foolish and absolutely inscrutable to reason, in the heart with the finger of the living God: that Jesus by His blood has taken away the sins of the world. ‘O let it ne’er escape my thought, at what a price my soul was bought.’ This is the evening and morning prayer of every church, which is a true sister from above.” Zinzendorf.
19. On Jer_23:5-8. “The return under Ezra was also a fulfilment of this promise, but inferior and preliminary: not all came, and those who did come brought their sins back with them. They were still under the Law and had to wait for Righteousness; still in their return they had a pledge that the Messiah was yet to come and prepare the true city of peace. Now, however, all has been long fulfilled and we can enjoy it perfectly, if we have the mind for it. We have now a country of which no tyrant can rob us; our walk and citizenship is in heaven. We have been delivered from all our suffering, when we sit down at the feet of Jesus to hear His word. Then there is a power of resurrection within us, So that we can fly with our souls beyond the world and laugh at all our foes. For Christ has made us righteous by His daily forgiveness, so that we may also bring ourselves daily into heaven. Yea verily, the kingdom of heaven is come very nigh unto us! Jeremiah then longed to see and hear this more nearly, and now we can have it.” Diedrich.
20. On Jer_23:9. “Great love renders God’s servant so ardent, that he deals powerful blows on the seducers. He does not think that he has struck a wasp’s nest and embittered his life here forever, for he has a higher life and gives the lower one willingly for love. Yet all the world will hold him for an incorrigible and mad enthusiast, who spares no one. He says himself that he is as it were drunk with God and His word, when he on the other hand contemplates the country.” Diedrich.
21. On Jer_23:11. “They are rogues. They know how to find subterfuges, and I would like to see him who accuses a false and unfaithful teacher, and manages his own case so that he does not himself come into the dilemma.” Zinzendorf.
22. On Jer_23:13-14. “In the prophets of Samaria I see folly. This is the character which the Lord gives to error, false religion, heterodoxy. But in the prophets of Jerusalem I find abomination. This is the description of the or thodox, when they apply their doctrine, so that either the wicked are strengthened or no one is converted.” Zinzendorf.
23. On Jer_23:15. “From the prophets of Jerusalem hypocrisy goes forth into all the land. This is the natural consequence of the superiority, which the consistories, academies, ministers, etc., have and in due measure ought to have, that when they become corrupt they communicate their corruption to the whole region, and it is apparent in the whole land what sort of theologians sit at the helm.” Zinzendorf.
24. On Jer_23:16. Listen not to the words of the prophets, they deceive you. Luther says (Altenb. Tom. II. p. 330): “But a Christian has so much power that he may and ought to come forward even among Christians and teach, where he sees that the teacher himself is wanting,” etc.; and “The hearers altogether have the right to judge and decide concerning all doctrine. Therefore the priests and liveried Christians have snatched this office to themselves; because, if this office remained in the church, the aforesaid could retain nothing for their own.” (Altenb. Tom. II. p. 508).—The exercise of this right on the part of members of the church has its difficulties. May not misunderstanding, ignorance, even wickedness cause this to be a heavy and unjust pressure on the ministers of the word, and thus mediately tend to the injury of the church? Certainly. Still it is better for the church to exercise this right than not to do so. The former is a sign of spiritual life, the latter of spiritual death. It will be easier to find a corrective for some extravagances than to save a church become religiously indifferent from the fate of Laodicea (Rev_3:16).
25. On Jer_23:16. [“But here a question may be raised, How can the common people understand that some speak from God’s mouth, and that others propound their own glosses? I answer, That the doctrine of the Law was then sufficient to guide the minds of the people, provided they closed not their eyes; and if the Law was sufficient at that time, God does now most surely give us a clearer light by His prophets, and especially by His Gospel.” Calvin—S. R. A.]
26. On Jer_23:17. “The pastors, who are welcome and gladly seen at a rich man’s table, wish him in fact long life, good health, and all prosperity. What they wish they prophesy. This is not unnatural; but he who is softened by it is ill-advised.” Zinzendorf.
27. On Jer_23:21. [“There is a twofold call; one is internal, the other belongs to order, and may therefore be called external or ecclesiastical. But the external call is never legitimate, except it be preceded by the internal; for it does not belong to us to create prophets, or apostles, or pastors, as this is the special work of the Holy Spirit. … But it often happens that the call of God is sufficient, especially for a time. For when there is no church, there is no remedy for the evil, except God raise up extraordinary teachers.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
28. On Jer_23:22. “If I knew that my teacher was a most abominable miscreant, personally, and in heart the worst enemy of God in his parish; so long as, for any reason, he preaches, expounds, develops, inculcates the word of God; even though he should betray here and there in his expressions, that this word was not dwelling in him; if only he does not ex professo at one time throw down what at another time he teaches of good and true quasi aliud agendo: I assure you before the Lord that I should fear to censure his preaching.” Zinzendorf.
29. On Jer_23:23. “ God’s essential attribute is Omnipresence. For He is higher than heaven, what canst thou do? deeper than hell, what canst thou know? Longer than the earth and broader than the sea (Job_4:8). And He is not far from every one of us (Act_17:27).” Cramer.—“We often think God is quite far from us, when He is yet near to us, has us in His arms, presses us to His heart and kisses us.” Luther.—“ When we think the Sun of righteousness, Jesus, is not risen, and is still behind the mountain, and will not come to us, He is yet nearest to us. The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. (Psa_34:19) ”—“Deus et omni et nullo loco “—” Cuncta Deus replens molem se fundit in omnem.” MS. notes to my copy of Cramer’s Bibel.—“ Si vis peccare, O homo, quære tibi locum, ubi Deus non videat.” Augustine.
30. On Jer_23:28. [“When any one rejects the wheat because it is covered with chaff, and who will pity him who says that he has indeed wheat on his floor, but that it is mixed with chaff, and therefore not fit for food? … If we be negligent, and think that it is a sufficient excuse for despising the Word of God, because Satan brings in his fallacies, we shall perish in our sloth like him who neglects to cleanse his wheat that he might turn it to bread.” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
He who cannot restrain his mouth or his ink let him expectorate. But let him say openly and honestly that they are his own dreams, which he preaches. The false prophets certainly know that mere falsehood is empty straw. They therefore always mingle some of the genuine word of God amongst it. An unavailing mixture! It is in this mingling that Satan’s highest art is displayed, so that he at the same time furthers his own work and testifies against himself. Comp. Genesis 3
31. On Jer_23:29. God’s word is the highest reality, life and power, while the dreams of the false prophets are pretence, death and weakness. God’s word is therefore compared to a fire which burns, warms, and enlightens, so that it burns up the hardest flint, melts the thickest ice, illuminates the deepest obscurities. It is compared further to a hammer which crushes the hardest rocks into sand.—He who mingles God’s wheat among his straw, will find that the wheat will become fire and burn up the straw (1Co_3:12-15). He Who handles the word of the Lord purely, let him not despair if he sees before him hearts of adamant (Zec_7:12). He who seeks peace is not ashamed to bow beneath the hammer of the word. For the destructive power of the word applies to that in us which is opposed to God, while the God-related elements are loosed and set free by those very crushing blows.—He, however, to whom the peace of God is an object of derision, may feed on the straw of this world. But how will it be when finally the day comes that God will come upon him with fire and hammer? What then remains to him as the result of his straw-diet, which is in a condition to withstand the blows of the hammer and the fire?
Help, Lord, against Thy scornful foes,
Who seek our souls to lead astray;
Whose mockeries at mortal woes
Will end in terrible dismay!
Grant that Thy holy word may root
Deep in our hearts, and richer fruit
May ever bear to endless day.
“God’s word converts, all other doctrine befools.” Luther.
32. On Jer_23:29. “God’s word in general is like a fire: the more it is urged the more widely and brightly it extends. God has caused His word to be proclaimed to the world as a matter, which they can dispense with as little as fire. Fire often smoulders long in secret before it breaks out, thus the power of the divine word operates in its time. God’s word can make people as warm as if glowing coals lay upon them; it shines as brightly upon them, as if a lamp were held under their eyes; it tells every one the truth and purifies from all vices. He who deals evilly with God’s word burns himself by it, he who opposes it is consumed by it. But the word of God is as little to blame as a lamp or a fire when an unskilful person is burned by it. Yet it happens that often it will not be suffered in the world, then there is fire in all the streets. That is the unhappy fire of persecution, which is kindled incidentally in the world by the preaching of the Gospel.” Jos. Conr. Schaller, Pastor at Cautendorf, Sermons on the Gospels, 1742.
33. On Jer_23:30. “Teachers and preachers are not to steal their sermons from other books, but take them from the Bible, and testify that which they speak from their inward experience (Joh_3:11). False teachers steal God’s word, inventing a foreign meaning for it, and using this for the palliation of their errors.” Starke—“Hinc illi ζῆλοι at auctions, who can obtain this or that good book, this or that manuscript? Here they are thus declared to be plagiarios; and they are necessarily so because they are not taught of God. But I would rather they would steal from true men of God than from each other.”—Zinzendorf.
34. On Jer_23:33-40. “ When the word of God becomes intolerable to men, then men in their turn become intolerable to our Lord God; yea, they are no more than inutile pondus terræ, which the land can no more bear, therefore they must be winnowed out, Jer_15:17.” Cramer.
35. On Jer_24:5-7. “ He who willingly and readily resigns himself to the will of God even to the cross, may escape misfortune. But he who opposes himself to the hand of God cannot escape.” Cramer.—“The captives are dearest to God. By the first greater affliction He prepares their souls for repentance and radical conversion, so that He has in them again His people and inheritance. O the gracious God, that He allows even those who on account of sin must be so deeply degraded and rendered slaves, even in such humiliation to be His people! The captives are forgiven their opposition to God; they are separated from the number of nations existing in the world, politically they are dead and banished to the interior. Now, God will show them what His love can do; they shall return, and in true nearness to God be His true Israel.” Diedrich.
36. On Jer_24:7. [“Since He affirms that He would give them a heart to understand, we hence learn that men are by nature blind, and also that when they are blinded by the devil they cannot return to the right way, and that they cannot be otherwise capable of light than by having God to illuminate them by His Spirit. … This passage also shows, that we cannot really turn to God until we acknowledge Him to be the Judge; for until the sinner sets himself before God’s tribunal he will never be touched with the feeling of true repentance. … Though God rules the whole world. He yet declares that He is the God of the Church; and the faithful whom He has adopted He favors with this high distinction, that they are His people; and He does this that they may be persuaded that there is safety in Him, according to what is said by Habakkuk, ‘Thou art our God, we shall not die’ (Hab_1:12). And of this sentence Christ Himself is the best interpreter, when He says, that He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Luk_20:38).” Calvin.—S. R. A.]
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jer_21:8. This text may be used on all occasions when an important decision is to be made or on the entrance on a new section of life, as, e. g., at synods, diets, New Years, beginning of the church-year, at confirmations, weddings, installations, etc. What the present day demands and promises: I. It demands from us an important choice. II. It promises us, according as we choose, life or death.
2. On Jer_22:2-9. In how far the divine election is conditional and unconditional. I. It is conditional with respect to individual elected men, places, things. For 1, these become partakers of the salvation promised by the election only by behaviour well-pleasing to God; 2, if they behave in a manner displeasing to God, the election does not protect them from destruction. II. The election is unconditional with respect to the eternal ideas lying at the foundation of the single appearances, and their absolute realizations.
3. On Jer_22:24. [Payson:—“The punishment of the impenitent inevitable and justifiable. I. To mention some awful instances in which God has verified this declaration: (a), the apostate angels; (b) our first parents; (c) destruction of mankind by the flood; (d) the children of Israel; (e) Moses, David, the disobedient prophet, Christ. II. Some of the reasons for such a declaration. Not a disposition to give pain or desire for revenge. It is the nature and tendency of sin to produce misery.”—S. R. A.]
4. On Jer_23:5-6. The Son of David. What the prophet declares of Him is fourfold: 1. He will Himself be righteous; 2. He will rule well as king and execute judgment and righteousness; 3. He will be our righteousness; 4. Under Him shall Judah be helped and Israel dwell safely.
5. On Jer_23:14. [Lathrop: “The horrible guilt of those who strengthen the hands of the wicked. 1. All sin is horrible in its nature. 2. This is to oppose the government of the Almighty. 3. It directly tends to the misery of mankind. 4. It supports the cause of the Evil Spirit. 5. It is to become partakers of their sins. 6. It is horrible as directly contrary to the command of God, and marked with His peculiar abhorrence.”—S. R. A.]
6. On Jer_23:23-24. The Omnipresence of God. 1. What it means. God is everywhere present, (a). He fills heaven and earth; (b) there is no removal from Him in space; (c) nothing is hidden from Him. 2. There is in this for us (a) a glorious consolation, (b) an earnest admonition. [Charnock, Jortin, and Wesley have sermons on this text, all of very similar outline. The following are Jortin’s practical conclusions; “ This doctrine 1. Should lead us to seek to resemble God’s perfections 2. Should deter us from sin. 3. Should teach us humility. 4. Should encourage us to reliance and contentment, to faith and hope.”—S. R. A.]
7. On Jer_23:29-30. God’s Word and man’s word. 1. The former is life and power (wheat, fire, hammer). The latter pretence and weakness (dream, straw). 2. The two are not to be mixed with each other. [Cecil: This shows 1. The vanity of all human imaginations in religion, (a). What do they afford to man? (b). How much do they hinder? 2. The energy of spiritual truth. Let us entreat God that our estimate may be practical.—S. R. A.]
8. On Jer_24:1-10. The good and bad figs an emblem of humanity well-pleasing and displeasing to God. 1. The prisoners and broken-hearted are, like the good figs, well-pleasing to God. For (a) they know the Lord and turn to Him; (b) He is their God and they are His people. 2. Those who dwell proudly and securely are displeasing to God, like the bad figs. For (a) they live on in foolish blindness; (b) they challenge the judgment of God.
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 vv28–29 broken idol--Coniah was idolized once by the Jews; Jeremiah,…
broken idol--Coniah was idolized once by the Jews; Jeremiah, therefore, in their person, expresses their astonishment at one from whom so much had been expected being now so utterly cast aside.
vessel . . . no pleasure-- (Psa 31:12; Hos 8:8). The answer to this is given (Rom 9:20-23; contrast Ti2 2:21).
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his seed--(See on Jer 22:29).
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 vv28–30 28. Idol — Rather, vessel. Is the king a…
28. Idol — Rather, vessel. Is the king a mere piece of broken and worthless pottery?
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 vv28–30 28. vessel] mg. pot, but rather, “a terra-cotta figurine,”…
28. vessel] mg. pot, but rather, “a terra-cotta figurine,” Encycl. Bibl. III. 3818, quoted by Dr.
wherein is no pleasure] For the expression cp. Jer_48:38; Hos_8:8.
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 vv28–30 (28) Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol?—Better,…
(28) Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol?—Better, a broken piece of handiwork. The word is not the same as that elsewhere rendered “idol,” though connected with it, and the imagery which underlies the words is not that of an idol which men have worshipped and flung away, but of the potter (as in Jer_19:11) rejecting and breaking what his own hands have made. (Comp. Psa_2:9; Psa_31:12.) The question implies an affirmative answer. The prophet speaks as identifying himself with those who gazed with wonder and pity at the doom which fell on one so young, and yet not the less does he pronounce that doom to be inevitable.
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 vv28–30 Is this man Coniah, etc.? The prophet"s human feelings…
Is this man Coniah, etc.? The prophet"s human feelings are stirred; he cannot withhold his sympathy from the sad fate of his king. What! he exclaims; is it possible that this Coniah is treated as a piece of ill-wrought pottery ware, (comp. Jer_18:4) and "hurled" into a strange land? He and his seed. These words have caused some difficulty, owing to the youth, of Jehoiachin. According to 2Ki_24:8 he was only eighteen when he was carried captive, while 2Ch_36:9 makes him still younger, only eight (Josiah"s age on his accession). Hitzig thinks the latter number is to be preferred; his chief reasons are the prominence given to the queen-mother, and the fact that the length of Jehoiachin"s reign is given with more precise accuracy in 2 Chronicles than in 2 Kings. It is true that the king"s wives are mentioned in 2Ki_24:15. But that he had wives may, according to Hitzig, have been inferred by the late compiler of Kings from the passage before us; or the "wives" may have been those of Jehoiachin"s predecessor. (comp. 2Sa_16:21) Graf"s conjecture is, perhaps, the safest view of the case, whether we accept the number eighteen or the number eight; it is that the "seed" spoken of as born to Jehoiachin in his captivity, and is reckoned to him by anticipation. It should be mentioned, however, that the Septuagint omits "he and his seed" altogether.
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 v29 O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the…
Jer_22:29
O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.
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The treble urgency of the Gospel call
I. The Gospel call may well be pressed with threefold emphasis, when we consider the limitation it implies as respects the parties addressed: it is addressed to men and not to angels--it is addressed to earth as contradistinguished from hell. Between these two worlds, behold the Bible, like the cloud between Israel and Egypt, with a side of brightness for the former and a side of darkness for the latter! It is surely a solemnly affecting and suggestive thought that, while the Sun of Righteousness is flinging His splendours over the earth, there is another fallen world very differently circumstanced. Do you not feel your soul, at the very thought, concentrating its energies on the inquiry, What is the Gospel message, and what are the terms it proclaims? Will not the sinking crew turn to the lifeboat that is making directly for them, and that all the more eagerly that they discern around them a foaming sea strown rough with wrecks? Will not the patient turn to the physician that proffers his aid, and grasp at the prepared medicine with all the greater eagerness that he is given to understand that no other physician is within reach, though pestilence stalks all around him? And shall we not ply the Gospel call with treble emphasis, and wilt not thou listen to it with treble interest, that it proclaims a Saviour for men, over the head of angels--that it names our earth, but names not hell?
II. Universal as my text is, it carries a limitation as respects time: it is addressed to men in time, not in eternity--to the earth as it is now, not as it shall be hereafter.
1. As respects the individual, God limiteth a certain day, saying, Today, if ye will hear, etc. Each has his allotted time of probation, his day of grace. Now is that time, that golden day - the time of acceptance. Come, fellow sinner; come as you are; come now; touch the golden sceptre, and live forever.
2. God has also limited a certain time for our world as a whole. There is a certain hour known to God when He will address the commission to Jesus, Thrust in Thy sickle, etc. Momentous harvest! The earth even now is rapidly ripening. All will be astir and in earnest then; but many, alas! will awake, not to touch mercys sceptre, or the folds of her garment, but to catch the echo of her last farewell.
III. This triple emphasis will be still further accounted for if we consider the universality of the gospel call: it is addressed to the whole race, and not to part of it merely. All the seeming limitations in Scripture of the universal call are, in fact, the strongest proofs of its universality. Were I now to press the appeal in my text on different classes--the old, the young, the abandoned, the careless, or the anxious,--every candid man would understand that my specifying one class implied no exclusion of others, but was merely intended to give point and pungency to my appeal by breaking down the universal call into its particular applications, and thus rightly dividing the word of truth. On this obvious principle are we to explain such descriptive phrases as hungry, thirsty, weary, heavy-laden, which some have regarded as denoting incipient spiritual attainments, or subjective qualifying prerequisites, which the sinner must have before he is entitled to believe the Gospel. Far from it. They express not our holiness but our misery, not our riches but our poverty, whether we have caught a glimpse of Christs fulness or not. Wide as the reach of Satans rage, doth His salvation flow. Let us share in our Saviours spirit. Let the universality of the Gospel provision lead us increasingly to realise the wants and woes and claims of the unnumbered myriads of mankind. It is here that the fire of missionary and evangelistic zeal is to be kindled.
IV. We shall cease to wonder at the threefold emphasis here imparted to the Gospel call when we reflect on the facts it presupposes as to the condition of the world.
1. It supposes the world to be in a state of danger, for a threefold call to the earth, so pointed and energetic, implies that no ordinary catastrophe impends over the world. It is precisely such an impassioned appeal as would be given forth on the outbreak of some public danger, such as fire, or flood, or hostile invasion.
2. But, further, and as a frightful aggravation of the danger, the world is, to a lamentable extent, in a state of insensibility to it. This, too, is implied in the appeal of our text. It represents the world as asleep: hence the call O earth; and because that sleep is profound, the call is redoubled, O earth, earth; and because the world sleeps on, wrapped in a slumber deep as death, a third time peals the call, each louder than before. Some years ago, two or three men were seen floating asleep in a boat on the river Niagara, and were already among the rapids. Loud and long were the calls addressed to them by the spectators on the river side; but the unhappy men awoke only to utter a wild shriek of despair as they were borne over the tremendous verge. This, by no means an isolated case, aptly illustrates the sinners danger as he floats down the stream of time, his insensibility thereto, and the loud warnings addressed to him, both by God and man, to shake off the slumberous spell, and turn while he may to the matte of safety. Say not, If I am asleep, I am not responsible. You are not in this sense asleep. You are responsible; for you are an agent rational, intelligent, moral, voluntary, unfettered and free. You are responsible; for, if you believe man, you can believe God; you can give that attention to the Bible which you lavish on the things of time; you can think upon your souls salvation with the same faculties that you exert on your business or pleasures; and if you are reluctant to do so, this is not your misfortune, remember, but your crime.
V. The Gospel call may well be urged with threefold emphasis when we consider the quarter whence it comes: it is not of earth, but from heaven--it is not the word of man, but the word of the Lord. The King of heaven gives forth an utterance from His everlasting throne, but the worms of His footstool will not deign to give Him audience. Louder and louder speaks the voice which at first spake us into being--and could at any moment revoke that being,--but men sleep on; they will not consider; they say, Who is the Lord that He should reign over us? Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. Disbelieve man if you will, spurn authority, trample on the tenderest of human ties, but oh, address not yourself to a sin that towers in solitary magnitude far above all these--venture not on the supreme blasphemy of making the God of truth and love a liar.
VI. The Gospel call may well be plied with treble emphasis if we consider the precious import of the message it proclaims: it is a word of Gospel, or good news, and not of authority merely--when it might have been a word of wrath. Ah, this deepens the dye still further, of the sin of unbelief--a perpetration of which earth, and earth alone, is the theatre. The light of Gods love in the glorious Gospel makes the darkness of human rebellion the more appallingly visible; and the thought that such mercy is within reach, and yet such wrath is in reserve--that mans destination, if not high heaven must be some nethermost abyss: ah, this, considering the magnitude of the interests involved, may well make us to intensify, redouble, and treble the call, O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord! (T. Guthrie, D.D.)
The Divine appeal to man
I. The Characters Addressed O earth, earth, earth,! By earth, we are to understand the dwellers on earth--man the lord of this lower creation; andlooking to its origin, the term is one that is appropriately employed to designate man.
1. When addressed as earth, we are reminded of our native origin. Man is of the earth, earthy. God made man of the dust of the ground. What, then, becomes of the boastings of man? How foolish the pride of pedigree, the pride of descent! The sable sons of Africa, the swarthy Hindoo, the Red Indian of America, the stunted Esquimaux, the tribes of Europe, and of all the islands of the sea, have all of them a common origin: they are all of them of the earth, earthy.
2. When addressed as earth we are reminded also of our true nature. We are not only from the earth, but we are of the earth. Dust thou art, is the true description of every man, of every child of man. Yes, what is that muscular frame but brittle earth? What is that beautiful countenance but tinted earth? What are those sparkling eyes but transparent earth? What are those sensitive nerves so keenly alive to pleasure and to pain, what are they but fine filaments of earth? What is that amazing structure the brain, the seat of the thinking powers, but just a curiously wrought mass of earth?
3. When addressed as earth, we are reminded of the source of our supplies. Not only are our bodies of the earth earthy, but it is from the earth that we derive all that is essential to their sustenance and comfort. It is on its kindly surface that we erect our habitations. It is from its yearly replenished storehouse that we derive the staff of life. It is thence we draw our supplies of corn, of wine, and of oil, while from its copious fountains issue those crystal streams that fertilise our fields and quench our thirst, and in other ways minister to our comfort; and by this, too, we are reminded to moderate our desires. Bread and water are the supplies that the earth most copiously yields, and to these only does the promise extend, Thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure.
4. We are reminded, when we are addressed as earth, of the earthly state of our minds, that state which is so aptly expressed in the words of the Psalmist, My soul cleaveth unto the dust. The design of Gospel truth is to draw our affections from the world, to raise our minds above its grovelling pursuits, and to change the current of our desires, our feelings, and our affections; and for the effecting of all this it is perfectly competent, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to everyone that believeth. Why, then, is its success so limited? The reason is that the earthly is more potent than the heavenly, that the material outweighs the spiritual in our thoughts, affections, and desires.
5. We are reminded, when we are addressed as earth, of the tendency of us all. Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. These bodies, full of life and activity, must ere long drop into the grave. Those eyes now sparkling with life and intelligence, must ere long be closed in death. Those tongues, now eloquent with the language of hope and affection, must ere long be silent in the tomb. Upon that countenance, now flushed with the bloom of health, must ere long settle the damp dews of death. Let our thoughts and aspirations, then, be tending heavenward while our bodies are tending earthward. Let it be seen, that if our bodies are ripening for the grave our souls are ripening, for heaven.
II. The exercise that is enjoined. Hear the word of the Lord.
1. The subject of attention: The word of the Lord. In other words, the subject of that attention is the revealed will of God, the Holy Scriptures, the preached Gospel. It must be listened to, not as to a tale that is well told, not as to the voice of one that playeth well upon an instrument, but listened to with self-application, and with a believing heart.
2. This exercise of hearing the word of the Lord may be enforced by many considerations, especially when you take into account the Being who addresses you. It is God who speaks. It is He whose Word is life or death, which exalts to heaven or sinks to hell. Think of the Word itself, of the subject of which it treats. It is no indifferent theme on which it discourses. It is the Word of knowledge, it is the proclamation of mercy, it is the glad tidings of salvation. It is, too, a Word of judgment and of death, but only to those who contemn and refuse to hear it. And then, think of the universal adaptation of its truths. They are fitted for all, for saint and for sinner alike; for the most learned and the most illiterate; for the king upon the throne and the beggar by the wayside. Think, too, of your dying condition, as yet another consideration enforcing attention to the word of the Lord. Soon you may be beyond the reach of its tidings of mercy. (H. Hyslop.)
Jehovahs call to the earth
We know of persons who rise up early and sit up late, in order that they may accumulate riches, in order that they may follow their trade, or in order that they may enjoy the pleasures of sin; but how few there are who can say they prevent the night watches that they may meditate upon Gods Word!
I. In meditating upon Gods blessed Word, notice the authority with which it comes.
1. It has no title, save that which distinguishes it from all common communications, from all uninspired books. It is the Bible, which means emphatically the book, in distinction from every other book.
2. If you inquire as to its topics, its index, it is impossible to make a catalogue of these. Who can describe the truths, the doctrines, the promises, the precepts, the predictions that it contains?
3. Then you have to inquire respecting its Author. It is God--He that made us, He that sustains us, He that governs us, He alone that can bless us. The Bible is not anonymous, any more than the sun, the moon, the stars, or the sea, for it bears the impressive signature of the Divine name. It is not a fable. We have not followed cunningly-devised fables when we testify to you the great things of Gods Word. Oh, the riches, oh, the profundity of this inexhaustible Word! Christians have been drawing upon the resources of its wisdom; mighty preachers have been expounding its contents, scholars have been penetrating into its mysteries, the press has been pouring out dissertations and commentaries upon its mighty theme, and it is still unexhausted and inexhaustible; for it is like its infinite Author.
II. How we are to receive this communication, O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.
1. If we are to hear the Word of the Lord that our souls may live, our ears must be opened. Closed by prejudice, ignorance, and sin, closed by the imperfection and deceitfulness of our nature, the Holy Spirit must open our ears to hear: then we shall hearken diligently, we shall hear believingly, so that this Word will be the life of our souls.
2. As this Word comes to you there must be spiritual participation. Indeed, the reception of the Word of God is described as eating that Word; and the Word of God is described as bread which we are to eat, and the manna that came doom from heaven and fell around the camps of the children of Israel was understood to be the type of that living bread upon which we are to feed. It is receiving Christ by faith, it is believing on Him, that is eating the Word. Oh, for this spiritual participation of Gods blessed Word! May God give you a spiritual taste, and spiritual desires.
3. The Word of God is to be received or heard with spiritual joy. Come and take of the most precious things God has given in His Word--let your souls delight themselves in fatness. There are precious promises and precious doctrines, precious prophecies and precious precepts; yea, everything is precious; but the nearer you get to the Cross of Christ and the discovery of Gods love in the gift of His Son, the more precious, the more nourishing, the more comforting, and the more consoling will Divine truth be to your minds.
III. This word comes to different characters and in various ways.
1. In the first place, let me address the sceptic--the doubter. There is no discovery in science which does not tend to confirm the inspiration and credibility of Gods truth; and there is not an evolution of Providence which does not serve to illustrate some portion of Gods prophetic Word. Keep your eyes upon the movements of Providence, and you will find that God is continually unfurling His truth Recollect eternity, with its weal and its woe, stands upon the decision, whether you receive with reverence, or whether you despise or neglect the great salvation which the Word of God brings.
2. This Word comes a warning to the man absorbed in the anxious cares of time; and, says it, What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? This world cannot make you happy. Why spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not!
3. Then the Word of God speaks to the man who assents to Gods Word with his understanding, but denies it with his hearts affection--having the form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. God cannot be deceived by pretences, God cannot be mocked by external service.
4. The Word of God speaks to the sorrowful. It speaks generally to the mourning, Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. It speaks to the widow in her desolateness, and says, Thy Maker is thy husband. It speaks to the orphan and the fatherless, and gives them the assurance of protection. It speaks to the soul half-despairing under a consciousness of its sin, and saying, I am a great sinner, I do not know whether Christ will have compassion upon me and save me. You are a great sinner? Well, then, Christ is a great Saviour. It speaks to the timid believer, who is ready to say, I fear I shall some day fall by the temptations and allurements of the world. Fall! you cannot fall; you walk upon firm ground, and the arms of Almighty grace sustain you whilst you are unreservedly trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. (H. Dowson.)
Gods loud call to a sleeping world
;--On our rugged and water-worn shores you may often see a black wall of stone, as regular as if it had been built by human hands, running across the tide mark from the terrestrial vegetation down to the lip of the water at its lowest. It is a trap dyke, forced up when its matter was molten, through a fissure in the overlying strata, and appearing now a narrow band of rock, totally distinct both in colour and in kind from the surrounding surface. These protruding portions show that the material of which they consist lies in vast masses underneath. So the thin line of our text seems to protrude above a broad field of mingled prophecy and fact.
I. The manner of this cry. You may measure the danger which a monitor apprehends by the sharpness of the alarm which he gives. The earth itself, and all the creatures on it under man, have a quick ear for their Makers voice, and, never needing, never get a call so urgent. The alacrity of the creatures that lie either above or beneath him in the scale of creation brings out in higher relief the disobedience of man. Physically, earth is wide awake and watchful. It courses through the heavens without halting for rest, and threads its way among other stars without collision. The tide keeps its time and place. The rivers roll toward the sea, and the clouds fly on wings like eagles, hastening to pour their burdens into the rivers springheads, that though ever flowing they may be ever full. The earth is a diligent worker; it is not the sluggard who needs a threefold call to awake and begin. Equally alert are the various orders of life that crowd the worlds surface. Above our own place, too, angel spirits are like flames of fire in the quickness, and like stormy winds in the power, with which they serve their Maker. The cry of this text is meant for man; he needs it, and he only. When the polar winter threatens to freeze the navigators blood, rendering constant and violent exercise necessary to keep the currents moving, then it is that the man feels the greatest drowsiness. It is only by the vigilance of experienced chiefs that they are prevented from sinking into a sleep from which there is no awakening. This fact, and the law which rules it, constitute in the moral region the saddest feature in the condition of the world. They sleep most soundly who have most need to be wakeful. The guilt which brings upon a man Gods displeasure, so stupifies the senses of the man that he is not aware of danger, and does not try to escape.
II. The matter of this cry.
1. The speaker is the only living and true God. It is essential that our belief in the first principle of religion should be well defined and real. Religion may be faint and feckless, for want of a foundation in an actual belief that God is. That Christian education is a tally defective which does not leave upon the mind and conscience a practical sense of Gods being and presence, as the first principle of all truth and all duty.
2. The thing spoken is the Word of the Lord. It is not enough for us that God is near. He was not far from the men of Athens in the days of Paul, and yet He was to them the unknown God. He has broken the silence; He has revealed His will The Word of the Lord lies in the Scriptures.
(1) The Word of the Lord in the Scriptures is Mercy. If the message brought only vengeance, we could at least understand the voluntary deafness of the world. But it is strange that men will not listen to their best Friend; strange that the lost should shut their ears against a voice which publishes salvation.
(2) Still further, and more particularly, the Word of the Lord is Christ. The use of the Scriptures is to reveal Christ; if we reject Him, they cannot give us life.
3. The injunction to regard that Word O earth, earth, etc.
(1) The earth so summoned, has already, in a sense most interesting and important, heard the Word of the Lord. Christs kingdom is even now more powerful on the earth than any other kingdom. The power that lives in the conscience and links itself to God is, in point of fact, the most persistent and effective of all the powers which mould the character and history of the human race. It is great, is growing greater, and will yet be supreme.
(2) The earth through all its bounds will one day hear and obey the Word of the Lord. Saving truth lying in the hearts of saved men has a self-propagating power.
(3) When the earth hears its Lords word, forthwith it calls upon the Lord. Those who sail in air ships among the clouds, as others sail on the sea, tell us that every cry which they utter on high is answered by an echo from the earth beneath When the earth, spiritually susceptible, receives from heaven the sound, O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord, another cry forthwith arises, O heaven, heaven, heaven, hear the petition of sinful men upon the earth. God delights in that cry.
(4) Earth--that is, men in the body--should hear the Word of the Lord, for to them it brings a message of mercy. Now is the accepted time; this is the place of hope. Beware lest the sound that first awakens you be the crash of the gate when it shuts!
(5) Earth--the dust of the dead in Christ--shall hear the Word of the Lord, and shall come forth. (W. Arnot, D. D.)
The Divine appeal
I. The deep and awful concern of Jehovah for the soul of the sinner.
1. There is surely something peculiarly affecting and awful in this. Mark the concern of your Creator, deeply anxious about the noblest work of His skill and power. It is the concern of your Preserver, who hath watched you with His eye, led you by His hand, etc. It is the concern of a Saviour God, who spared not His own son, etc. This concern of Jehovah assumes a more amazing character when you think of the persons for whom it is manifested. These are not only creatures of a day, but creatures laden with iniquity, filled with corruption, at enmity with Himself, in rebellion against His law, and hastening unto perdition, without one plea for mercy, or one claim on His pity.
II. The strange stupidity and unconcern of the sinners to whom this appeal is made. We are blind and see not God; deaf, and hear Him not; dumb, and speak not to Him. We are, as Paul says, past feeling. Try this truth by a double experience. Try it first by the experience of those who never felt it. How else can you account for the fact that such appeals as this addressed to sinners by the living God, are often as unheeded as if the voice of the Eternal resounded through the charnel house of the tomb, or were lost amid the echoes of the desert? But try it by the opposite experience. Give me the sinner who has been startled by the voice of God, and aroused from the slumber of his carnality; give me the man with a broken spirit, who fears, hates, and mourns his manifold iniquities, and looks back upon his former state with shame and sorrow; and that is the man whose language will be, Oh! what a blinded being I was not to see my guilt and my Saviour sooner I what a stupid creature to go on as I have done neglecting my soul! what a hardened wretch to stand out so long against my God and Saviour!
III. An appeal to frail and dying creatures. This is always a melancholy and solemnising reflection;--we are earth. We spring from the dust and we hasten back to it. Old men, we appeal to you, and ask you how few have been the days since you were children? But how speedily now shall you be borne away from your frailties to the tomb! Young men, how rapidly are you and I hastening on to become the old men of our time! As to the children, do you not see how fast they are climbing the hill of life? But who will venture to say that things will take that natural course with us? Who can count upon a day, an hour, a moment? The thread of life is frail as the spiders web, and may be snapt by the feeblest breath. It may be now or never.
IV. God may be supposed to call the earth to witness that He has offered you salvation, and to be ready to testify that He has spoken to you, warned you, besought you to hear His word, and flee from the wrath to come, so that if you refuse the offered mercy, the very earth will lift up its voice against you to silence every excuse, and you shall stand speechless at the bar of the judgment. Will not heaven, and earth, and seas, and skies thus conspire to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, on that great and dreadful day? Will not the simple fact that He shall summon up our spirits to His bar from every hiding place, turn these places into witnesses? Will not the fact that He shall gather our dust from the four winds, from the bottom of the sea, or from the silence of the grave, turn these elements into witnesses? Will not thus the Omniscient God turn the air we breathe, the light we behold, the dust on which we tread, every object we touch, every scene we visit, into a witness for or against us?
V. Apply the text to those who have believed this Word of the Lord. Having felt concern for your own souls, you will feel for the souls of others. You know the preciousness of Christ, and the value of souls. You perceive the danger you have escaped, but to which multitudes are still exposed. You can see yonder long, deep, gloomy phalanx of immortal souls rushing on and rolling over the brink of time into the abyss of eternity. You have entered in some small measure into Gods own views of their state. Having these views, you will, you must feel deep and distressing concern for them. You will plead for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost to raise up labourers, to qualify and send them, and give them success in winning souls. You will do more. You will put your own hand to the work as God Himself does. Is He to give all, and we nothing? Is He to do all, and we not to be fellow workers with Him? Shall He give the word, and we not publish it abroad? (John Walker.)
The earth and Gods Word
I. Earths attention to the divine word is of the utmost importance.
1. The earth is under condemnation; His Word can alone gain its acquittal
2. The earth is in moral darkness; His Word can alone enlighten it.
3. The earth is in bondage; His Word alone can liberate it.
4. The earth is in misery; His Word alone can relieve it.
II. Earths indifference to the divine word is very stolid.
1. This indifferentism has always been awfully prevalent.
2. This indifferentism is monstrously irrational.
3. This indifferentism cannot always continue. (Homilist.)
An exclamation
I. The solemn address to the children of men.
1. The expression is a metonymy, in which the container is put for the contained; but as man is of the earth earthy, it is also descriptive of his mortality. The expression, O earth, earth, earth! when properly heard, is well calculated to bring down the lofty looks of man, and to produce humility in the place of pride.
2. The repetition of the word earth, is used to command greater attention. This way of arresting the attention was very common amongst the Roman and Grecian orators.
3. When preceded by the interjection O or Oh! the repetition generally expresses uncommon emotion or grief (2Sa_18:33).
II. The important object to which their attention is called.
1. The Word of the Lord demands our attention, because it is the most interesting Book.
2. The Word of the Lord demands our attention, because it contains the most and best information of any book of the size.
3. But O earth, earth, earth, hear the Word of the Lord! for there are the words of eternal life. (B. Bailey.)
Gods voice to man
I. Specify some respects in which we should hear Gods voice.
1. In the still small voice of heavenly mercy.
2. In the loud thunder of Gods providential dispensation.
3. In your personal and relative afflictions.
4. In the ample promises and encouragements addressed to returning penitents.
II. Enumerate some reasons why the whole earth is interested in these communications.
1. Because the Gospel shows the only plan of salvation.
2. Because the progressive improvement and advancement of the race is connected with this message.
3. Because the success of missionary work shows the practicability of diffusing it.
4. Because the signs of the times are in direct accord with the promises of God. (S. Thodey.)
A call to hear the Word of the Lord
I. The subject on the address.
1. The Word of the Lord is unwritten as well as written.
2. It is threatening as well as promising.
II. The duty inculcated in the address.
1. To hear and understand.
2. To hear and obey.
3. To hear and make known to others.
III. The style of the address; apostrophe.
1. The universality of its range.
2. The earnestness and affection of its spirit. (G. Brooks.)
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The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v29 Land, Land, Land
Land, Land, Land
Yahweh speaks his message to all the people of the land by calling out to the land where they live. The title is repeated to call attention to the message. (See: Apostrophe)
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He will be childless
Jehoiachin has several sons. This phrase, then, means it is as if he was childless. His children will not succeed him as king. AT: "It will be as if he did not have any children" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
sit on David's throne
Sitting on a throne is a metonym for ruling as king. AT: "become king" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
word of God
David
throne
rule
kingdom of Judah
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 vv28–30 22:28-30 This poem, a taunt directed at Jehoiachin, included…
22:28-30 This poem, a taunt directed at Jehoiachin, included two rhetorical questions with the expected answer, “I don’t know.” However, Jehoiachin’s sins and those of his forefathers were the reasons for his fate. Still, the people of Jerusalem seemed unwilling to accept the justice of his exile.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.