It is because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, That have shed the blood of the just in the middle of her.
Parallel Translations
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It is because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, That have shed the blood of the just in the middle of her.
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For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
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It is because of the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her.
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Passages linked to Lamentations 4:13 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?
- Jeremiah 6:13 “For from their least even to their greatest, everyone is given to covetousness. From the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely.
- Jeremiah 26:8-9 When Jeremiah had finished speaking all that Yahweh had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You shall surely die! Why have you prophesied in Yahweh’s name, saying, ‘This house will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, without inhabitant?’ ” All the people were crowded around Jeremiah in Yahweh’s house.
- Lamentations 2:14 Your prophets have seen false and foolish visions for you. They have not uncovered your iniquity, to reverse your captivity, but have seen for you false revelations and causes of banishment.
- Ezekiel 22:26-28 Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths. So I am profaned among them. Her princes within it are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, that they may get dishonest gain. Her prophets have plastered for them with whitewash, seeing false visions, and divining lies to them, saying, ‘The Lord Yahweh says,’ when Yahweh has not spoken.
- Matthew 23:31 Therefore you testify to yourselves that you are children of those who killed the prophets.
- Jeremiah 2:20 “For long ago I broke off your yoke, and burst your bonds. You said, ‘I will not serve;’ for on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed yourself, playing the prostitute.
- Jeremiah 14:14 Then Yahweh said to me, “The prophets prophesy lies in my name. I didn’t send them. I didn’t command them. I didn’t speak to them. They prophesy to you a lying vision, divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own heart.
- Jeremiah 23:11-21 for both prophet and priest are profane. Yes, in my house I have found their wickedness,” says Yahweh. Therefore their way will be to them as slippery places in the darkness. They will be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil on them, even the year of their visitation,” says Yahweh. “I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err. In the prophets of Jerusalem I have also seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one returns from his wickedness. They have all become to me as Sodom, and its inhabitants as Gomorrah.” Therefore Yahweh of Armies says concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink poisoned water; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has gone out into all the land.” Yahweh of Armies says, “Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They teach you vanity. They speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of Yahweh. They say continually to those who despise me, ‘Yahweh has said, “You will have peace;” ’ and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his own heart they say, ‘No evil will come on you.’ For who has stood in the council of Yahweh, that he should perceive and hear his word? Who has listened to my word, and heard it? Behold, Yahweh’s storm, his wrath, has gone out. Yes, a whirling storm: It will burst on the head of the wicked. Yahweh’s anger will not return until he has executed, and until he has performed the intents of his heart. In the latter days, you will understand it perfectly. I didn’t send these prophets, yet they ran. I didn’t speak to them, yet they prophesied.
- Micah 3:11-12 Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, “Isn’t Yahweh among us? No disaster will come on us.” Therefore Zion for your sake will be plowed like a field, and Jerusalem will become heaps of rubble, and the mountain of the temple like the high places of a forest.
- Zephaniah 3:3-4 Her princes within her are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves. They leave nothing until the next day. Her prophets are arrogant and treacherous people. Her priests have profaned the sanctuary. They have done violence to the law.
- Matthew 23:33-37 You serpents, you offspring of vipers, how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna? Therefore behold, I send to you prophets, wise men, and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify; and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city; that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom you killed between the sanctuary and the altar. Most certainly I tell you, all these things will come upon this generation. “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!
- Luke 11:47-51 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. So you testify and consent to the works of your fathers. For they killed them, and you build their tombs. Therefore also the wisdom of God said, ‘I will send to them prophets and apostles; and some of them they will kill and persecute, that the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.’ Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.
- Acts 7:52 Which of the prophets didn’t your fathers persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, of whom you have now become betrayers and murderers.
- 1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and don’t please God, and are contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain The Prophet, as in a matter fully proved, rebukes…
The Prophet, as in a matter fully proved, rebukes the Jews, that he might, as it was necessary, bring down their pride. Had he at first condemned the wickedness of the prophets and the priests, no credit would have been given to his word. But after he had set before them what we have observed, and especially after he had shewn that the ruin of the city was a kind of prodigy, what he now adds must have been certainly inferred, even that the Jews had in so many ways and with such pertinacity provoked God, that it became necessary that they should be wholly destroyed, as it happened.
But he points out here the sins by which God’s wrath hart been kindled against. the people. He then says that the fountain or the origin was ill the prophets and priests. Now, we have elsewhere explained that the fault was not removed from the people when the prophets and the priests were thus condemned. Indeed, the common people readily exonerate themselves when they can plead ignorance, or say that they have been deceived by their teachers and leaders. But when Jeremiah imputes the chief part of the evils to the prophets and priests, he does not, as I have said, devolve on them the fault of the people, but intimates that their physicians had been as it were impostors. For when the people corrupted themselves, the prophets were sent for this end, to apply a remedy to their evils, and so also were the priests; for we know that it was a duty enjoined on them to retain the people in true religion and in the worship of God. In short, Jeremiah shows that the people had been ruined, because corruption had begun with the prophets and the priests; or, which is the same thing, that die sins of the people had proved fatal, because their heads or chiefs were diseased; because, he says, of the sin of the prophets, and the iniquity of the priests, etc.
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He mentions one kind of sins, that they shed the blood of the righteous in the midst of Jerusalem They had no doubt led the people astray in other things, for they flattered their vices, and gave loose reins to licentiousness; but the Prophet here fixed on one particular sin, the most grievous; for they had not only, by their errors and false doctrines and flatteries, led away the people from the fear of God, but had also obstinately defended their impiety, and by force and cruelty repressed their faithful teachers, and put to death the witnesses of God; for by the righteous or just he no doubt means the prophets. For what Jerome and others say, that blood had been shed because false teachers draw souls to perdition, is frivolous and wholly foreign to what Jeremiah had in view; for the word righteous cannot be applied to those miserable men who were ensnared to their own ruin. Then Jeremiah, after having denounced the sin of the prophets and the iniquity of the priests, mentions the savage cruelty, which was as it were the summit of all their riches. Though, then, they had in various ways provoked God, yet this was their extreme wickedness, that they exercised so great a cruelty against God’s servants, that they constrained as it were the Holy Spirit to be silent. For when the despisers of God went so far as to give themselves up to shed innocent blood, it was a proof of a diabolical obstinacy. We now, then, understand what the Prophet had here in view.
Now this passage teaches us, that Satan has from the beginning polluted the sanctuary of God by means even of sacred names: for the prophetic office was honorable — so also was the sacerdotal. God had established among his people the priesthood, which was as it were a living image of Christ: there was then nothing more excellent than the priesthood under the Law, if we regard the institution of God. It was also a singular blessing that God promised that his people should never be without prophets. As, then, prophets and priests were two eyes as it were in the Church, the devil turned them to every kind of profanation. This example then reminds us how much we ought to watch, lest empty titles deceive us, which are nothing but masks or specters. When we hear the name of Church and of pastors, we ought reverently to regard the office as well as the order which has proceeded from God, provided we are not content with naked titles, but examine whether the reality also corresponds. Thus we see that the whole world has for many ages degenerated from true religion; under what pretext? even this, — that those who led astray miserable souls, boasted that they were the vicars of Christ, the successors of the apostles, so that they still arrogantly boast of these titles, and are inflated with them. But we see what happened in the time of Jeremiah.
We have had before similar passages; but this ought to be carefully noticed, for it says, that prophets and priests had destroyed the very Church of God. It was, indeed, a very grievous trial, and therefore a powerful instrument, as it were, for subverting the faith of the simple, when they saw that the very prophets and priests were the cause of ruin; but it behooved the faithful constantly to persevere in their obedience to the law. And we ought at the same time to remember what I have said, that the Prophet enhances the wickedness of the people, because the priests and the prophets themselves had been infected with impiety and contempt of God, and not only so, but they had exercised tyrannical cruelty towards the servants of God. It follows, —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain He meaneth that these things are come to pass…
He meaneth that these things are come to pass therefore, contrary to all men’s expectation.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Lam 4:13 For the sins of her prophets, [and]…
Lam 4:13 For the sins of her prophets, [and] the iniquities of her priests, that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her,
Ver. 13. For the sins of her prophets.] These, these were the right cause of her ruin. Not that the people were not faulty - for they "loved to have it so" {Jer 5:31} - but those were the ringleaders in that general defection.
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 Not for their sins alone who were the false…
Not for their sins alone who were the false prophets and Baal’s priests, but for their sins in an eminent degree; they were the ringleaders, either encouraging the people to the wickednesses they committed, or not restraining them, and denouncing the wrath of God against them. So though they were the corrupt magistrates that had shed the innocent blood, yet the priests and prophets became guilty of it, either encouraging the magistrates to it, or soothing them up in their bloody courses, or by burning the children that were burnt in the valley of Hinnom. The ecclesiastical men were a great cause of the first and last destruction of Jerusalem, and so they are of most other places that come to ruin, through their neglect of their duty, or encouraging others in their wicked courses; which both showeth us how great a blessing to a people a godly, conscientious ministry is, and how great a plague and curse a ministry is which is otherwise. See Jer 5:31; 23:21.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain We have here,
We have here,
I. The sins they were charged with, for which God brought this destruction upon them, and which served to justify God in it (Lam 4:13, Lam 4:14): It is for the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests. Not that the people were innocent; no, they loved to have it so (Jer 5:31), and it was to please them that the prophets and priests did as they did; but the fault is chiefly laid upon them, who should have taught them better, should have reproved and admonished them, and told them what would be in the end hereof; of the hands of those watchmen who did not give them warning will their blood be required. Note, Nothing ripens a people more for ruin, nor fills the measure faster, than the sins of their priests and prophets. The particular sin charged upon them is persecution; the false prophets and corrupt priests joined their power and interest to shed the blood of the just in the midst of her, the blood of God's prophets and of those that adhered to them. They not only shed the blood of their innocent children, whom they sacrificed to Moloch, but the blood of the righteous men that were among them, whom they sacrificed to that more cruel idol of enmity to the truth and true religion. This was that sin which the Lord would not pardon (Kg2 24:4) and which brought the last destruction upon Jerusalem (Jam 5:6): You have condemned and killed the just. And the priests and prophets were the ringleaders in persecution, as in Christ's time the chief priests and scribes were the men that incensed the people against him, who otherwise would have persisted in their hosannas. Now these are those that wandered as blind men in the streets, Lam 4:14. They strayed from the paths of justice, were blind to every thing that is good, but to do evil they were quick-sighted. God says of corrupt judges, They know not, neither do they understand; they walk in darkness (Psa 82:5); and Christ says of the corrupt teachers, They are blind leaders of the blind, Mat 15:14. They have so polluted themselves with innocent blood, the blood of the saints, that men could not touch their garments; they made themselves odious to all about them, so that good men were as shy of touching them as of touching a dead body, which contracted a ceremonial pollution, or of touching the bloody clothes of one slain, which tender spirits care not to do. There is nothing that will make prophets and priests to be abhorred so much as a spirit of persecution.
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II. The testimony of their neighbours produced in evidence against them, both to convict them of sin and to show the equity of God's proceedings against them. Some that have grown very impudent in sin boast that they care not what people say of them; but God, by the prophet, would have the Jews to take notice of what people said of them and what was the opinion of the standers by concerning them (Lam 4:15, Lam 4:16), what they said, nay, what they cried unto them, especially to the corrupt priests and prophets, among the heathen. 1. They upbraided them with their pretended purity, while they lived in all manner of real iniquity. They cried to them, "Depart you; it is unclean. You were so precise that you would not touch a Gentile, by cried, Depart, depart; stand by thyself; I am holier than thou," Isa 65:5. Thus the prosecutors of Christ would not go into the judgment-hall, lest they should be defiled. "But can you now keep the Gentiles from touching you, when God has delivered you into their hands? When you flee away and wander you will bid them stand off and not touch you, because they are unclean. But in vain; these serpents will not be charmed or enchanted thus; no, they will no respect the persons of the priests, nor favour the elders; the most venerable persons will to them be despicable." 2. They upbraided them with their sins, and the anger of God against them for their sins, and the direful effects of that anger. They cried to them, Depart you; it is unclean. They all cried out shame on them, and could easily foresee that God would not long suffer so provoking a people to continue in so good a land. They knew their statutes and judgments were righteous, and expected they should be a wise and understanding people, Deu 4:6. But, when they saw them quite otherwise, they cried, Depart, depart; they soon read their doom, that the land would spue them out, as it had done their predecessors, and, when they saw the dispersed of Jacob fleeing and wandering, they told them of it. They said, Now the anger of the Lord has divided them, has dispersed them into all countries, because they respected not the persons of the priests, the pious priests that were among them, such as Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, Jeremiah, and others; neither did they favour the elders, but despised them and their authority when they went about to check them for their vicious courses. The very heathen foresaw that this would ruin them. 3. They triumphed in their ruin as irrecoverable. They said, when they saw them expelled out of their own land, "Now they shall no more sojourn there; they have bidden it a final farewell, never more to return to it, for God will no more regard them, and how then can they help themselves?" Herein they were mistaken. God had not cast them off, for all this. yet thus much is intimated, that all about them observed them to be so very provoking to their God that there was not reason to expect any other than that they should be quite abandoned.
III. The despair which they themselves were almost brought to under their calamities. Having heard what they said concerning them among the heathen, let us now hear what they say concerning themselves (Lam 4:17): "As for us, we look upon our case to be in a manner helpless. Our end is near (Lam 4:18), the end both of our church and of our state; we are just at the brink of the ruin of both; nay, our end has come; we are utterly undone; a fatal final period is put to all our comforts; the days of our prosperity are fulfilled; they are numbered and finished." Thus their fears concurred with the hopes of their enemies that the Lord would no more regard them. For, 1. The refuges they fled to disappointed them. They looked for help from this and the other powerful ally, but to no purpose; it proved vain help. The succours they expected did not come in, or at least they had not the success they expected, and their eyes failed with looking for that which never came (Lam 4:17); they watched in watching; they watched long, and with a great deal of earnestness and impatience, for a nation that promised them assistance, but failed the, and frustrated their expectation. They could not save them; they were too weak to contend with the Chaldean army and therefore retired. Help from creatures is vain help (Psa 60:11), and we may look for it till our eyes fail, till our hearts fail, and come short of it at last. 2. The persecutors they fled from overtook them and overcame them (Lam 4:18): They hunt our steps, that we cannot go in our streets. When the Chaldeans besieged the city they raised their batteries so high above the walls that they could command the town, and shoot at people as they went along the streets. They hunted them with their arrows from place to place. When the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled, their persecutors were swifter than the eagles of heaven when they fly upon their prey, Lam 4:19. There was no escaping them; they pursued them upon the mountains, and, when they thought they had got clear of them, they fell into the hands of those that laid wait for them in the wilderness, to cut off their retreat, and to pick up stragglers. nay, the king himself, though he may be supposed to have had all the advantages the exigence of the case would admit to favour his flight, yet could not escape, for divine vengeance pursued him with them, and then (Lam 4:20), The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord, was taken in their pits. Some apply it to Josiah, who was killed in battle by the king of Egypt; but it is rather to be understood of Zedekiah, who was the last king of the house of David, and who was pursued by the Chaldeans and seized in the plains of Jericho, Jer 39:5. He was the anointed of the Lord, heir of that family which God had appointed to the government. he was very much confided in by the Jewish state: They said, Under his shadow we shall live among the heathen. They promised themselves that the remnant which were left after Jeconiah's captivity should, under the protection of his government, yet again take root downward and bear fruit upward. They thought, though they were so reduced that they could not think of reigning over the heathen, as they had done, yet they might make a shift to live among them and not be insulted and pulled to pieces by them. Thus apt are sinking interests not only to catch at every twig, but to think it will recover them. Jerusalem died of a consumption, a flattering distemper. Even when she was ready to expire she formed some hopeful symptoms to herself, and on them grounded a hope that she should recover; but what came of it? The shadow under which they thought they should live proved like that of Jonah's gourd, which withered in a night. He that was the anointed of the Lord was taken in their pits, as if he had been but a beast of prey; so little account did they make of a person deemed sacred and not to be violated. Note, When we make any creature the breath of our nostrils, and promise ourselves that we shall live by it, it is just with God to stop that breath, and deprive us of the life we expected by it; for God will have the honour of being himself along our life and the length of our days.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities…
For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests,.... Aben Ezra interprets this of the prophets of Baal, and the priests of the high places; but though false prophets and wicked priests are meant, yet such as were among the Jews, made choice of and approved of by them: see Ch2 36:14; not that the people were faultless, but these were the principals, who by their examples led on and encouraged the common people in sin:
that have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her; not the blood of innocent children, sacrificed to them by Moloch; but of good men in general, whom they persecuted and slew; and of the true prophets of the Lord in particular, whose blood they shed; and was the sin that brought on the destruction of their city by the Romans, as well as of that by the Chaldeans; see Mat 23:35.
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 Priests - The ecclesiastical men were a great cause…
Priests - The ecclesiastical men were a great cause of the first and last destruction of Jerusalem. And so they are of most other places that come to ruin, through their neglect of their duty, or encouraging others in their wicked courses.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 13. For the sins of her prophets, and…
Verse 13. For the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests] These most wretched beings, under the pretense of zeal for the true religion, persecuted the genuine prophets, priests, and people of God, and caused their blood to be shed in the midst of the city, in the most open and public manner; exactly as the murderous priests, and blood-thirsty preachers, under the reign of bloody Queen Mary, did in England. However, the profligate priests and idolatrous prophets in Jerusalem, only shed the blood of the saints of God there: but the sanguinary papists, in the above reign, burnt the blood here, for they burnt the people alive; and at the same time, in their worse than Molochean cruelty, consigned, with all the fervour peculiar to their then ruthless Church, the souls of those whom they thus massacred, to the bitter pains of eternal death! O earth, cover not thou their blood!
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Lam 4:13. For the sins of her prophets, &c.…
Lam 4:13. For the sins of her prophets, &c. — That is, of the false prophets, to whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem chiefly hearkened; and the iniquities of her priests — Who bore rule by their means, Jer 5:31; and instead of discountenancing and reproving sin in the people, as was their indispensable duty, were themselves guilty of many flagrant acts of injustice, oppression, and violence; insomuch that, as is here attested, they even shed the blood of the just in the midst of Jerusalem, the holy city; that is, the blood of God’s prophets, and of those that adhered to them. The priests and false prophets were then the ringleaders in persecution, as in Christ’s time the chief priests and scribes were the men that incensed the people against him, who otherwise would have persisted in their hosannas. This was the sin which the Lord would not pardon, (2Ki 24:4,) and which, above all others, brought utter destruction upon that city. Not that the people were innocent; no, while the prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests abused the power which their own office and the doctrine of these prophets gave them, the people loved to have it so, and it was, partly at least, to please many of them that the prophets and priests acted as they did. But the blame is chiefly laid upon them who should have taught the people better, should have reproved and admonished them, and told them what would be the end of such conduct: of the hands, therefore, of those watchmen who did not give them warning was their blood required. Indeed, the ecclesiastical men were the chief cause of both the first and last destruction of Jerusalem. And so they are of the destruction of most other places that come to ruin through their neglect of their duty, or their encouraging others in their wicked courses; which shows us both how great a blessing to a people a godly, conscientious ministry is, and how great an evil a ministry is which is otherwise.
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 The blood of the just - Jer. 26:7-24 exhibits…
The blood of the just - Jer. 26:7-24 exhibits priests and prophets as the prime movers in an attempt to silence the word of God by putting Jeremiah to death. Compare the margin reference to Matthew.
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 Priests. They too generally favoured (Haydock) the false prophets,…
Priests. They too generally favoured (Haydock) the false prophets, chap. ii. 26., &c. They were judges, and condemned the innocent: or exposed (Calmet) the citizens to destruction, by not warning them to amend, (Haydock) and to submit to the Chaldeans. (Calmet) --- Impostors are called prophets, as they have the same outward appearance. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain prophets--the false prophets (Jer 23:11, Jer 23:21). Supply the…
prophets--the false prophets (Jer 23:11, Jer 23:21). Supply the sense thus: "For the sins . . . these calamities have befallen her."
shed the blood of the just-- (Mat 23:31, Mat 23:37). This received its full fulfilment in the slaying of Messiah and the Jews' consequent dispersion (Jam 5:6).
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 13. Sins of her prophets — As in the…
13. Sins of her prophets — As in the time of Christ, the religions leaders of the people were also their leaders in sin and rebellion. In Jeremiah xxvi, we have an illustration of this in that they attempted to silence Jeremiah by putting him to death. One of the saddest commentaries on the capability of our nature for evil is furnished in the conspicuous fact of history, that the bitterest persecutions of the just have proceeded from men of the holiest professions. The direst crimes have been committed in the name or God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.
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 13. the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities…
13. the sins of her prophets, and the iniquities of her priests] Cp. Jer_5:31; Jer_6:13; Jer_8:10; Jer_23:11 f.
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 (13) That have shed the blood of the just…
(13) That have shed the blood of the just . . .—The words point to incidents like the death of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada (2Ch_24:21); the “innocent blood” shed by Manasseh (2Ki_21:16); the attempts on Jeremiah’s own life (Jer_26:7); possibly to some unrecorded atrocities during the siege on the part of the priests and false prophets, who looked on the true prophets as traitors (Jer_26:23).
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 For the sins of her prophets, etc. Instead of…
For the sins of her prophets, etc. Instead of connecting this verse by a comma with the following, we should rather view it as a unit in itself, and understand at the beginning, "All this hath happened" The sins of the prophets and priests are mentioned together by Jeremiah, (Jer_6:13 Jer_23:11) as well as by Isaiah. (Isa_28:7) But we are nowhere else told that the spiritual leaders of the people, in these closing years of the Jewish state, were guilty of shedding innocent blood, unless this is to be inferred from the incident related in Jer_26:7, etc.
Vers. 13, 14. The degradation of the prophets and the priests.
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There is a somewhat obscure reference in this passage to some incidents which took place during and after the siege of Jerusalem. The book of Jeremiah"s prophecies casts some light upon the language of his lamentations. It is evident that the offices of priest and prophet were vilely abused at this period of Judah"s degradation, that the prophets prophesied in false and flattering words, that the priests burned incense to idols, that both professions were debased to selfish ends, and that both were accountable to a very large extent for the calamities of the nation. No wonder that prophets and priests became the objects of national detestation, that Jew and alien alike shunned and hated them.
I THE NOBLEST OFFICES, WHEN MISUSED, BECOME THE GREATEST CURSE. The priests were "holy unto Jehovah;" the prophets were the commissioned ministers of the All-wise, and they spake his words to men. But when they retained their name, but lost the spirit and the moral authority attaching to their position, they misled and oppressed their countrymen. Alas for the nation whose leaders in Church and state are selfish and corrupt! they who should be an honour and a blessing become then a disgrace and a curse. Let the great and the consecrated take warning, and watch and pray.
II WHEN SPIRITUAL AND INTELLECTUAL LEADERS ARE DEBASED THEIR INFLUENCE UPON A NATION IS MOST DELETERIOUS AND DISASTROUS. "Like priest, like people," says the old proverb. In modern communities it is observable that the journalists and the clergy have amazing power in giving a tone to public life. Where these are corrupt the very spring of a nation"s life are poisoned; all classes are affected by the influences which are potent for harm as they had otherwise been for highest good.
III THE UNFAITHFULNESS OF THE LEADERS BRINGS PENALTIES AND CALAMITIES UPON THE PEOPLE. The constitution of human society is such that one must needs suffer for another. As the sins of the prophets and the iniquities of the priests had no small share in bringing about the ruin of Jerusalem, so a corrupt literature and a selfish clergy will bring any nation, however powerful, into misery and contempt. T.
Shedding the blood of the just.
Consider
I THE THING THAT IS DONE. It is not merely that life is taken away; nor is it even that murder is committed. It would be bad enough if even the most wicked of men were maliciously slain slain, not because of his wickedness, but because of some evil motive on the part of the slayer. But here those who are slain are just men, and slain because they are just. All they needed in order to live on was to fall in with prevailing and popular iniquities. Instead of this, they set their faces against the multitude that are doing evil. They must, as a matter of necessity to their own consciences, say and do things which are a continual exasperation to the wicked. They do not mean to exasperate, they may be in the spirit of their life most meek, gentle, and unaffected; but all this will avail nothing the wicked are bound to pick a quarrel with them, even as the wolf in the fable picked a quarrel with the lamb. And let it be observed that shedding the blood of the just is only the climax of the persecuting treatment which the just must be ready to experience. The wicked are often quite willing to stop short of the climax if they can gain their ends by something less. Not all at once do they proceed to the shedding of blood. It is well for those who, if they be indeed Christians, are assuredly to be reckoned among the just to remember what they have to number among the possibilities of their endeavour to live a truly righteous life. No mere human civilization will ever secure the just man from the risk of having to lose his life for his righteousness.
II THOSE WHO DO IT. Once again, as so often, the prophet and priest stand forth in a shameful revelation. Their life is so contrary to their office. The prophet whose force should have come from the strong righteousness of his heart within and be directed straight against all evil doers, is found ranging himself with the wicked and making evil put on the semblance of good. And as for the priest, he does holy things with his hands and offers sacrifices for sin, while those whose lives are a continual protest against sin he hates and strives to slay. Not that we must reduce the prophet and the priest here spoken of to the level of vulgar murderers. Doubtless, in many instances, they persuaded themselves they were right and doing God service. Fanaticism and class feeling, where each one blows the flame of his neighbour"s zeal, will urge men on to the greatest atrocities. There may be no danger, most likely there will be no opportunity, that we should go as far as these prophets and priests, but we need to guard against having their narrow spirits in our hearts. We may not shed the blood of the just, but nevertheless we may do much to hinder and trouble them. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain PASSING from the fate of the princes to that…
LEPERS
Lam_4:13-16
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PASSING from the fate of the princes to that of the prophets and priests, we come upon a vividly dramatic scene in the streets of Jerusalem amid the terror and confusion that precede the final act of the national tragedy. The doom of the city is attributed to the crimes of her religious leaders, whose true characters are now laid bare. The citizens shrink from the guilty men with the loathing felt for lepers, and shriek to them to depart, calling them unclean, and warning them not to touch any one by the way, because there is blood upon them. Dreading the awful treatment measured out to the victims of lynch-law, they stagger through the streets in a state of bewilderment, and stumble like blind men. Fugitives and vagabonds, with the mark of Cain upon them, driven out at the gates by the impatient mob, they can find no refuge even in foreign lands, for none of the nations will receive them.
We do not know whether the poet is here describing actual events, or whether this is an imaginary picture designed to express his own feelings with regard to the persons concerned. The situation is perfectly natural, and what is narrated may very well have happened just as it is described. But if it is not history it is still a revelation of character, a representation of what the writer knows to be the conduct of the moral lepers, and their deserts; and as such it is most suggestive.
In the first place there is much significance in the fact that the overthrow of Jerusalem is unhesitatingly charged to the account of the sins of her prophets and priests. These once venerated men are not merely no longer protected by the sanctity of their offices from the accusations that are brought against the laity; they are singled out for a charge of exceptionally heinous wickedness which is regarded as the root cause of all the troubles that have fallen upon the Jews. The second elegy had affirmed the failure of the prophets and the vanity of their visions. {Lam_2:9; Lam_2:14} This new and stronger accusation reads like a reminiscence of Jeremiah, who repeatedly speaks of the sins of the clerical class and the mischief resulting therefrom. {Jer_6:13; Jer_8:10; Jer_23:11-14; Jer_26:7 ff.} Evidently the terrible truth the prophet dwelt upon so much was felt by a disciple of his school to be of the most serious consequence.
The accusation is of the very gravest character. These religious leaders are charged with murder. If the elegist is recording historical occurrences he may be alluding to riots in which the feuds of rival factions had issued in bloodshed; or he may have had information of private acts of assassination. His language points to a condition in Jerusalem similar to that which was found in Rome at the Fifteenth Century, when popes and cardinals were the greatest criminals. The crimes were aggravated by the fact that the victims selected were the "righteous," perhaps men of the Jeremiah party, who had been persecuted by the officials of the State religion. But quite apart from these dark and tragic events, the record of which has not been preserved, if the wicked policy of their clergy had brought down on the heads of the citizens of Jerusalem the mass of calamities that accompanied the siege of the city by the Babylonians, this policy was in itself a cause of great bloodshed. The men who invited the ruin of their city were in reality the murderers of all who perished in that calamity. We know from Jeremiahs statements on the subject that the false, time-serving, popular prophets were deceivers of the people, who allayed alarm by means of lies, saying "peace, peace; when there was no peace." {Jer_6:14; Jer_8:11} When the deception was discovered their angry dupes would naturally hold them responsible for the results of their wickedness.
The sin of these religious leaders of Israel consists essentially in betraying a sacred trust. The priest is in charge of the Torah, -traditional or written; he must have been unfaithful to his law or he could not have led his people astray. If the prophets claims are valid this man is the messenger of Jehovah, and therefore he must have falsified his message in order to delude his audience; if, however, he has not himself heard the Divine voice he is no better than a dervish, and in pretending to speak with the authority of an ambassador from heaven he is behaving as a miserable charlatan. In the case now before us the motive for the practice of deceit is very evident. It is thirst for popularity. Truth, right, Gods will-these imperial authorities count for nothing, because the favour of the people is reckoned as everything. No doubt there are times when the temptation to descend to untruthfulness in the discharge of a public function is peculiarly pressing. When party feeling is roused, or when a mad panic has taken possession of a community, it is exceedingly difficult resist the current and maintain what one knows to be right in conflict with the popular movement. But in its more common occurrence this treachery cannot plead any such excuse. That truth should be trampled under foot and souls endangered merely to enable a public speaker to refresh his vanity with the music of applause is about the most despicable exhibition of selfishness imaginable. If a man who has been set in a place of trust prostitutes his privileges simply to win admiration for his oratory, or at most in order to avoid the discomfort of unpopularity or the disappointment of neglect, his sin is unpardonable.
The one form of unfaithfulness on the part of these religious leaders of Israel of which we are specially informed is their refusal to warn their reckless fellow-citizens of the approach of danger, or to bring home to their hearers consciences the guilt of the sin for which the impending doom was the just punishment. They are the prototypes of those writers and preachers who smooth over the unpleasant facts of life. It is not easy for any one to wear the mantle of Elijah, or echo the stern desert voice of John the Baptist. Men who covet popularity do not care to be reckoned pessimists; and when the gloomy truth is not flattering to their hearers they are sorely tempted to pass on to more congenial topics. This was apparent in the Deistic optimism that almost stifled spiritual life during the Eighteenth Century. Our age is far from being optimistic: and yet the same temptation threatens to smother religion today. In an aristocratic age the sycophant flatters the great; in a democratic age he flatters the people-who are then in fact the great. The peculiar danger of our own day is that the preacher should simply echo popular cries, and voice the demands of the majority irrespective of the question of their justice. Thrust into the position of a social leader with more urgency than his predecessors of any time since the age of the Hebrew prophets, it is expected that he will lead whither the people wish to go, and if he declines to do so he is denounced as retrograde. And yet as the messenger of Heaven he should consider it his supreme duty to reveal the whole counsel of God, to speak for truth and righteousness, and therefore to condemn the sins of the democracy equally with the sins of the aristocracy. Brave labour-leaders have fallen into disfavour for telling working-men that their worst enemies were their own vices such as intemperance. The wickedness of a responsible teacher who treasonably neglects thus to warn his brethren of danger is powerfully expressed by Ezekiels clear, antithetical statements concerning the respective guilt of the watchman and his fellow citizen, which show conclusively that the greatest burden of blame must rest on the unfaithful watchman. {Eze_3:16-21}
In the hour of their exposure these wretched prophets and priests lose all sense of dignity, even lose their self-possession, and stumble about like blind men, helpless and bewildered. Their behaviour suggests the idea that they must be drunk with the blood they have shed, or overcome by the intoxication of their thirst for blood; but the explanation is that they cannot lift up their heads to look a neighbour in the face, because all their little devices have been torn to shreds, all their specious lies detected, all their empty promises falsified. This shame of dethroned popularity is the greatest humiliation. The unhappy man who has brought himself to live on the breath of fame cannot hide his fall in oblivion and obscurity as a private person may do. Standing in the full blaze of the worlds observation which he has so eagerly focussed on himself, he has no alternative but to exchange the glory of popularity for the ignominy of notoriety.
Possibly the confusion consequent on their exposure is all that the poet is thinking of when he depicts the blind staggering of the prophets and priests. But it is not unreasonable to take this picture as an illustration of their moral condition, especially after the references to the faults of the prophets in the second elegy have directed our attention to their spiritual darkness and the vanity of their visions. When the refuge of lies in which they had trusted was swept away they would necessarily find themselves lost and helpless. They had so long worshipped falsehood, it had become so much their god that we might say, in it they had lived, and moved, and had their being. But now they have lost the very atmosphere of their lives. This is the penalty of deceit. The man who begins by using it as his tool becomes in time its victim. At first he lies with his eyes open; but the sure effect of this conduct is that his sight becomes dim and blurred, till, if he persist in the fatal course long enough, he is ultimately reduced to a condition of blindness. By continually mixing truth and falsehood together he loses the power of distinguishing between them. It may be supposed that at an earlier stage of their decline, if the religious leaders of Israel had been honest with regard to their own convictions they must have admitted the possible genuineness of those prophets of ruin whom they had persecuted in deference to popular clamour. But they had rejected all such unwelcome thoughts so persistently that in course of time they had lost the perception of them. Therefore when the truth was flashed upon their unwilling minds by the unquestionable revelation of events they were as helpless as bats and owls suddenly driven out into the daylight by an earthquake that has flung down the crumbling ruins in which they had been sheltering themselves.
The discovery of the true character of these men was the signal for a yell of execration on the part of the people by flattering whom they had obtained their livelihood, or at least all that they most valued in life. This too must have been another shock of surprise to them. Had they believed in the essential fickleness of popular favour, they would never have built their hopes upon so precarious a foundation, for they might as well have set up their dwelling on the strand that would be flooded at the next turn of the tide. History is strewn with the wreckage of fallen popular reputations of all degrees of merit, from that of the conscientious martyr who had always looked to higher ends than the applause which once encircled him, to that of the frivolous child of fortune who had known of nothing better than the worlds empty admiration. We see this both in Savonarola martyred at the stake and in Beau Nash starved in a garret. There is no more pathetic scene to be gathered from the story of religion in the present century than that of Edward Irving, once the idol of society, subsequently deserted by fashion, stationing himself at a street corner to proclaim his message to a chance congregation of idlers; and his mistake was that of an honest man who had been misled by a delusion. Incomparably worse is the fate of the fallen favourite who has no honesty of conviction with which to comfort himself when frowned at by the heartless world that had recently fawned upon him.
The Jews show their disgust and horror for their former leaders by pelting them with the leper call. According to the law the leper must go with rent clothes and flowing hair, and his face partly covered, crying, "Unclean, unclean." {Lev_13:45} It is evident that the poet has this familiar mournful cry in his mind when he describes the treatment of the prophets and priests. And yet there is a difference. The leper is to utter the humiliating word himself; but in the case now before us it is flung after the outcast leaders by their pitiless fellow citizens. The alteration is not without significance. The miserable victim of bodily disease could not hope to disguise his condition. "White as snow," his well-known complaint was patent to every eye. But it is otherwise with the spiritual leprosy, sin. For a time it may be disguised, a hidden fire in the breast. When it is evident to others, too often the last man to perceive it is the offender himself; and when he himself is inwardly conscious of guilt he is tempted to wear a cloak of denial before the world. More especially is this the case with one who has been accustomed to make a profession of religion, and most of all with a religious leader. While the publican who has no character to sustain will smite his breast with self-reproaches and cry for mercy, the professional saint is blind to his own sins, partly no doubt because to admit their existence would be to shatter his profession.
But if the religious leader is slow to confess or even perceive his guilt, the world is keen to detect it and swift to cast it in his teeth. There is nothing that excites so much loathing; and justly so, for there is nothing that does so much harm. Such conduct is the chief provocative of practical scepticism. It matters not that the logic is unsound; men will draw rough and ready conclusions. If the leaders are corrupt the hasty inference is that the cause which is identified with their names must also be corrupt. Religion suffers more from the hypocrisy of some of her avowed champions than from the attacks of all the hosts of her pronounced foes. Accordingly a righteous indignation assails those who work such deadly mischief. But less commendable motives urge men in the same direction. Evil itself steals a triumph over good in the downfall of its counterfeit. If they knew themselves there must have been some hypocrisy on the side of the persecutors in the demonstrative zeal with which they hounded to death the once pampered children of fortune the moment they had fallen from the pedestal of respectability; for could these indignant champions of virtue deny that they had been willing accomplices in the deeds they so loudly denounced? or at least that they had not been reluctant to be pleasantly deceived, had not enquired too nicely into the credentials of the flatterers who had spoken smooth things to them? Considering what their own conduct had been, their eagerness in execrating the wickedness of their leaders was almost indecent. There is a Pecksniffian air about it. It suggests a sly hope that by thus placing themselves on the side of outraged virtue they were putting their own characters beyond the suspicion of criticism. They seem to have been too eager to make scapegoats of their clergy. Their action appears to show that they had some idea that even at the eleventh hour the city might be spared if it were rid of this plague of the blood-stained prophets and priests. And yet, however various and questionable the motives of the assailants may have been, there is no escape from the conclusion that the wickedness they denounced so eagerly richly deserved the most severe condemnation. Wherever we meet with it, this is the leprosy of society. Disguised for a time, a secret canker in the breast of unsuspected men, it is certain to break out at length; and when it is discovered it merits a measure of indignation proportionate to the previous deception.
Exile is the doom of these guilty prophets and priests. But even in their banishment they can find no place of rest. They wander from one foreign nation to another: they are permitted to stay with none of them. Unlike our English pretenders who were allowed to take up their abode among the enemies of their country, these Jews were suspected and disliked wherever they went. They had been unfaithful to Jehovah; yet they could not proclaim themselves devotees of Baal. The heathen were not prepared to draw fine distinctions between the various factions in the Israelite camp. The world only scoffs at the quarrels of the sects. Moreover, these false, worthless leaders had been the zealots of national feeling in the old boastful days when Jeremiah had been denounced by their party as a traitor. Then they had been the most exclusive of the Jews. As they had made their bed so must they lie on it. The poet suggests no term to this melancholy fate. Perhaps while he was writing his elegy the wretched men were to his own knowledge still journeying wearily from place to place. Thus like the fraticide Cain, like the Wandering Jew of mediaeval legend, the fallen leaders of the religion of Israel find their punishment in a doom of perpetual homelessness. Is it too severe a penalty for the fatal deceit that wrought death, and so was equivalent to murder of the worst sort, cold-blooded, deliberate murder? There is a perfectly Dantesque appropriateness in it. The Inferno of the popularity-mongers is a homeless desert of unpopularity. Quiet, retiring souls and dreamy lovers of nature might derive rest and refreshment from a hermit life in the wilderness. Not so these slaves of society. Deprived of the support of their surrounding element-like jelly-fish flung on to the beach to shrivel up and perish-in banishment from city life such men must experience a total collapse. Just in proportion to the hollowness and unreality with which a man has made the pursuit of the worlds applause the chief object of his life, is the dismal fate he will have to endure when, having sown the wind of vanity, he reaps the whirlwind of indignation. The ill-wind of his fellow men is hard to bear; but behind it is the far more terrible wrath of God, whose judgment the miserable time-server has totally ignored while sedulously cultivating the favour of the world.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain (מ) Lam_4:13. It is needful to connect this verse…
EXEGETICAL NOTES.—
(מ) Lam_4:13. It is needful to connect this verse with the last by words like, This incredible thing came to pass, because of the sins of her prophets, the iniquities of her priests—the position which these two classes assumed in the polity of Jerusalem is indicated in various strong terms by Jeremiah, the prophet of this period, and especially in his references to the treatment which he himself received at their hands (chap. 26)—who shed in her midst the blood of the righteous. They are branded as instigators and leaders of the evil, and, like other occupiers of usurped power, their jealousy and anger at those who crossed them in any way urge them to the extreme measure of dooming to death the faithful witnesses for God. In thus declaring the causes of the calamity to Judah, there is once more uplifted the moral standard which has made the Bible to be the impulse to all ethical revivals, the rebuker of wrong by whomsoever committed, the unswerving asserter of the rights of God in the face of man’s injury to man.
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(ם נ) Lam_4:14-15 seem applicable to the condition of prophets and priests after the city had been taken. They were panicstricken. They staggered [as] blind men in the streets; an effect accounted for in other parts of Scripture as a punishment of sin. They make haste to shed innocent blood … therefore we grope for the wall like the blind, yea, we grope at they that have no eyes (Isa_59:7; Isa_59:10). Their sin found them out; its marks were palpable; they were defiled with blood when the command to go into exile arrested them. So they were avoided; [men] could not touch their garments. In their blood-stained aspect they were met with the shout which was enjoined upon leprous persons. That it was the leper who was to cry unclean is of little consequence where “poetical license” is exercised. Away unclean one [men], cried to them, away, away; and so such as had, in spiritual pride, said, Come not near me, I am holier titan thou, are abhorred by the people they contemned. The just judgment of God was manifest, so that, as proscribed offenders, When they fled away and staggered blindly as before in the city, they found that, even in other places where they sought ease and rest for the soles of their feet, the natives would not allow them to stay; [men] said among the nations, They shall no longer sojourn [among us]. These references, in all probability, are made to real occurrences.
(פ) Lam_4:16. The circumstances of those fugitives are ascribable to Jehovah. Wherever they went, the face of Jehovah had not disappeared; in anger, not in grace, lifted up upon them, it has scattered them, and will no more regard them. This fact was verified on their treatment by tile peoples to whom they had gone. There no respect was paid, no favour shown, on account of office, occupation, or age.
HOMILETICS
UNFAITHFUL RELIGIOUS LEADERS
(Lam_4:13-16)
I. Ignore the sacred duties of their high office. “The sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests” (Lam_4:13). The leaders, whose first duty it was to explain and enforce the Word of God, were the prime movers in the attempt to silence that Word. Their utter dereliction of duty, and the bitter rancour with which they were actuated, were evident in their repeated efforts to put Jeremiah to death, the only man who had the courage to lift up his voice for Jehovah amid the general defection. Had they rallied round the faithful prophet and round their king, who was more weak than vicious, they might have saved the city and the nation from ruin. When the servants of the Lord and the religious guides of the people are false to their sacred vows, the nation is grievously misled, and disaster will follow.
II. Become intoxicated with slaughter. “That have shed the blood of the just in the midst of her; they have wandered (reeled) as blind men in the streets; they have polluted themselves with blood” (Lam_4:13-14). They have lost the art of persuasion, even to do wrong, and, like all baffled tyrants, adopt the bloody policy of the sword. The people are coerced into rebellion against God and their beat interests by brute force. Having once tasted blood, they revel in it, and reel through the city blinded by their insatiable lust of slaughter. They who ought to be holy, as God’s ministers consecrated to His service, are defiled with blood, and that the blood not of enemies, but of their own countrymen. There is no fury so maddening and ungovernable as the thirst for blood.
III. Are shunned and abhorred by God and man (Lam_4:15-16). They are denounced by the people they had oppressed, and hounded out of the city only to find themselves abhorred by the heathen to whom they fled for shelter. They were hated at home and abroad. “The anger of the Lord divided them,” scattered them, and wherever they wandered, the people despised and shunned them. They were outcasts of God and men. They had sown to the wind, and they reaped the whirlwind. Such is the fate of the faithless and cruel There is no punishment too severe for unfaithful ministers of God’s Word.
LESSONS.—
1. False teachers are the curse of any community.
2. They are utterly reckless both as to what they say and do.
3. They involve the people in much suffering.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Lam_4:13-16. False ministers of God.
1. Are the authors of the vilest sins (Lam_4:13).
2. Are capable of the most revolting cruelty in accomplishing their wicked ends (Lam_4:13-14).
3. Are the execration of the people they oppress (Lam_4:15).
4. Are divinely punished (Lam_4:16).
Lam_4:15-16. The tactics of the wicked.
1. Recoil upon themselves.
2. Render them the abhorrence of all classes
3. Are defeated and punished by the vengeance of Heaven.
ILLUSTRATIONS.—Unqualified ministers. It is the great wide-spread evil of the Church that it has unrenewed and inexperienced pastors; that so many become preachers before they become Christians, and are consecrated as priests at the altar of God before they are made holy to Christ by the offering of the heart to Him; and thus they worship an unknown God and proclaim an unknown Christ, and pray through an unknown Spirit, and preach a state of holiness and fellowship with Christ, and a glory and a blessedness which are wholly unknown to them, and perhaps will remain unknown through all eternity. He must indeed be a heartless preacher who has not himself in his own heart the Christ and the grace that he declares. Alas! that all scholars in our universities might well ponder this.—Baxter.
Unbelief and ministerial inefficiency. There are dangerous signs at the present day of a relaxation of moral tone in the literature of free-thinking. There is a tendency to palliate the offences of vicious characters and to treat every sin as atoned for by intellectual brilliancy. But it would be in the highest degree unjust to throw the whole blame of his error upon every individual who may happen to be the victim of unbelief. We are all bound up together in this matter; and the sins, the unfaithfulness, the lack of moral energy among Christians themselves contribute, to a great extent, to weaken the testimony to our faith. The ministers of God’s Word must bear their share in this responsibility. So far as they fail to exhibit the moral truth and spiritual force of that Word, so far as they harden it, or obscure it, or misrepresent it, they contribute to weaken its appeal to the hearts and consciences of their fellows, and the result is seen in many an indirect and distant injury to faith. It is the mission of the Church and its ministers to carry on the work of the Apostles by bearing witness to certain truths and revelations; and if that witness be in any instance unworthily delivered, the force with which the truth appeals to the soul of man is proportionately weakened. Wace: Bampton Lectures.
Priestcraft. The whole system is one of Church instead of Christ; priest instead of Gospel; concealment of truth instead of manifestation of truth; ignorant superstition instead of enlightened faith; bondage where we are promised liberty—all tending to load us with whatever is odious in the worst meaning of priestcraft, instead of the free, affectionate, enlarging, elevating, and cheerful liberty of the children of God. Bishop M’Ilwaine.
Penalty of murder. Thales Milesius, one of the wise men of Greece, being asked what was the most difficult thing in life, answered, “For a tyrant to live to old age.” The application may be extended to the cruel, bloodthirsty, and murderers.
The triumph of the wicked. The triumph of the wicked is always short. When they feel themselves secure from evil and begin to boast of their triumph, then judgment overwhelms them. So it was with Belshazzar, Herod, and the fool of the Gospel. How soon Abel’s blood called for vengeance of Cain! We cannot sin so quickly but God seeth us as quickly. How many have been stricken while the oath had been in their mouths, as Jeroboam was stricken while he spoke, that they might see they were stricken. Though a man sin often, and steal his sins as it were without punishment, yet at last he is taken napping, even while the wickedness is in his hand, and his day is set when he shall pay for all, whether it be twelve months or twelve years. “When it cometh, it will be soon.”
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.