Notes on the Prophecy and Lamentations of Jeremiah
Henry Allan Ironside
Table of Contents
Preface to New Edition
After the lapse of some twenty-two years this book is to be reissued, and my publishers have asked me to go over it carefully and make any corrections desired, ere plating it. This I have done. Slight changes have been made here and there, not more than a dozen in all, and a few sentences added for greater clearness. It is a matter of surprise on my part and of real gratitude to God that I see nothing to alter so far as the teaching is concerned. The principles of interpretation I accepted years ago seem clearer to me now than ever. The great outlines of the teaching of the book have only become confirmed in my mind with the passing of the years. I hold, through grace, today, what I held when I began these “Notes” nearly thirty years ago. I am more than ever persuaded of their dispensational correctness, and I send the book forth again, in full confidence that it sets forth the truth of God.
— H. A. IRONSIDE
September, 1928.
Preface
The book now before the reader consists not so much of a commentary upon the books of Jeremiah and Lamentations, as of a series of meditative studies, which have been jotted down at intervals in a busy life during a period of nearly five years. This accounts in great measure for the fragmentary character of much that is here presented.
It is hoped, however, that, unfinished as the book may appear from either an expository or a literary standpoint, it may be found helpful in exercising the consciences of the Lord’s people and in quickening their spiritual affections, as well as in opening up a portion of Scripture which to many is almost like an unexplored region.
Students generally find difficulty in a careful survey of these books because of the arrangement of the chapters, so utterly regardless of chronological order. To help such, an attempt has been made to present the different prophecies and historical incidents in their true relationship, at the end of the book. It is impossible to speak authoritatively concerning every particular portion, and the thoughtful reader may even be able to improve upon the order there given.
The great prophetic chapters (30, 31, 50, and 51) have been treated more fully than others because of the many existing misconceptions as to God’s past, present and future dealings with Israel and Judah (to which the first two chapters designated relate), and, to our mind, the baseless speculations in regard to the rebuilding of literal Babylon, which are, we believe, fully met in the latter two chapters.
The book is not written for the critical scholar, but it is put forth in the hope that it may be suited ministry for the sheep and lambs of the flock of Christ.
The author desires to acknowledge help received from Mr. J. N. Darby’s outlines of Jeremiah and Lamentations in his excellent “Synopsis of the Books of the Bible;” as also from the brief paper on Jeremiah by Mr. J. B. Stoney in his “Discipline in the School of God.”
May the Master of Assemblies be pleased to make these pages a help to open up a part of His unerring Word for genuine profit to numbers of His people.
— H. A. IRONSIDE.
[1906]
Introductory
In taking up the study of the writings of Jeremiah it is not purposed to attempt a full exposition of the books of this the tenderest of all the prophets. My only thought is to jot down notes of what has been particularly impressed on my own heart in going over them, in the hope that others, especially young Christians, may, like myself, find benefit.
The prophecy with its poetical appendix forms a portion of Scripture abounding in soulful, stirring appeals. If we think of prophecy merely as foretelling the future (and especially unfolding the glories of Messiah’s kingdom), we shall not find it nearly so full as either Isaiah, Ezekiel, or Daniel, with which it is commonly classed as being one of the major prophets. It has not the majesty of the first, the extended vision of the last, nor the wondrous imagery of the other; but none of these characteristics would be expected in a series of messages chiefly intended for the conscience. If, however, we think of prophecy in its New Testament sense, as that which brings the soul into the presence of God, we realize at once how fully this is the case here. The same is true in great measure of Ezekiel, but it would seem that there the people are practically given up from the start, their defection is so complete; part of them already having been carried into captivity, as in the case of the prophet himself (Ezek. 1:1): but in Jeremiah, in the first half of the book at least, we have evidently ministry with a view to recalling wandering hearts to the One they had forsaken. It is their restoration to God as a means of deferring the already announced judgment (2 Kings 22:12-20) that is now before us. This stamps the book as a whole, and gives character to it. What in Ezekiel is expressed in picture — the slow and reluctant leaving of the Shekinah (chapter 10:4, 18, 19) — is, in the earlier book, brought before us in the earnest pleadings and conscience-rousing entreaties of the Spirit in the tender-hearted Seer, sorrowing so deeply over the fallen condition of his people.
I have often been struck by what seemed to be a characteristic likeness in Jeremiah and Nehemiah. Both were actuated by the same fervent love for the people and city of God. Both were men of broken and contrite spirits, who trembled at the word of the Lord. Both were very easily moved men, tears being frequently common to them. In the earlier servant, however, there is perhaps more exaltedness of character, more self-forgetfulness, than in the later one. For instance, Nehemiah says: “Remember me, O God, concerning this, and wipe not out my good deeds that I have done” (chapter 13:14); a sentiment frequently repeated. Jeremiah never spoke like this. Once only he cries, when he sees his message is rejected, and hope of the repentance of Judah is gone, and they are devising evil devices against him “Remember that I stood before Thee to speak good for them, and to turn away Thy wrath from them” (chapter 18:20). He was a less intrepid man naturally, however, than the other, the weakness of his heart being again and again manifested, though this only gives better opportunity (as in the case of Gideon and Ezra) for God to display His power. “When I am weak, then am I strong,” is the “irresistible might of weakness,” which relies upon “One who is mighty.”
Nehemiah, too, seems to be more of what people call a patriot than the man who advised submission to the Babylonian yoke; but in this it is clear that each had the mind of God for the time in which he lived. One stood at the ending of a path of declension and backsliding; the other, at the beginning of a new era of temporary restoration and blessing. Men of God both were. May we emulate what His grace wrought in each.
Coming, then, to the book of Jeremiah itself, we notice that it divides naturally into two main parts, with an appendix added by a later hand, though of course equally inspired by the Holy Ghost. In chapters 1-24 we hear the gracious pleadings of Jehovah with His erring and rebellious people. This portion is moral rather than devoted to foretelling events. Chapters 25-51 give in more detail the judgments of God, by means of Nebuchadnezzar, resultant upon the rejection of the previous messages; with, however, promises of future blessing and restoration at the expiration of seventy years’ captivity. The whole present interval of scattering, since the cutting off of Messiah, is passed over in silence. “Thus far the words of Jeremiah.” Chapter 52 is the historical account of the carrying out of the predicted but long-delayed judgment: compare it with 2 Kings 24:18-20; 25:1-17. The closing verses intimate that as the prophecies of vengeance were thus fulfilled, so shall those be that told of restoration, for Jehoiachin is not allowed to die in prison, but is taken into favor by the king of Babylon — earnest of what is yet to come.
In the Lamentations we are permitted to hear the outpourings of the heart of the grief-stricken prophet bewailing the accomplishment of that which he himself had predicted. How gladly would this dear servant of God have had all his prophecies prove false and himself be put to shame, had the people but been spared! In this he is blessedly unlike Jonah, who was angry when grace was shown to the repentant Ninevites, at the possible expense of his prophetic reputation, or of his probable desire that Nineveh, from whom Israel had suffered, might not go unpunished. What makes Jeremiah’s sorrow the more bitter is that it has all been deserved by a rebellious and stiff-necked people; but he still turns to Jehovah for succor and renewal. “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.”
Oh that those who seek to care for the sheep and lambs of the flock today were more characterized by the love and self-abnegation that marked this dear servant of God, whose spirit was not soured by rejection as ours often is, but whose love was only the deeper as the objects of it heaped upon him insult and ignominy. In this, how like the true Man of Sorrows! In fact, so marked is this, that the rabbis have sought to find in Jeremiah the patient Sufferer of Isa. 53. To only One, as we know, can such words really apply; but it speaks volumes for Jeremiah’s loving endurance in his deep, deep grief, that he should be the “other man” (Acts 8: 34) whom. Christ-rejecting doctors put in the very place of the Holy Sufferer of Calvary. May we be more and more conformed to His blessed ways down here, who “has left us an example that we should follow His steps.”
Chapter 1
A Vessel Chosen and Fitted (Chapter 1)
The account of Jeremiah’s call to the prophetic office is very instructive and deeply interesting. The thoughtful reader feels at once how intensely human was the man, how condescendingly gracious the Lord. On the part of the servant there is naught but backwardness and trembling when commissioned to be the bearer of Jehovah’s message to His backslidden people. It would be at best but a thankless task; for people away from God, yet proudly ignorant of their condition, do not, as a rule, show much gratitude to the man who seeks to turn the light on and manifest things as they really are. It is, generally speaking, a far more pleasant and agreeable task to preach the gospel to poor lost sinners than to minister to the needs of wayward saints. None but a man who is himself very low before God can accomplish it successfully. If I would wash my brother’s feet, I must stoop to do it.
But in this, as in all true service, one’s reliance must be upon God, who never sends a messenger without putting in his mouth the word he is to speak; and never bids one undertake a service for which He does not qualify the servant. So with Jeremiah. His confidence is to be in the God of resurrection, who had before made a dry stick to bud, and blossom, and bring forth almonds, and who delights to take up the foolish, the weak, the base, and the despised things, and use them to confound the wise, the mighty, and the noble, “that no flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Cor. 1:26-29). This is the secret of His so acting. Worship in His presence all can, and should, who have been brought to Himself through sovereign grace; praise and adore Him they freely may; but glory before Him they shall not. All must own that they are but vessels of mercy, who have nothing which they have not received, and He must ever be the Giver, for “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” Impossible that the saved sinner should have the more blessed part.
It is not, therefore, brilliant men whom He depends on, nor men of self-sufficiency and self-confidence, but it is ever His delight to fill the empty vessel and then use it to suit Himself. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2 Cor. 4:7).
Looking, then, a little carefully into this preliminary chapter, we note that Jeremiah was evidently quite a young man (“a child,” he says, verse 7) when the word of the Lord came to him, in the days of the godly king Josiah — himself but a youth, as it was in the thirteenth year of his reign, and he was but eight years of age when he succeeded his wicked father Amon as King of Judah (2 Chron. 34: 1). The prophet’s ministry covered a period of over forty years under the kings; and when royalty had departed from Judah and her princes, and thousands of her people had gone into captivity, he is still found at his post standing for God among “the poor of the flock” left in the land, looking forward to the destruction of the very power to which he had previously urged submission, and which had been permitted to desolate Jehovah’s heritage.
Of his early years, before his divine call to publicly proclaim the word of the Lord, we have no authentic record. Scripture is silent regarding him, save for occasional references (2 Chron. 35, 36) to his later ministry, corroborating, if corroboration were needed, his own account in the books before us. His father’s name, Hilkiah; his service, that of a priest; his home, Anathoth of Benjamin — these he tells us in the first verse, but details there are none. Men may be curious to know of the training and early life of those afterwards celebrated; but God makes no attempts merely to satisfy idle curiosity. In divine things all counts for nothing until the soul really begins with God. That memorable time in the case of this young priest (that is, the time when he consciously had to do with Him) was evidently about the date above mentioned. Like John the Baptist, he was sanctified even before his birth, and ordained to be a prophet, not merely to fallen Judah, but to the nations. We do not know, however, that he was aware of his exalted mission until this time.
There had already been a measure of revival and blessing in the land; outwardly, at least. Just a year previously, Josiah had commenced to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the remains of the idolatrous worship which Manasseh, though humbled and repentant, had not been able to remove, and which the infamous and unhumbled Amon had but furthered and endorsed. The book of the law had not yet been recovered; nor was it until some seven years later (2 Chron. 34). That precious volume was still hidden (where, doubtless, some faithful one had only too safely stored it, in the dark days preceding) in the still unrepaired house of the Lord. In His own time, He who caused it to be written and who watched over it would see that it was brought forth. Till then, and even in connection with it later, He would speak through a prophet.
And right here it may be well to note Jeremiah’s place in connection with the other prophets whose writings we have. It was probably about a century since Isaiah had, if tradition speaks truly, been sawn asunder (see Heb. 11:37) by the fathers of those who now professed to worship Jehovah at Jerusalem. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah, and Nahum, all of them for a time at least contemporary with Isaiah, had long since passed off the scene; leaving the nation apparently as hardened as ever. Zephaniah and Habakkuk were both still living, though we have no mention as to whether it was their privilege to “speak often one to another.” Ezekiel and Obadiah were also his contemporaries during his later years — Ezekiel only among the captives in Babylon. Daniel prophesied subsequently in the palace of the conquerors. He, it will be remembered, was a student of the writings of his great predecessor, and from this book learned of the appointed seventy years’ duration of the captivity. Jonah had been much earlier than any (2 Kings 14:24), but we know little of the nature of his ministry beyond his mission to the great Gentile city of Nineveh. The remaining three minor prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, were the bearers of Jehovah’s message to the remnant restored to their land. Between Jeremiah and the last a period of about three hundred years is generally assigned.
We turn back now to our chapter. Just how the Lord spoke to Jeremiah we are not informed.
Abruptly he is told: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou tamest out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (verse 5). It is the divine sovereignty that is at once brought before him. He is given to understand from the first that it is the eternal, omniscient, omnipotent Jehovah with whom he has to do. The natural man may shrink from this, but how the soul of the saint delights to dwell upon it! “Known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the creation.” Nothing ever takes Him by surprise.
Consequently, with Him, there can be no after-thought. All was foreseen long, long before its actual occurrence; everything was provided for. Satan, sin, and their attendant evils, have in no wise interfered with His purpose, “who worketh all things according to the counsel of His own will.” Where had His grace found manifestation, had not sin been permitted? All the glory of the Cross must have had no place if the serpent’s entrance into the garden of delight had been denied. Evil, dreadful as it is, is but the dark background that throws into relief His wondrous purposes of love and grace.
It is well for the soul of the believer to grasp this and rest upon it. However much one’s spirit may be chafed and fretted and vexed by abounding iniquity, it is well to remember that there is One who abides in eternal peace — “the peace of God.” Not that He is indifferent to the evil; but He sees, as we cannot, how blessedly all shall yet result to the glory of the Son of His love. How different must have been our thoughts of Him had our guilt never given occasion for His emptying Himself of His dignities to become a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death! We should never have known Him as Man had not sin necessitated for us a Mediator. Had He sovereignly chosen to become such, though we needed Him not, we could only call Him Lord and not know Him as Saviour, whose precious blood had redeemed us to God: how little could we then have appreciated Him! It is our deep and bitter need which has revealed to us the heart of God. Very different must have been Adam’s thoughts of Him when forbidden the tree, and when clothed by His own hand in coats of skin.
Nor need any one who has learned God in the person of Christ fear to dwell upon His electing love: it is but the assurance of his eternal safety. Others, who as yet cannot call Him “Father,” need not question whether they are shut out from a share in it; for His word to all is, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Drink, and you shall know that the draft was prepared for you, as though no other needed it.
The Lord’s word to Jeremiah brings before the mind a lovely passage in the 139th psalm. Space forbids quoting it in full, but we may call from it what seem its choicest portions, commending it all to the reader’s quiet meditation when time and opportunity afford.
After the acknowledgment of the divine omniscience as to his present condition in verse 1-5, and the divine omnipresence in verse 7-12, the heart of the singer is absorbed in the contemplation of the thoughtfulness of the divine foreknowledge: “For Thou hast possessed my reins: Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with Thee” (verse 13-18).
With confidence may the trusting soul turn to such a God, and pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (verse 23, 24). Such might well have been the answer of Jeremiah to the word of the Lord assuring him of His interest and care, long, long before he could in any sense respond to it; but instead, he exclaims, “Ah, Lord God, behold, I cannot speak; for I am a child” (verse 6). But what difference could that make to One who had known him thoroughly even ere He had formed him? He could make no mistake in His choice of a servant. Had not He Himself made man’s mouth? And would He now, who had all resources in Himself, cast His ambassador upon his own? Ah, that would be altogether unlike God. Like Moses in Midian, Jeremiah had not yet learned Him aright, nor had he learned himself. The great lesson of no confidence in the flesh and of full confidence in God had to be put before him. The former, one might think he had in measure learned already; but had he truly done so, he would not have been disheartened when he reflected on his inability. It was simply natural backwardness: the flesh itself was not really denied. Otherwise he would neither have been troubled if he lacked ability, nor exalted if he possessed it. Without it, God was enough. With it, God must still be all, or it would avail nothing.
In the answer of Jehovah, it is He who assumes all responsibility. The servant has but to obey. He will attend to the question of power; and, as we say in New Testament language, of “gift.” “Say not, I am a child” (verse 7). In short, say nothing about self at all. In spiritual things a giant has no more place than an infant. What he was or was not, was of no importance. How well had the apostle Paul learned this, to say in 1 Cor. 3:7, “So then neither is he that planteth anything” (and it was himself who had done so in this case), “neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.”
“Thou shalt go to all that I send thee, and whatsoever I command thee, thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces, for I am with thee to diver thee, saith the Lord.” This settled everything. As of a later prophet, we read, “Then spake Haggai the Lord’s messenger in the Lord’s message, unto the people, saying, I am with you, saith the Lord” (Haggai 1:13). The remnant then were in the state Jeremiah was in before, weak and fearful; but immediately upon the proclamation of such a message, we read of a stirring of the spirits of the leaders and of all the people.
It has often been noticed, too, that the last that Mark records of the risen and ascended Lord is His working with those who went forth preaching; and He it was who confirmed the word with signs following. Thus, for service, if we enter into His thoughts, it ceases to be a question of our weak self or our strong self, and becomes one of Himself. The instrument may be feeble, but it is upheld and used by an all-powerful Hand.
In Jeremiah’s case, He who made man’s mouth put forth His hand and touched the lips of the fearful servant, thus putting His own words into the prophet’s mouth. This in fact is what constitutes a man a prophet. Isaiah’s touch is unlike this, perhaps, in some respects. In his case he had been learning his vileness and innate depravity. The seraphim flew with a live coal from off the brazen altar of judgment, where the burnt offering (the blessed answer to all that man is) was going up as a sweet savor to God. Wrath having been borne by Another, it removes sin and terror from the self-confessed and repentant sinner. That touch, to Isaiah, spoke of cleansing. This, to Jeremiah, tells of power. He who cleanses also fits for service: this is the double lesson the two prophets bring before us. Not that Isaiah was not fitted to serve: he was, as the subsequent verses show (Isa. 6); but that is not what is there emphasized.
Jeremiah is then set over the nations and the kingdoms. He is commissioned “to root out, to pull down, to destroy, to throw down, to build up, and to plant” (verse 10). That is, he must tell of judgment and desolation, of overturning and destruction; but great and terrible though Jehovah’s vengeance must be, it is not judgment without mercy, for of restoration and recovery, of blessing and renewal, he is also to speak. He that scattereth Israel will regather it in His own appointed time; heavy though the hand of affliction must fall upon the nations, yet the time will surely come when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover they sea” (Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14).
All this is assured in the vision that follows. The rod of the almond-tree is a symbol easily read in connection with Num. 17. It speaks of God’s Christ declared to be the Son of God with power by resurrection of the dead (Rom. 1:4). It is as the God of resurrection, the One who intervenes when all the power of nature is at an end, that Jeremiah was to know the Lord. It is because He is such, that the building and planting is certain, though there be first the breaking down and uprooting. The almond, the Hebrews called “the hastening tree,” because of its early budding when the cold of winter had scarcely passed away. “I will hasten My word to perform it” is the divine comment on the vision (verse 11, 12).
The word to Habakkuk a few years later (though, as previously noted, he was contemporary with Jeremiah) is, “Though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Hab. 2:3). This, the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews quotes, but changes the pronoun, and by the Spirit’s direction a Person is brought before us, and it reads: “Yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Heb. 10:37). It is the Lord Jesus Himself who will bring in the blessing, predicted by the prophets, for Israel and the earth. It is that same blessed Person for whom we now wait for our full blessing in heaven.
The Rod of the hastening-tree, when He came in grace, was to Israel but as a dry stick, and worthless. Hidden away from the eyes of men, He has “budded and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.” He has been laid up in the sanctuary above. The rod in the ark tells of the resurrected Man on the throne. (See Num. 17, throughout.)
By and by (how soon none can tell) the once despised Jesus will appear in glory, and all nations will delight in His shadow and find strength in His fruit, while the eye will be gladdened with the beauty of His blossoms; “for how great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty!” (Zech. 9:17).
Till then, alas, there is the “seething-pot” (verse 18), into which “His own,” who “received Him not,” have been cast. This is, doubtless, akin to the smoking furnace of Egypt (Gen. 15). Of old, Pharaoh had been their oppressor. Nebuchadnezzar was now to be their captor (verse 14-16), though the full scope of the vision goes on evidently to the gathering of all the nations against Jerusalem. The seething pot is pictured in all its horror in the last chapter of Zechariah. “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.” But when the flames are fiercest, and the people seem about to be utterly consumed, the Almond-tree will stand again where He stood ere He was laid up in the sanctuary — upon the Mount of Olives. “The Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with Thee” (verse 5).
Having beheld the visions of the Rod and the seething pot — simple, yet how expressive! — Jeremiah is further encouraged and warned. He is to gird his loins as for arduous service. Standing before the Lord, he is to “speak unto them all that I command thee” (verse 17). He had but One to please, and he is not to be dismayed at the faces of the opposers: lowering they may be, but he is made as a defensed city, an iron pillar and, a brazen wall against kings, princes, priests and people, as he stands in the strength of the Lord. If afraid, it will be evidence that he has not yet done with flesh and blood, and he will be confounded before them. If undismayed, they may fight against him, but prevail they cannot, for “I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee.” This was to be his strength. On it he could rely. The promise is twice repeated, for God designs to give him full witness — he need have no fear (verse 18, 19).
In the next chapter we find him in his public ministry. He has had to do with God in secret. He is now ready to face the people openly.
Chapter 2
Entreaty and Warning (chapter 2:1-8:5.)
Jeremiah’s first expostulation with his people — at least, the first recorded — is certainly a most remarkable address for one who said, “I cannot speak, I am but a child.” It would be difficult to find any portion of Scripture that would surpass it in genuine pathos and tenderness, not to speak of eloquence. The earnest pleading of the insulted and forgotten Lord, His grace and compassion towards the guilty nation, blended with solemn warnings of dreadful days to come if the heart is not turned back to Him — all together make up a discourse that might have moved the very stones; but alas, we read of no response on the part of hardened, willful Judah.
The opening words are remarkably beautiful. “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after Me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown. Israel was holiness unto the Lord, and the first-fruits of His increase. All that devour him shall offend: evil shall come upon them, saith the Lord” (verse 1-3). How He delights to recall the first love of His people, when their hearts beat true to Himself and joy welled up in their souls at the thought of His dwelling among them (Ex. 16)!
Do we not well remember that it was so with us when first we knew Him to be really our Saviour-God and ourselves to be His forever, when the confidence of our hearts was established in His grace? How much He was to us then! What a poor thing this world seemed, with all its glittering baubles! How gladly we turned from everything we had once delighted in to go out after Himself revealed in Jesus! He was outside this scene, the rejected One; we, too, then, must be separated from it. That which had before been as the well-watered plains of Egypt to us now became as a desert, parched and dry, in which was nothing for our hearts. With deepest joy we exclaimed, “All my springs are in Thee,” and sang exultingly of the “treasure found in His love,” which had indeed “made us pilgrims below.”
Those were truly bright and happy days when first Christ dwelt in our hearts by faith: days when He joyed in us and we in Him. But, may we not ask ourselves, is it so now? Must He look back and say, “I remember,” or does He find us still occupied with Himself, still gladly and cheerfully counting all below as dross and dung for Him, still exclaiming, “One thing I do”? Alas, that it should be ever otherwise! But the first complaint He had to make against the newly-founded Church, when all else was going on well and orderly, was this: “Thou hast left thy first love” (Rev. 2).
“Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart”
(Cant. 3:11). If our joy was great, how deep was His when first our hearts were won for Himself! Beloved, do we give Him joy now as to our practical ways, and our heart’s affections from which our ways spring? Or is His Spirit grieved on account of our cold-hearted indifference — our heartlessness? for is it not worse than coldness? Let us turn, then, to His further gracious words in the portion before us.
“What iniquity have your fathers found in Me, that they are gone far from Me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?” (verse 5.) Just think that He should ask that question — He to whom they owed everything! He had delivered them from bondage and brought them safely through a desert land, to their inheritance in the land of blessedness. He had planted them in a beautiful country to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof! Alas, they had defiled the land. They had turned His grace into lasciviousness; they had made His heritage an abomination. They walked after things that could not profit (verse 4-8). Terrible indictment! Base ingratitude! But oh, beloved, let us ask ourselves, Are we any less guilty than they? Nay, have we not known a far greater deliverance, a more wonderful preservation, a more costly inheritance; and yet, have not our hearts, too, gone after the vain and unprofitable things of earth? Have we not forgotten that the cedar-wood, the hyssop and scarlet, were cast into the burning of the heifer (Num. 19) — that, for faith, all the glory of this world came to an end on the cross? That tree on which He hung, that testified to His entire rejection by this world, has it really separated us from the scene where lie has been set at naught? Do we still want favor, power and place where He found only rejection, a cross, and a tomb? How, then, is this? What iniquity have our hearts found in Him that they can thus turn from Him so ruthlessly? Ah, charge Him with this we cannot. Let us confess that it is in ourselves alone the iniquity is found. It is we who have changed our glory for that which doth not profit. Well may He say: “Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be very desolate, saith the Lord. For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (verse 12, 13).
But has He changed towards those who have so changed towards Him? Far be the thought: though He loves His own too much to permit them to prosper in the paths of disobedience. He chastened Israel with scourge after scourge, but His heart of love remained unchangeably the same. They might blame Him for what He could so easily have prevented, as we are in danger of doing; but He can say, “Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou halt forsaken the Lord thy God, when He led thee by the way” (verse 17)? He must make the backslidden in heart eat of the fruit of his own devices (Prov. 14: 14) in order to turn the heart back from its devices to Himself, the source of all blessing.
It is in vain to turn to Egypt, or Assyria — each speaking of different aspects of the world; for how can one who has known Him ever end refreshment and rest anywhere else? The waters of Sihor (supposed to be the mystic Nile, coming from no one knew where) could no longer satisfy those who once rejoiced in rain direct from heaven. Egypt is the world as we knew it when we groaned beneath the sense of its cruel bondage: Assyria is rather the world as the open enemy of the people of God. How can His own look for comfort in either of these? Yet how true it is that the heart when turned from Himself soon sinks back to the dead level of the things from which it was once delivered, and sometimes also is found ranged against the very truths it once enjoyed! In such a condition, when other remedies have failed, it is not seldom that the principle enunciated in verse 19 has to be used to bring the wandering one to his senses. “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou halt forsaken the Lord thy God, and that My fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.” This is, one might say, His last resource (if souls are not otherwise brought back to Himself) to “deliver unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1 Cor. 5). It has often been said that a child of God out of communion with the Father will stoop to evil reprobated even by the world — and this is doubtless true — until the very depths of the depravity is used of God to correct and reprove. So it was in the case of David, who, confessing his sin, acknowledged that he had been left to fall so low “that Thou mightiest be justified when Thou speakest, and be clear when Thou judgest” (Psa. 51). So, too, with Peter. Self-confidence had characterized him for some time, and his self-confidence at last corrected him; his dreadful backsliding reproved him. And thus it was with the wretched man of 1 Cor. 5. He must be left to himself — given over to Satan till, as a result, his brokenness and penitence can be pressed, in 2 Cor. 2, as a reason for his being again received into the fellowship of the assembly. Blessed it is to know, as already intimated in the preceding chapter, in the wisdom of God that sin must serve. The waters bow, though they speak of sinful self-will, shall yet be made to bring forth abundantly to the glory of God, as in the fifth day’s work in Gen. 1. This is not, in any sense, to excuse sin, but the contrary. Its very hideousness is used of God to humble and bring very low the soul that has wandered from Him.
As we continue to look at the passage before us, it is well to remember that while the nation, as such, was in covenant-relationship with Jehovah, it was not yet the New Covenant, but that entered into at Sinai. It still looked for something in man, who had said when his bonds were broken and he was delivered from the yoke, “I will not transgress” (verse 20). But, far from continuing in that covenant, they had sinned and broken it from its very ratification. He had planted them a noble vine. They had by their ways become a degenerate plant of a strange vine unto Him (verse 21). Nor was their resource in themselves: “For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before Me, saith the Lord” (verse 22). The covenant under which they had placed themselves had only manifested their guilt and helplessness. God alone would be their resource: and we know He was yet to send a Saviour whose precious blood does for every believing sinner what no “soap and nitre” (no human effort) ever could do — cleanse from every sin. But this it is not yet the province of Jeremiah to make known. His present object is to impress upon them their condition, their utter hopelessness, unless they return to the Lord; so he next likens them to the untameable wild ass of the desert, refusing all correction. Exhorted to submission, they reply, “There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go” (verse 24, 25).
Still they were not entirely without a measure of shame and apparent penitence, for even at this time revival had begun among them; but, with the mass at least, there was no real conscience-work. As the thief is ashamed when he is found, so is the house of Israel ashamed” (verse 26). They were ashamed to have the light turned on their idolatry, but not ashamed of the sin itself. Not that they had utterly given up all faith in Jehovah. Idols might do when things went well outwardly. In their trouble they turned to God. How much do we know of this today!
But if they seek not His face in times of quietness, He will not be found of them in the day of their sorrow, unless it is with true self-judgment and confession of their sin (verse 27, 30).
How sad the reproach of verse 31, 32 — “O generation, see ye the word of the Lord. Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness? Wherefore say My people, We are lords; we will come no more unto Thee? Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? yet My people have forgotten Me days without number.” This opened the way for all else: it was quite unnecessary to dig deep (as the word “secret search” is said to mean, verse 34) to find the evidence of the sin they refused to acknowledge. Ah, let God but be forgotten, let the soul be estranged from His presence, and most godless practices are indulged in unblushingly, and with a degree of self-confidence and effrontery that is amazing! But His word to such is, “The Lord hath rejected thy confidences, and thou shalt not prosper in them” (verse 87). This did not mean, however, that He had done with them. Far from it. He might chastise and punish them, but He loved them still, and assures them of it; for although to a wife put away, who had become another man’s, her first husband would not return, despite the lewdness of Judah, He cries after her, “Yet return again to Me!” (chapter 3:1). What patient, matchless grace is this! Have we, too, wandered from Him? Have we forgotten the word that says, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God” (James 4:4)? Oh, then, in contrition of heart and self-judgment, may we turn again to Himself, confessing the evil of our unhallowed love for that which is so opposed to His holiness, and prove the sweetness of His restoring mercy. Our God has withholden the rain (verse 8) that we might prove the barrenness of a life out of communion with Himself; but He longs for the moment when, realizing the depth of our backsliding, the heart turns back to Himself with this cry: “My Father, Thou art the guide of my youth!” (verse 4).
Observe here, that though He would have Israel cry “My Father,” this is far different from crying “Abba, Father” by the Spirit of adoption, which we have, but they had not. Nationally Israel was God’s son (Hos. 11:1; Ex. 4:22, 23). It is only since the Cross that believers know Him in the individual relationship of Father — not merely national adoption — and, having life from Him, as the One revealed by the Son in resurrection as “My Father and your Father.” Our privileges are far greater than theirs. How much holier should be our lives!
Chapter 3.
Future Glory Conditioned on Repentance
(Chaps. 8:6-6:30.)
The next prophecy is a more extensive one, going on to the end of the sixth chapter, and was uttered during the reign of the pious king Josiah (3:6); but at what particular time we are not told. The details of the departure from God of both the northern and southern kingdoms (the former one already in captivity) are here more fully gone into; but there are interspersed precious promises of restoration and blessing upon their repentance which the goodness of God will yet lead them to, though it be through deepest tribulation.
“Backsliding Israel” had openly revolted from Jehovah from the day that Jeroboam’s golden calves were set up. God’s center was disowned and His Word (see especially Deut. 12) despised. It is an oft-noted fact that of only one of their kings do we find it said that he sought the Lord, and then only when pressed by the Syrian invasion (2 Kings 13:4, 5); on which occasion, as in the period of the Judges (to which they had practically returned, for “every man did that which was right in his own eyes”), “The Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that they went out from under the hand of the Syrians; and the children of Israel dwelt in their tents as beforetime.” But though God was gracious, responding to the feeblest evidence of felt need, the people were unchanged: “They departed not from the sins of the house of Jeroboam... and there remained the grove also in Samaria.” This was but one instance of the many in which He said, “Turn thou unto Me,” but she returned not. Finally, as an adulterous wife, she was put away when the ten tribes were carried to Assyria (verse 6, 7).
“Her treacherous sister Judah’s” case, however, was quite different. She had, as a rule, professed obedience to the Lord. At least open idolatry had not always characterized her. Backsliding was not so much her continual sin as treachery. A strict attention to the outward ordinances of the temple worship, but the heart going after the filthiness of the nations, was generally her course; as it had been even in the days of Solomon — who built the house of Jehovah, and erected altars to the gods of his heathen wives!
This is what markedly characterizes much of what is called Christendom today. There is talk of devotedness to the Lord, a prating of loyalty to Christ; but alas, alas, how little is known of separation from that which dishonors Him! In fact, the position of Jeremiah in this book must be very much that of the man today who would stand for Christ and walk in the truth. Judah had, after all, but copied Israel, though not always so openly. “Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not turned unto Me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord” (verse 10). The king, and many more associated with him in the revival that was then beginning, were doubtless real; but there were not wanting those, as Ananias and Sapphira in the early days of the Church, who sought a reputation for piety and devotedness while never truly separated from the abounding iniquity. This is a great snare, and only too common in our own day. It is, in fact, the very essence of Laodiceanism. Luke warmness in divine things is treachery against Christ. Better to be cold than this. So he says here, “The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah” (verse 11). She made no attempt to conceal her condition, at any rate. He gives her a gracious invitation to return (even though He had given her a bill of divorce), coupled with an assurance that He was married to her still! (verse 12-14). Precious it is to know that her sons will, in the “age to come,” ask the way to Zion and return to Himself. But one thing His holiness demands: “Only acknowledge thine iniquity” (verse 13). His mercy longed to go forth; His anger was already well-nigh over-past; but confession there must be. She must sit in judgment on her ways, and repent of her backslidings. The confession must be clear, and the evils specified. No mere general acknowledgment of failure will suffice: (1) “Thou hast transgressed against Me, (2) and hast scattered thy ways to strangers; (3) ye have not obeyed My voice.”
Nor can it be merely a national repentance. Nations, as such, do not repent. It must be individual work; so He says, “Turn, backsliding children” (or sons), though the figure of a wife is still maintained; but the nation will be saved in the remnant. “I will take you one of a city and two of a family and will bring you to Zion; and I will give you pastors according to My heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding” (verse 14, 15).
Jeroboam, with many successors to follow his steps, had been an evil shepherd, had led them in false ways hitherto, the fruit of which they were now eating; but He had for them shepherds Who would delight to direct their feet to green pastures where the soul would find nourishment in the things of God.
It may be well to state here that it is of a literal return of the scattered Israelites, to a literal Zion in the land from whence they were carried, that the prophet speaks throughout, as we shall see more particularly when we look at chapters 30 and 31. The words are too plain and explicit to require spiritualizing, as has falsely been done.
In the 16th verse we have the last mention of the ark of the covenant; as in 2 Chron. 35:3 we have its last historical notice. There was no ark in the second temple. There will be none in that depicted by Ezekiel for the Millennium. A mere legend, for we cannot count it as anything more, tells us that at the destruction of the city and temple Jeremiah hid the ark in a cave, as also the altar of incense. This story is recorded in 2 Macc. 2:48, an apocryphal record of very dubious authority. However that may be, we are assured that “in those days” (the days of the coming kingdom), “saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind; neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more;” or, according to R. V. margin, “neither shall they miss it, neither shall it be made any more.” Of old, under the first covenant, it was the throne of the Lord in the midst of Israel: but Jerusalem shall be called “the throne of the Lord; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem: neither shall they walk any more after the imagination of their evil heart” (verse 17). In that day the Lord Jesus, whom it typified, — the One in whom the wood and gold, humanity and divinity, are found in one Person, — will Himself be in their midst; the ark, that but feebly foreshadowed Him, will no longer be needed.
In the end of the chapter, from verse 19 to the close, we have the repentance of the people already made good by faith. It is a prophecy of what will yet be when they will realize that it is vain to hope for salvation from any but Jehovah, so long neglected. This will take place after the Lord has saved the tents of Judah first (Zech. 12).
The first two verses of chapter 4 give us His response to their cry of anguish, and the promised blessing when in reality they return to God.
From this point the message is to Judah, and is a call for more than mere surface work, such as was then going on. No real fruit for God could be expected where they were sowing on unbroken and thorn-choked ground (verse 3). The plowshare of conviction must overturn the hardened soil of the heart. Not the natural flesh alone, but the heart must be circumcised (verse 4). “For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly... but he is a Jew which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter” (Rom. 2:28, 29). And the same apostle declares the true circumcision is to have “no confidence in the flesh” (Phil. 3:3). If the message was unheeded, then judgment must take its course; and already the Gentile destroyer was on his way. Verse 5 to 13 furnish us a vivid picture of the coming fall of Jerusalem by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. So astounding is this announcement that the prophet is himself astonished (verse 10), and can scarcely credit that the Lord will so deal with His people.
There is but one door of escape, which he points out in verse 14 — “Wash thy heart.” This can only be by reception of the Word, and allowing it to work in the conscience. He immediately goes on to enlarge on the surely coming overthrow of the city, in most awe-inspiring language (verse 15-21). But the people of Judah were the very opposite to what the apostle desired for the Roman saints (Rom. 16:19) they were “wise to do evil, but to do good they had no knowledge” (verse 22).
The coming desolation of the land is graphically depicted in verse 23 to the end. It is not the earth, but the land of Palestine, that is before him, as the companion scripture, Isa. 24, clearly shows. The language is doubtless highly poetical, yet fully to be relied on, — perhaps one should say rather figurative, than poetical, as the latter expression has been much abused of late.
The subject is continued in the fifth chapter, only with more perspicuity. Individuals are more brought before us. How fallen must have been their state when the prophet had to say, “Run ye to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, and see now, and know, and seek in the broad places thereof, if ye can find a man, if there be any that executeth judgment, that seeketh the truth; and I will pardon it” (verse 1). Does not this tell us what might have been had Abraham but had faith to plead further for Sodom? He stopped at ten (Gen. 18). Ten could not be found. Here, judgment could be averted for one. Alas, they had all alike despised the chastening of the Lord (verse 3), and turned from the truth. This amazed Jeremiah the prophet. He could scarcely credit the utterly apostate condition of his nation. There must surely be righteous ones somewhere. He would seek them out. “Therefore I said, Surely these are poor; they are foolish: for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God. I will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them; for they have known the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their God: but these have altogether broken the yoke and burst the bands” (verse 4, 5). His visit to the great we have not here (we may get many such later), but only proving that ignoble and noble are all one in the rejection of the word of God. So judgment must eventually have its way, though some years elapsed ere its fulfillment. Of this he continues to speak in verse 6-19.
How terrible the indictment of verse 7! — “When I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots’ houses.” What a word for the people of God today! How awful to contemplate the yet patent fact that those who profess to be part of that Church, blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ, should ever turn wantonly to the world and its follies, as Judah had done before — though they were on a much lower plane, their blessings being earthly and temporal. “Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: and shall not My soul be avenged on such a nation as this?” (verse 9). To Christendom He says, “I will spue thee out of My mouth!” (Rev. 3: 16). “And it shall come to pass, when ye shall say, Wherefore doeth the Lord our God all these things unto us? then shalt thou answer them, Like as ye have forsaken Me, and served strange gods in your land, so shall ye serve strangers in a land that is not yours” (verse 19). Sowing is followed by reaping: dreadful was the reaping of Israel; more dreadful will be the reaping of apostate Christendom — “Babylon the Great” (Rev. 17, 18).
Their moral condition is further exposed in words too plain to need comment (verse 20-29), and all summarized in the last verse. “A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and My people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?” (verse 30). Solemn words I Ponder them carefully, my reader, and see if they be too, severe to describe the great world-church of today.
Jerusalem’s evil condition fully manifested, the sixth chapter opens with a call to the children of Benjamin to flee from her midst. Only thus could they escape being partakers of her sins. They remained and fell with her. To those entangled with religious corruption in our day the word is, “Let everyone that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2). “Come out from among them, and be ye separate... touch not the unclean thing” (2 Cor. 6). Later, to dwellers in the spiritual Babylon, the cry will go forth, “Come out of her, My people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues” (Rev. 18).
The present is no time for temporizing. He who has saved us, and is Lord of all, looks for clear-cut separation from all spiritual or ecclesiastical as well as carnal or fleshly evil, in sanctification to Himself. To Christendom as a whole, as to Judah then, there is little use to make appeals, nor does the Lord do it. “Their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it” (verse 10). So it has often been noted that after the days of Pergamos, in Rev. 2 and 8, the call is alone to the overcomer not to the mass.
What made things all the more dreadful in Jeremiah’s time was the mockery of the false prophets, who stilled the fears of the guilty people and prophesied smooth things, thus turning aside the keen edge of the truth. Love of reward was at the bottom of their course. Can any be so charged today? “From the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest everyone dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of My people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace” (verse 13, 14). So also in Ezekiel’s day (chapter 13:10-12), which was nearly contemporaneous with this.
But the truth rejected did not alter its character. They would have to learn by judgment what they had no ears for by the word of the prophet. Meantime the call to any individual having a heart for God goes out; but there is no response. “Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken” (verse 16, 17).
It is to “that which was from the beginning” God ever directs His people in times of failure. Man is continually running after something new, and thus away from God, for He is of old, from everlasting. Evolution there is none in the truth for the dispensation. It is always evil to turn from it. There is no restoration apart from turning back to it. There is no room for development outside the Book.
The message rejected, the nations are called on to acknowledge the justness of Jehovah’s dealings with so rebellious a people (verse 18-21), and the chapter closes with the judgment reaffirmed: “Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them.”
Chapter 4
“What Agreement hath the Temple of God with Idols?” (Chaps. 7-10.)
In this section it is more the temple that is before us, and the incongruity of professing great reverence for it while idolatrous practices and their accompanying evils are not only tolerated but diligently persisted in. The prophet had been addressing the people rather as a civil community before. Now he sees them in connection with the newly-cleansed house of Jehovah. His message is addressed to those “that enter in at these gates to worship the Lord” (verse 2). This is shown to be all a mere pretense, for while they talked loudly of the temple — made it their rallying-cry, so to speak — their ways were anything but in accordance with the holiness that became God’s house. “Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are these. For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor; if ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt; then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever” (verse 4-7).
Nothing can be more obnoxious to God than to have His name vauntingly connected with unrighteousness. How terrible to hear some nowadays prate of “the authority of the Lord in His assembly,” and talk of “divine ground,” while deliberately refusing to execute judgment between a man and his neighbor, disclaiming all such responsibility! Nay, even worse, seek to foist it upon the Righteous One who dwells in the midst of His people! Strange that the important word, “Follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22), should be so overlooked! Such is Rome’s principle: sad it is, and solemn, to see those who should know better, following, in this at least, in her wake. We can rest assured no amount of professed regard for the assembly of God will atone for the neglect of righteousness. “The righteous Lord loveth righteousness.” It is with Him who is “the holy and the true” with whom we have to do — He in whom there is “no darkness at all.”
Nothing can be more abhorrent to Him than the dreadful state described in verse 8-10. It is the divorce of position from condition — the making much of ecclesiastical place, while the walk is utterly at variance with the truth connected with it. Position is important. Nothing, in fact, is more so; but let us be careful to maintain the corresponding practice. Those who, through grace, have been gathered out of unscriptural systems to the precious name of the Lord Jesus Christ alone, should see to it that their walk is consistent with their privileged place.
The next verse, it will be noted, is referred to by our Lord when He made a whip of small cords and drove the money-changers and venders from the courts of the temple (Matt. 21:13). On that occasion He connected two scriptures together. The first was from Isa. 56: 7 — “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.” This shall yet be true when Christ’s kingdom is set up in power; but when the King appeared in lowliness, His judgment was, “Ye have made it a den of thieves,” as Jeremiah had said before: “Is this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold I, even I, have seen it, saith the Lord.”
As a result, like Shiloh, it was to be left desolate, and the false worshipers were to be cast out from their land; nor would prayer avail for them now. Judgment must have its way (verse 12-16).
“The queen of heaven” was an object of worship then as with Rome now; for it is well known that Mariolatry was but the continuation of the worship of the false goddess here referred to, universally acknowledged under various names. “The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke Me to anger” (verse 18). Terrible it is to see the evils of that dark day actually followed by a fast apostatizing Christendom at the present time! “Do they provoke Me to anger? saith the Lord: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?” (verse 19). Fury and wrath unquenchable must they reap who have so grievously departed from the true God (verse 20).
Though the ritual service of the temple, had been re-established, through king Josiah, yet, among the mass, the question of obedience had been entirely forgotten: “They hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.” And this had characterized them from the day He had brought them out of Egypt, though He had sent prophets to them again and again, “daily rising up early and sending them: yet they hearkened not unto Me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers” (verse 21-26). The prophets’ ministry, it is plain, had become hopeless. The word of God was still to be proclaimed; nothing was to be kept back, but all hope of national response was at an end. The verdict was already pronounced: “This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the Lord their God, nor receiveth correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their mouth” (verse 28). The Lord had rejected them; let them mourn and cut off the hair, as a woman put to shame, for they are denominated “the generation of His wrath.”
Terrible was to be the desolation resulting upon their casting off. Tophet, the high place of the valley of Hinnom, where the children were sacrificed upon the heated brazen arms of Moloch, was to become the valley of slaughter in which they should bury until there was no more place, while fowls and beasts devoured the unburied bodies of the residue. “Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate” (verse 30-34). Even the very bones of the kings and princes of Judah, as well as of the priests, the prophets, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, would be brought from their tombs and strewed before the heavenly bodies which they had worshiped in life; while for the residue, death will be preferable to the terrors of that evil day. Doubtless this all had a fulfillment in the Chaldean conquest and the later Maccabean times; but as “no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation,” it likewise pictures the direful tribulation yet to come.
It is not because Jehovah delights in judgment (“His strange act”) that His people must be so visited. It was the inevitable result of their own waywardness. Theirs was a “perpetual backsliding;” and though oft pleaded with, they repented not, but “everyone turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into battle” (chapter 8:5, 6). Though they boasted of their wisdom, they had not the discernment of the migratory birds. “Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle-dove and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but My people know not the judgment of the Lord” (verse 7). Of the same character was the Lord’s word to the scribes — “Can ye not discern the signs of the times?” Yet they said, “We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us;” but the word of God was practically written in vain for them — not denied, as it is not always denied to be His Word today, by many who politely bow it out and profess veneration for it while walking in disobedience to it. “Peace, peace,” such may say, but true peace there is not. Priest and people alike deal falsely with the Sacred Oracles; as a result, the time of visitation cannot be long delayed.
From verse 14 of chapter 8 to the end of chapter 10 we have a most touching lamentation over the fallen estate of the people who have been “put to silence” by God; that is, who are so clearly proven to be guilty before Him that they are speechless in His presence. Jeremiah enters most deeply into all their feelings, even wailing with them, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (chapter 8:20). It is a temporal salvation that is referred to, of course. The day of God’s patience with them as a nation is ended, and all hope is now vain. How striking is the impassioned cry, “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of My people recovered?” (See also chapter 46:11). Alas, too deep is the wound for Gilead’s balm to heal!
“Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!” Well has Jeremiah been called the “Weeping Prophet.” His was not the pharisaic spirit that could build its own reputation for holiness on the ruined testimony of others. Israel was his people. He would not be viewed as other than a part of the desolate nation — he identifies himself fully with it. True, he longs to flee from them to a wayfarer’s lodge in the wilderness, as did David In Ps. 55:6-8; but he is one with them still, Their ways grieve him to the soul, as they must one in fellowship with God about them; but for themselves he has tenderest love and compassion. Sad that it should ever be otherwise with any of God’s people now. Yet, alas, a hard, judging spirit often accompanies outward separation from evil. How easy to forget that we are all part of a ruined Church, and all share in the responsibility of that ruin. With Jeremiah, we see that while he is obliged to make known to his people their deep, deep sin and departure from God, he does so with breaking heart, as one who longs after them all and is full of heaviness on their account.
How graphic is the language of verse 21, descriptive of the decimating plague following the horrors of war: “Death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without and the young men from the streets.” In such a world as this, how strange that a man should glory in the fleeting things of time and sense! Yet how needful to our souls ever to keep in mind the verses following: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might; let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord which exerciseth loving-kindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord” (verse 23, 24).
In the close of the chapter, Israel uncircumcised in heart is put on a level with the uncircumcised nations about them. They must be judged with the idolatrous nations whose ways they had followed.
Of the 10th chapter I need say little. It is much like the 44th of Isaiah. It gives us Jehovah’s condemnation of idolatry, and contrasts with the stocks and stones, to which His people had turned, Him who is “the portion of Jacob,” “the former of all things,” who would fain have comforted the afflicted nation, but must “sling out the inhabitants of the land” as from a mighty catapult, causing them to cry, “Woe is me for my hurt!”
The 11th verse is in Chaldee, that the heathen might in their own tongue read the condemnation of their idolatry.
Solemn are the words with which this portion is brought to a close: “Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O Lord, correct me, but with judgment, not in Thine anger, lest Thou bring me to nothing.”
Judgment, unsparing, will fall on the heathen; chastisement, leading eventually to restoration, must be meted out to His own.
Chapter 5.
The Burned Branches and the Swelling of Jordan (Chaps. 11, 12.)
I have but little to say on these two chapters, solemn and searching as they assuredly are. It is the continued expostulation of Jehovah with the people who were ever upon His heart, however much they had loved to wander.
He goes back to the beginning, the time of their sorrow and slavery when He found them in Egypt and brought them out of the iron furnace. In the joy of deliverance they had sworn obedience to His commandments, but their whole subsequent history had only manifested their faithlessness; in result of which the curse — the only thing the law could give to them or any other — rested upon them (chapter 11:1-8).
Again and again warned and entreated, both Israel and Judah had broken the covenant and joined themselves to idols (verse 9, 10). Judgment, at last, must fall upon them, and they would cry in vain for deliverance to their self-chosen gods, powerless to save. Altars to their shameful idols were seen everywhere; but no prayer nor cry of need went up to Him who alone could deliver: now He declares, “I will not hear them in the time that they cry unto Me for their trouble” (verse 13, 14). She whom He still called “My beloved” had no longer any place in His house, for on the ground of her responsibility all had been forfeited.
Verse 16 is doubtless the text of the apostle’s dissertation in the 11Th of Romans. The branches in the olive tree of blessing, “fair, of goodly fruit,” are to be destroyed with the fire of judgment. The apostle indeed tells us what the prophet does not — that wild olive branches were to be grafted in their place; though, if they continue not in God’s goodness, they too shall be cut off, and Israel grafted in again; for “God is able.”
Jeremiah himself speaks in verse 18-20, taking, as another has said, “the place of the faithful remnant who have the testimony of God.” Persecuted, he appeals to the One on whose errands he ran, and He to whom vengeance belongs assures him of righteous recompense upon “the men of Anathoth;” for it was true of him as of our Lord that a prophet in his own country and city is without honor.
It is quite in keeping with the Old Testament and God’s government to find Jeremiah here praying for the destruction of these enemies of the Lord. It is certainly not the grace of the gospel, but according to the righteousness of God’s moral government. We see the same thing in the fifth chapter of Revelation, which of itself should show that the souls under the altar are clearly Jewish martyrs in the tribulation period, after the present dispensation of grace is closed, and not Christian martyrs, whose prayer would rather be. “Father, forgive them,” or, “Lay not this sin to their charge.”
In chapter 12 The prophet pleads with God in regard to the vengeance soon to fall. There is something intensely beautiful and touching in the holy familiarity with which he addresses the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity. One is reminded of Abraham overlooking the cities of the plains. “Righteous art Thou, O Lord, when I plead with Thee: yet let me talk with Thee of Thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?... Thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.”
How gracious of God to be thus “talked with!” Submissively, Jeremiah pours out his heart; not in complaint, but as seeking to know the mind of the Lord, and yet pleading that all may not be engulfed in the common ruin, but that the wicked may be separated from the mass, for the slaughter, and thus blessing come upon the mourning land (verse 1-5).
In the answer of God, it is made known to him that the mass are far from His thoughts of righteousness; and the prophet must have a deepened and more solemnizing sense of their iniquity. He has been but running with footmen; and as they have hastened on in sin, he has been grieved at heart; but, like horses prepared for battle, like a charge of cavalry, is he to see the abounding evil: how can he contend with such? Thus far he has been in the land of peace, and hoping that widespread indignation might not be poured out; yet he has been wearied rebellion. He is to see the judgment of God poured out in all its fury, as the swelling waters of Jordan in harvest-time (Josh. 3:15), sweeping all before them. In that day, both the righteous and the wicked will suffer in the desolating woes that are to be poured upon Judah. How, then, will he do? Even his nearest kinsmen will reject the word he brings, and deal treacherously with him (verse 5, 6).
It is too late to plead for them. Jehovah has forsaken His house and left His heritage. His “dearly beloved” is to be given into the hand of her enemies. Like a lion roaring in the forest, they have proudly defied Him; now, like a speckled bird persecuted of the birds of the wood, the assembled nations shall devote her to destruction. Their pastors had spoiled them as a ruined vineyard and trodden His portion beneath their feet, and no man laid to heart the desolation ensuing; so from one end of the land to the other the sword of the Lord should devour and no flesh have peace. The awful reaping time had come, the day of the fierce anger of Jehovah (verse 7-13).
In the last section of the chapter a word is addressed to the surrounding nations. “His evil neighbors” He calls them, thus intimating His concern for Israel still; for they were not only Israel’s neighbors, but His. Then blessing is foretold both for the chosen people about to be scattered and to any among the nations who turn to their God — which looks on to the Millennium. The nation of Israel shall yet be the center of God’s dealing with the earth, and shall be the means of blessing to the surrounding peoples. “But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the Lord” (verse 17).
Chapter 6.
The Marred Girdle: “Wilt thou not be made Clean?” (Chapter 13.)
“Thus saith the Lord unto me, Go and get thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, and put it not in water” (verse 1).
The Lord would now teach by what is evidently a vision, as it is hardly to be supposed that Jeremiah actually carried the girdle all the way to the river Euphrates. On the other hand, if a literal occurrence, it but exemplifies his obedience to the commands of God. The girdle, is the sign of service, as is evident in many scriptures. The Lord Jesus frequently so speaks of it, as in Luke 12:35, where He bids His servants have “their loins girded about,” and in the 37th verse of the same chapter, where He tells of His perpetual service for His redeemed throughout the ages to come. In John 13. we see Him as the girded servant washing His disciples’ feet, that they may be cleansed from earthly defilement and thus “have part with Him;” and when He appears in glory to the beloved disciple on the isle of Patmos, He is “girt about the breasts with a golden girdle.”
Israel had been Jehovah’s girded servant from of old; but, alas, a faithless one, as Christendom has been since. The girdle was the sign of service. Jeremiah gets one, and girds himself therewith. The word of the Lord comes again, telling him: “Take the girdle that thou hast got, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in the hole of the rock” (verse 3, 4). So should the faithless nation be carried away to Babylon and be deified, by the Euphrates. Jeremiah does as he is commanded. “After many days” (indicative of the captivity by the Euphrates where they were about to be carried) he was sent to get it again; but, “behold, the girdle was marred, it was good for nothing” (verse 7). The application is readily made: captivity would not change the state of the people’s heart. Only genuine self-judgment could effect that. Israel had been caused to cleave to the Lord as a girdle to the loins of a man, “that they might be unto Me,” He says, “for a people, and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory: but they would not hear” (verse 11). Therefore they must as an untrustworthy servant be put away.
By the parable of the bottle their emptiness is set forth (verse 12). They shall be filled, not with the joy of the Lord, but with the wine of strong delusion, which will make them drunk with self-confidence and lead them to destruction.
The prophet’s soul enters fully into this awful word, and he cries as from an anguished heart, “Give glory to the Lord your God before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, He turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. But if ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and mine eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock is carried away captive” (verse 15-17). He sees his light-rejecting people about to be given up to judicial darkness. He would still arouse them to the solemnity of their condition. If they sleep on and refuse to hearken, he will weep bitterly as his own predictions come to pass.
There are differences between the darkness of nature, the darkness of choice, and the darkness of judgment. In Eph. 4:18 we read of the Gentiles “having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness” (or hardness) “of their heart.” The result of long years of turning away from God is that men are born in natural darkness. God has, however, sent the Light into this scene of gloom but in John 3:19, 20 we learn that “this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” This is deliberate, willful darkness. In such manner had the men of Judah and Jerusalem refused to come to the light when God was speaking to their consciences by His prophet. The inevitable result must be judicial darkness. They would be given up to the darkness they had chosen. So will it be, in an even more dreadful sense, with highly favored Christendom after the Church has been caught away to be forever with the Lord. “God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie [of the Antichrist]: that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thess. 2:11, 12).
By commandment of the Lord, our prophet addresses himself directly to the king and the queen as the responsible leaders — probably Jehoiakim and his consort. He calls upon them to humble themselves and sit down. Their warlike preparations could be of no possible avail. It was repentance that was needed, not arms and soldiers. The captivity was decreed. Judah, as Israel before, should be borne away from their land. “Them that come from the north” (verse 20) refers to the Babylonian army. How touching and yet solemn the question put to the unfaithful king, “Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?” The king had not been to them an example of subjection to God, but rather of defiance to Him. So he is asked, “What wilt thou say when I shall punish thee?” As a travailing woman’s pains come suddenly, so should his sorrows take him; as indeed they did very shortly after (verse 21). And if the question is asked “Wherefore come these things upon me?” the answer is, “For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, and thy heels made bare” (verse 22).
Could they then make themselves pure in the sight of God? Far from it. It was just as impossible for them to do good who had been accustomed to do evil, as for the Ethiopian to become white or the leopard to change his spots. How little do the modern apostles of the religion of culture enter into this! As no account of washing can alter the black skin of the negro, so no merely human effort to reform can effect a real change if there be not first a divine work in the soul.
“Altogether unprofitable,” they should be scattered as the worthless stubble is carried away by the wind of the wilderness. This was their due reward (“the portion of thy measures”), because they had forgotten the Lord and trusted in falsehood (verse 25, 26). Sin had made them as an utterly reprobate and loathsome adulteress, whose shame was to be openly manifested. Idolatry had been their ruin. “Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem!” he cries; but because God is gracious and long-suffering still, he entreats, “Wilt thou not be made clean? When shall it once be?” Alas, alas, they were turning away in their folly from the only One who could cleanse them, and the black clouds of doom were fast gathering overhead.
Chapter 7.
Famine — Temporal and Spiritual (Chaps. 14, 15.)
Of old, when Jehovah “led Jacob like a flock,” and brought the people of His love out of the cruel bondage of Egypt, He set before them blessing and cursing, life and death, good and evil. Earthly prosperity and honor were to accompany fidelity to God. No foe could harm, no drought afflict, no famine or sickness decimate Israel, so long as they were careful to obey the word of the Lord and walk according to His statutes. On the other hand, all these sore trials should certainly follow in the wake of indifference to God and rebellion against His Word.
It is therefore quite in harmony with His ways that we find the people of Judah in great distress for lack of food and water. The real famine was within. The outward misery was but the reflection of the moral state. Deeply touching, and highly poetical too, is the seer’s description of the desolation wrought in the land: “Judah mourneth, and the gates thereof languish; they are black unto the ground; and the cry of Jerusalem is gone up. And their nobles have sent their little ones to the waters: they came to the pits, and found no water; they returned with their vessels empty; they were ashamed and confounded, and covered their heads. Because the ground is chapped, for there was no rain in the earth, the plowmen were ashamed, they covered their heads. Yea, the hind also calved in the field, and forsook it, because there was no grass.
And the wild asses did stand in the high places, they snuffed up the wind like dragons; their eyes did fail, because there was no grass” (chapter 14:2-6).
The language is most pathetic, the condition of the people heartrending. The children cried, with parched tongue and fever-cracked lips, for drink; but there was no water to be had. They went in vain, at the behest of the hopeless nobles, to the dry wells. There was no refreshment there. All farming operations were at a standstill. No rain meant no crops and no food. The very beasts of the field shared in the general desolation. The hind, tenderest of animals, forsook her offspring “because there was no grass;” the eyes of the wild asses failed as they looked for a few spears of herbage.
There was no yearly-overflowing river for Canaan. “It was a land that drank water of the rain of heaven;” a land that the Lord watched over continually. He it was who gave refreshing showers in abundance, or who withheld according to the state of His people. The river of Mizraim might flow on unceasingly, and flood its valley year by year, let the condition of the Egyptians be as it would, but it was otherwise in the land of Jehovah. And we may learn from this today. Men of the world are often allowed to prosper despite utter ungodliness. Alas, they are lifted up on high to fall more terribly in the end! On the other hand, the children of God are under His special care, and “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth” (or disciplineth) for their eternal good. The sheep of Christ have not wool so thick but that if they wander from the Shepherd’s side they feel every cold blast of this world. A Christian out of communion must pass under the rod. To Israel it was said, “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore will I punish you for your iniquities.” The principle is the same for us now.
In the next three verses Jeremiah again takes the place of the mediator, and tenderly pleads for those who were called by the name of the Lord. He acknowledges their sin as his own. It is “our iniquities,” “our backslidings,” and “we have sinned.” Merit he does not plead; but “for Thy name’s sake” is his cry. “O the hope of Israel, the Saviour thereof in time of trouble, why shouldest Thou be as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night? Why shouldest Thou be as a man astonished, as a mighty man that cannot save? Yet Thou, O Lord, art in the midst of us, and we are called by Thy name; leave us not” (verse 8, 9). The grief of the prophet, and yet his implicit faith in Jehovah, alike stir the soul. He who would have delighted to show mercy to His people had become as a visiting stranger, so far as their realization of His presence was concerned. In the rejected One, however, is the only “hope of Israel.” He had not actually withdrawn Himself. The Shekinah was still in the temple. He abode “in the midst” of them though unrecognized and unsought by the mass.
His answer is, “They have loved to wander, they have not refrained their feet, therefore the Lord doth not accept them; He will now remember their iniquity, and visit their sins” (verse 10). It was impossible that the Holy One could go on with iniquity. Judgment must begin at the house of God. He loved them too much to let them take their own way with impunity. So He says, “Pray not for this people for their good.”
In the New Testament we read, “There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it” (1 John 5: 16). If chastisement is despised, and the Spirit of grace insulted, there comes a time when it is too late for supplication or entreaty. As a last act of God’s holy government, the erring one is cut off, and the case left for the Judgment Seat of Christ. We have examples of this in Ananias and Sapphira, both of them cut off in their transgression. So with some in the Corinthian assembly that dishonored the Lord at His table in the memorial Supper. The Holy Spirit says, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.” And so it was with Israel in the case before us. It was too late for grace alone to be exercised. They must know to the full the government of God. Neither fasting nor offerings would be of any avail to turn aside the sword, the famine, and the pestilence (verse 12).
Jeremiah, however, continues to plead; and now on the ground that the people had been misled by false prophets, who had spoken smooth things, and thus led their hearers to suppose that sin was a light thing. For answer, the Lord tells him these evil teachers shall bear their judgment, and be consumed with the rest; but this cannot free their followers, who delighted in them because of their own wicked desires. “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch!”
In these verses what a solemn picture we have of Christendom as we know it! Satan’s ministers turning their hearers away from the truth unto fables! Wolves in sheep’s clothing posing as servants of Christ, yet shaking the confidence of the simple in the truth and authority of the Scriptures, ridiculing and assailing the great and holy truths of the atonement and the eternal judgment awaiting those who trample under foot the blood of Christ! But alas, the listeners will fall in the doom of the preachers! Wanting smooth things, they refuse the truth when presented to them, and cling to deceivers from sheer love of sin. Together they shall “perish in the gainsaying of Core” (Jude 11).
The pathos of the balance of the chapter is beyond description. The prophet, broken-hearted, is inconsolable. He forms one of a trio, with Moses and Paul, who could all alike be cut off themselves if their people might but be saved.
The famine and the sword were doing their deadly work in city and field, and there was no healing. So stirred is his soul that he cannot but continue his agonized intercession: “Do not abhor us, for Thy name’s sake; do not disgrace the throne of Thy glory; remember, break not Thy covenant with us” (verse 21). It is like Joshua’s cry of old, “The Egyptians will hear of it.” But when the people of God dishonor Him by their lives, He will not spare needed discipline, even though the uncircumcised glory over Him. Better that “the cause of Christ” be disgraced before the world than that His people be permitted to go on in sin. God will vindicate His name in His own way and time.
The solemn answer of Jehovah in the first nine verses of chapter 15 gives no hope of deliverance. Even though Moses and Samuel stood to entreat for them, they would not be heard. The people must “go forth;’ and if they despairingly ask, “Where?” the awful answer is, “Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity” (verse 2). The sword, the dogs, the fowls, and the beasts of the earth, are alike appointed to carry out the work of destruction: and any escaping these would be carried into all the kingdoms of the earth; and this because their share in the sin of Manasseh had never been repented of. None should pity nor care; for having forsaken the Lord, He would stretch out His hand against them. Young and old must be destroyed. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God;” for “our God is a consuming fire.”
As the full extent of God’s sentence bursts upon his soul, Jeremiah is overcome by a sense of almost unutterable desolation. How deeply he feels his helplessness and loneliness, as one man endearing to stand for God and seeking the good of those who hate and despise Him! His prayers seem to be unavailing.